This is a short piece, with a letter of response. My point in posting this is that we are still very much in the infancy of video gaming and the internet.
Time will tell whether or not it makes sense to make gaming addiction a formal psychiatric diagnosis or to refine the diagnostic criteria so that they are more sensitive in revealing pathology. It will also take more time to discern if there are adverse developmental consequences for young people whose game-playing is increasingly in the virtual world.
Read the full letters to the editor in The New York Times