Global EditionASIA 中文双语Français
Business
Home / Business / Industries

WHO terms 'gaming disorder' a modern disease

By Yang Yang | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2019-05-27 13:54
Share
Share - WeChat
A Chinese mobile game player plays a multiplayer online battle royale game PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, on his smartphone in Ji'nan, East China's Shandong province, on March 16, 2018. [Photo/IC]

The World Health Organization added "gaming disorder" to its list of modern diseases for the first time on Saturday at the 72nd World Health Assembly, Ecns.cn reported on Monday.

Treatment and prevention measures will be proposed before Jan 1, 2022, when the WHO's 11th revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-11) comes into effect.

The WHO added in June last year gaming addiction under its section of potentially harmful technology-related behaviors, including too much use of "the internet, computers, smartphones" and more, as reported by the US tech review site CNET.

Gaming disorder was included in the ICD-11, which was adopted on May 25, as a clinically recognizable and significant syndrome, of which young people are notably at risk, in 2018, according to a message by Pan American Health Organization and World Health Organization Americas.

Gaming disorder is described as a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behavior, which may be online or offline, and such impaired control over gaming has negative effects on family, social, educational, occupational and other important areas.

Multinational electronic games industry representatives criticized the decision of WHO and many organizations including Entertainment Software Association and UK Interactive Entertainment called for WHO to re-examine the decision.

Global games market value increased to $134.9 billion in 2018, up 10.9 percent year-on-year with mobile games accounting for 47 percent of the total at $63.2 billion, up 12.8 percent year-on-year, gamesindustry.biz reported citing statistics from market analysts Newzoo.

China's actual sales revenue of gaming industry rose 5.3 percent year-on-year to 214.44 billion yuan ($31.11 billion) last year, accounting for 23.6 percent of the global gaming market, Financial Times reported, adding that social responsibility should be an important part of gaming industry development.

Top
BACK TO THE TOP
English
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US
CLOSE