​On Monday, the World Health Organization published the 11th edition of its International Classification of Diseases. Amongst the many changes found within, one notable change is the inclusion of a "gaming disorder." Announced back in March via a draft version of the ICD-11, the aim of the WHO adding a new disease classification, purportedly, is so medical professionals can diagnose those who are struggling with finding a balance between gaming, and so insurance companies can be forced to pay out to treat this specific behavioral addiction.

This is all well and good, but looking at the text of the definition of the disease, it's hard to pin down exactly what gaming disorder looks like.

Gaming disorder is characterized by a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behaviour ('digital gaming' or 'video gaming'), which may be online (i.e., over the internet) or offline, manifested by: 1) impaired control over gaming (e.g., onset, frequency, intensity, duration, termination, context); 2) increasing priority given to gaming to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other life interests and daily activities; and 3) continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences. The behaviour pattern is of sufficient severity to result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning. The pattern of gaming behaviour may be continuous or episodic and recurrent. The gaming behaviour and other features are normally evident over a period of at least 12 months in order for a diagnosis to be assigned, although the required duration may be shortened if all diagnostic requirements are met and symptoms are severe.

Based on this definition from the WHO, gaming disorder is an excessive pattern of playing video games in spite of it clearly ruining your life both psychologically and physically. Anyone with experience in the video game enthusiast community can certainly attest that this is a real thing that happens — in fact, in certain cases people make it a point of pride to either call in sick the day of a anticipated release, or shut themselves in for close to an entire day and devote themselves to doing nothing but playing video games.

While the possibility that one could be addicted to a video game isn't really up for debate, the nature of those behavioral addictions are. One could be addicted to their smartphone, but it's not the piece of technology that's responsible for the addiction, rather the apps that run on it. An archetypical image for our phone-riddled society is a group of people gazing into their mobile devices, faces-lit by the pale-blue screen — but to say that they're addicted to the light emitted by the LCD screen, or even apps in general, is either misunderstanding the problem or just far too broad.

The same could be said about resistance to the WHO's "gaming disorder" classification. A paper published in February, co-authored by dozens of academics across multiple disciplines, urged caution and recommended postponing the codification of the disease by the WHO — pointing to a lack of clinical evidence, and the risks of providing an all-too-easy diagnosis to a complex problem.

"Patients themselves (or their parents) can also be influenced by moral panic and may come to believe they suffer from a disorder due to news coverage," the authors write. "A highly publicized 'disorder' may offer a simplified explanation for problems that, in fact, have a deeper meaning."

That "deeper meaning" the authors argue, is that excessive gaming could be linked to a whole host of behavioral disorders — depression, anxiety, grief and so on — and that access to a diagnosis that points to the game as the problem could look past those deeper issues.

In his essay on the nature of gaming within our society and why folks consume video games in ways that are distinctly different than other forms of entertainment, writer Frank Guan first unpacks why games are different from, say, television or books — in short: they center around you, the player, and offer you dopamine hits in ways that passive viewing experiences cannot — but then broadens to why, now, we're so attracted to these kinds of experiences.

"Is it an addiction? Of course. But one's addiction is always more than a private affair: It speaks to the health and the logic of society at large," he writes. "I suspect that the total intensity of the passion with which gamers throughout society surrender themselves to their pastime is an implicit register of how awful, grim, and forbidding the world outside them has become."

This isn't to say that games are perfect, nor are they innocent. They are developed by humans, after all. Those who have been enticed by the "Call Of Duty"-like stream of rewards and accolades for doing the most basic things the game demands (read: shoot other players) are all-too familiar with the concept of a Skinner Box as it applies to video games.

Given that game developers must also eat and that shareholders must be paid, a crucial part of game design is to create feedback loops that encourage players to play more. There is an entire YouTube channel, and even arguably a subgenre of YouTubers, dedicated to celebrating the small ways in which developers influence players. Recently, the rise of loot boxes within video games have brought these design principles dangerously close to that of gambling — so close that lawmakers in Belgium have gone so far as to classify and regulate the practice as games of chance.

That's not to say that video games are an entirely indulgent activity, played only for the steady stream of dopamine. They help people relax. They help people overcome a disability. They help people deal with anxiety. They're a vital coping mechanism. Sure, they have the potential to isolate, buy they can also help connect. My brother and I grew up playing video games. He lives 800 miles away now, but we have a standing night where we both log on and play games together. And it helps us talk through some tough stuff in ways that a phone call just can't. Our relationship is, arguably, stronger because of video games.

It is undeniably important to interrogate the ways and means by which the media we consume affects us, and whether or not those positive feedback loops are there for our wholesome enjoyment, or to tickle the lizard parts of our brains to the point of cheap manipulation. Will classifying an excessive amount of playing video games as a disease accomplish this? If the conversation around "gaming disorder" manifests as a bunch of concerned parents blaming "Fortnite" for destroying our youth, then it's (I'm so sorry) game over.