Big Brother AMA
I devour books. Up till 3:00 am (so many good reads, so little time), off to work at 7:30. Who hooked me? Tolkien - “The Hobbit” all through the night.
My brother flies 747’s - online. (Luckily he warned the virtual LAX Air Traffic Controller I was a trainee pilot; the 15 computer generated houses in Inglewood I rammed with a crash take off - forgiven.)
With three sisters (one a former alcoholic), nephews, nieces and their spouses, I could name family compulsions for hours. Most dangerous? Extreme-skier nephew-in-law. Wears a universal locator, recovers others from avalanches.
This week the AMA is “voting” on whether one compulsion is a “disease.” Their choice? “Internet and video game addiction.” (LA Times, Friday 22 June, “Marathon sessions take over players: Is that sick?“)
According to the LA Times, “Doctors in favor of the proposal say the condition exists and needs to be recognized by the medical establishment so it can be properly treated.”
Doctors in favor?
How can a doctor be in “favor” of a disease? Isn’t a disease caused by a germ or virus? Aren’t diseases confirmed with a microscope? Blood tests?
The “condition” exists?
According to whom? There’s been no clinical trial, no study, no peer reviewed paper. This proposal is based on a report called “Emotional and Behavioral Effects, Including Addictive Potential, of Video Games” a collection of quotes from dozens of published articles. (Council on Science and Public Health Report 12-A-07)
The report explains that the prototype video gamer is a 30-year-old male. Yes, 30 - grown man, bought his own computer, pays his own electricity bills.
Phrases such as “it is difficult to definitely conclude” and “cannot document a demonstrable long-term effect” and “it is not clear whether withdrawal symptoms are associated with video game overuse” are used throughout.
The concern, “overuse” of a computer, is never defined, while recommending limiting computer screen time to 1-2 hour allotments. Doesn’t work for me, I write and edit for a living. How about you?
“Properly Treated?”
The two doctors, paid $25,000 for spending days sitting at a computer and looking up articles published on PubMed, recommend that the AMA “strongly encourages” the consideration and inclusion of “Internet/video game addiction” as a “formal diagnostic disorder.”
“Arrogant” and “pompous” come to mind.
Except there’s another one: “dangerous.”
Why? Because this report is telling doctors to “vote” in a disease so that the American Psychiatric Association can add this “illness” to the list of approved psychiatric disorders to be “treated.” Another of over 400 “disorders” (lists of behaviors, not diseases with a biological cause) for which the favored treatment is - drugs.
Drugs the FDA are issuing new warnings on as fast as video games are invented. Suicidal ideation, homicidal ideation, violence, psychosis - not the symptoms the drugs are used to treat - the “side” effects the drugs cause.
So, “no thank you,” AMA. And “who do you think you are,” researchers who used the Internet to find no link between the internet/video games and violence, but plowed ahead with your apparently pre-determined recommendations? Hope you aren’t researching the cause of Alzheimer’s or multiple sclerosis.
For the real world, I strongly encourage unplugging the computer (talk to my sister-in-law) or turning off the light (ask my husband).
Nancy O’Meara
Senior Editor
(The Church of Scientology International is opposed to the human rights violation of psychiatric labels assigned to human behaviors which then justifies damaging treatments.)
