Video Games' Addictive Nature Unclear: AMA

Doctors' group backs away from tougher stance, citing need for more research.

By E.J. Mundell
HealthDay Reporter
Wednesday, June 27, 2007; 12:00 AM

Copyright © 2007 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.

WEDNESDAY, June 27 (HealthDay News) -- There's not yet enough evidence to label excessive use of video games an addiction, according to Wednesday's vote on the issue by top U.S. doctors.

The American Medical Association, meeting in Chicago, backed away from the stronger language included in a recommendation from the group's Council on Science and Public Health.

That report had called for the AMA to add video game addiction to a list of "formal disorders," where it would join other problem behaviors such as pathological gambling.

But the new recommendations don't go that far. Instead, the AMA is calling for more research into the issue, as well as a review of the video game ratings system, which was first put in place in 1994.

"While more study is needed on the addictive potential of video games, the AMA remains concerned about the behavioral, health and societal effects of video game and Internet overuse," AMA president Dr. Ronald Davis said in a statement.

The physicians' group noted that there was accumulated data linking children's exposure to media violence with increases in aggression. The review of the current ratings system is an attempt to minimize that exposure, the group added.

"We would like to see a ratings system that better alerts parents to the content of the video game and recommended age of the player, so they can decide whether or not their child should be playing it," Davis said.

Dr. Martin Wasserman, executive director of MedChi, the Maryland State Medical Society, helped spearhead the new proposal, which resulted in a 10-page report submitted to the AMA by the group's Council on Science and Public Health. The recommendations released Wednesday sprang from the AMA's consideration of that report

"The concern came up because one of our psychiatrists here in Maryland was seeing older people who were losing their social contacts," specifically because of their overuse of video games, Wasserman said before the vote. "It was ruining their family life. So, it was not unlike gambling addictions or alcohol, where it was having a profound impact on the lives of individuals."