I'll also bring up that this is only one manifestation of the bigger problem.  This is people battling their blatant or latent obsessive compulsions.  However our sedentary ways also manifests it self physically for the over whelming majority as obesity, just looked up the statistics and I was floored.  So maybe video game addiction is a rare occurrence, other effects are visually prevalent.   

It depends on what they mean by "other activities".  If by that they mean other forms of entertainment, that's a normal thing to see in anything.  Some people watch netflix all day.  Some people spend all their hobby time reading.  Some people spend al ltheir hobby time drinking, etc.  Frankly, I find people with a cornucopia of dabbling hobbies to be boring and fake, without any real interest.  As you develop yourself, it's natural to trend towards some hobbies over others.

If by "other activities" they mean work, that's just plain hedonism, and it's something I've suffered from greatly over my life, to the point that I actually initially dropped out of college due to too much games and anime.  So, armchair psychology in the lounge aside, It's a concept I'm intimately familiar with.

However, it sounds like the WHO is conflating those two things, which are very distinct and in no way should be combined.

Now MMORPG addiction is a different beast, because that's a social addiction, which is a real, distinct phenomena than manifests itself in many places.

5 hours ago, SeraphLance said:

However, it sounds like the WHO is conflating those two things, which are very distinct and in no way should be combined.

I doubt it.  The clinicians who use the actual diagnosis and work with people who are stuck with obsessions and compulsions don't have difficulty comparing them with everyday laziness or preferences for pleasurable activities.  They're quite different.

If you're only looking at the description in isolation they can appear to be broad.  That isn't the case when looking at human lives.

Perhaps on the simplest level, one is free to choose, the other is a slave to their thoughts and compulsions. The fallout through the rest of the trapped person's lives is enormous: because they cannot do other things the rest of their life quickly falls apart in severe life-altering ways.

Work is only one component.  

(Replying to topic in general)

How is adding a classification controversial?  Gamers aren't suddenly going to be rounded up and sent off to asylums.  Those who are suffering should be able to get help regardless of whether we formally classify the problem.  And people who like to shun or look down on people suffering from mental issues have never needed formal definitions to exploit before, have they?

A formal definition like this is useful for simplifying and standardizing communication of a diagnosis between professionals who want to identify and treat these issues.

Any controversy around this sounds like controversy for controversy's own sake.

8 minutes ago, Nypyren said:

How is adding a classification controversial?

So I am just going to play the devil's advocate here and point out that this could lead to a age restriction on games; and other laws.

The addiction studies are also proving that children who aren't allowed to play games, or have strict amount of game time, actually end up performing better in school work than the ones allowed to play games.

With games branded a adiction it only takes a few steps from there to place a age restriction on it. Like cigarettes and alcohol. Lots of these studies recommend a age restriction of 14 or 16 years old before people would be allowed to play games.

With games branded a addiction it becomes easier for politicians to implement laws on it.

This could lead to abuses of the gaming industry. Like game producers having to pay some tax for addicting people. Like Spain taxing memory devices because of piracy. Or taxing tobacco because of cancer.

1 hour ago, Scouting Ninja said:

So I am just going to play the devil's advocate here and point out that this could lead to a age restriction on games; and other laws.

I don't see any effective way to enforce that which we don't already use (parents), and I think that people are smart enough to realize that extra laws won't help.  Some kind of Big Brother law will never be effective.

And what do we do after they grow up and move away to college where mom and dad aren't around?  They can become addicted to things they were sheltered or excluded from as kids (alcohol, drugs, gambling) anyway.

Why would the government do anything about it, anyway?  They don't do much about the majority of other problems facing society.