Playing too many video games is a mental health disorder, World Health Organization says

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published 28 December 2017

Go ahead — we'll wait for you to pause your game.

Now put the controller away. Got it? Great — because on Thursday, the South China Morning Post reported that the World Health Organization will officially recognize video game addiction as a mental health disorder in 2018.

The symptoms of "gaming disorder" are actually not all that different from a more traditional substance abuse disorder, save for the hangovers and physical withdrawals. If video games are more important to you than your social life, your work, and your desire to sleep and eat, or you can't stop playing even after you've faced "negative consequences" for your behavior, then you have a serious addiction, the WHO explains.

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Kelly O'Meara Morales is a staff writer at The Week. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and studied Middle Eastern history and nonfiction writing amongst other esoteric subjects. When not compulsively checking Twitter, he writes and records music, subsists on tacos, and watches basketball.

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