An Iowa State University and National Institute on Media and the Family (NIMF) study has concluded that 8.5% of its 1,178 U.S. participants, aged 8 to 18, met the American Psychiatric Association (APA) criteria for gambling addiction, once again bringing the oft-debated topic of video game addiction into the national spotlight.

Participants were asked eleven questions regarding their gaming habits, including "Do you sometimes skip household chores in order to spend more time playing video games" and "Have you ever lied to family or friend about how much you play."

Per APA standards, exhibiting six or more symptoms constituted addiction. Furthermore, the study found that "pathological status significantly predicted poorer school performance even after controlling for sex, age, and weekly amount of video-game play," with "pathological gamers" twice as likely to have a diagnosed attention problem.

The study claims that the results are "nationally representative within 3%." However, study author and Iowa State researcher Douglas Gentile was quick to point out that the study does not confirm video games lead to "poor school performance... Read more

A Federal Communications Commissioner has said that online gaming addiction is a "top reason" for college drop-outs, using World of Warcraft as an example in a recent speech to the Practicing Law Institute.

"You might find it alarming that one of the top reasons for college drop-outs in the U.S. is online gaming addiction--such as World of Warcraft--which is played by 11 million individuals worldwide," said the FCC's Deborah Taylor Tate, according to GamePolitics.

Tate prefaced her gaming-related comment by declaring: "With the explosion of educational resources available online, one might think parents would be 100% pleased with the internet's role in their children's lives. But a late 2006 survey that showed 59% of parents think the internet has been a totally positive influence in their children's lives--down from 67% in 2004."

GamePolitics notes that the connection between World of Warcraft and college drop-out rates has been made before, not to mention this week. A Sunday report in the Duluth News-Tribune quotes a University... Read more

The founder of the Smith & Jones Centre, a game addiction clinic in Amsterdam, has turned the irony up to 11 by admitting to the BBC that games aren't actually addictive.

"These kids come in showing some kind of symptoms that are similar to other addictions and chemical dependencies," said Bakker to the Beeb. "But the more we work with these kids the less I believe we can call this addiction. What many of these kids need is their parents and their school teachers--this is a social problem."

Bakker opened the Smith & Jones Centre in 2006, and has since treated hundreds of patients who suffer from what appears to be an addiction to gaming. However, Bakker has now found that only 10% of the patients treated at his clinic had traditional drug-related addictions, leading him to believe that "addiction" may not be a relevant term to classify his patients' problems.

"It's a choice," he said. "These kids know exactly what they are doing and they just don't want to change. If no one is there to help them, then nothing will ever happen."

"If I continue to call gaming an addiction it takes away the element of choice these people have. It's a complete shift in my thinking and also a shift in the thinking of my clinic and the way it treats these people."

The American Medial Association last year backed down from classifying videogame addiction as a formal disorder following the publishing of a lengthy report on the subject. The AMA's report concluded: "As with findings on long-term aggression, there is currently insufficient research to definitively conclude that video game overuse is an addiction."

A study published by the British Psychological Society suggests that people who are addicted to games display similar personality traits as those with Asperger's syndrome.

The study was conducted by Dr. John Charlton of the University of Bolton and Ian Danforth of Whitman College. The researchers polled 391 gamers and found that the more addicted they were to video games, the more likely they were to exhibit "negative personality traits".

Moreover, signs of addiction were also found to complement personality traits such as neuroticism, introversion and an agreeable nature. These traits are commonly associated with Asperger's syndrome, a form of high functioning autism.

"Our research supports the idea that people who are heavily involved in game playing may be nearer to autistic spectrum disorders than people who... Read more

A recent study shows that the addiction and obsession centers of the male brain are more reactant to video game play than those in women, the Detroit News reports.

Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine studied brain imagery of 22 young adults—11 women and 11 men—while subjects were playing a simple computer game in which gaining territory was the objective.

Published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, the research found that while the entirety of the group experienced activity in parts of the brain associated with addiction and reward, this activity was much greater in men than in women. Additionally, levels of activity increased in men's brains proportional to the amount of territory that was gained in-game—an increase not experienced by female participants.

The study also noted that males were more aggressive than their counterparts, and quicker to gain more territory in the game. "These gender differences in the brain may help explain why males are more attracted to, and more likely to become hooked on video games than females," said lead author Dr. Allan Reiss.

Prominent doctors and addiction experts have strongly opposed the idea of classifying video games as a formal disorder during a debate at the American Medical Association's annual meeting. The debate is a prelude to an upcoming vote which will see the AMA committee deciding whether to include video game addiction in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

"There is nothing here to suggest that this is a complex physiological disease state akin to alcoholism or other substance abuse disorders, and it doesn't get to have the word addiction attached to it," said Dr. Stuart Gitlow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, according to a story by Reuters. The vote is significant as it pertains to insurance coverage of the proposed... Read more

Is addiction to virtual worlds a reality? The American Medical Association will have to decide this month.

A 10-page document produced by the AMA's Council on Science and Public Health suggests that video game addiction leads to "social dysfunction/disruption," and recommends that the disorder be formally classified in the upcoming edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The AMA's House of Delegates will vote on the proposal later this month, with the final say going to the American Psychiatric Association.

The document presents an even-handed examination of the subject, acknowledging that many studies claiming to provide a link... Read more

Amsterdam's Smith & Jones Wild Horses Center is an addiction treatment facility that caters to patients dealing coping with a variety of substances and activities: cocaine, gambling, alcohol--and now video gaming. Last year, the center started to notice that some of its patience admitted for various addictions also mentioned compulsive gaming behavior. Compulsive gamers seemed to display similar symptoms and withdrawal effects as those with chemical dependencies. Next month, the center will be opening what it claims is Europe's first dedicated clinic for video game addiction, using the traditional 12 Step Program for addiction.

"Computer and video games can be fun and innocent," reads the clinic's site. "Most people can play computer games without trouble. However, 20% of all gamers can develop a dependency on gaming. Many of these individuals have neglected family, romance, school, and jobs; not to mention their basic needs such as food and personal hygiene--all for a video or computer game."

BBC News spoke with center director Keith Bakker about the growing phenomenon and the treatment program. "You can't do a urine test to see that they're not still gaming. And if a coke addict said they wanted to go out to a club or to see people, we'd be worried about whether they'd meet a dealer," said Bakker. "But if a gamer said he wanted to go out for the night and meet people we'd throw a party."

Bakker was insistent about the potential severity of such addictions. "There were 15 year olds being brought to us who were showing the same behaviour as 50-year-old gambling addicts," he said. "This can get totally out of control. These games can be designed to keep the players going, there's no pay-off, it's like climbing a mountain with no top. They're not in their rooms playing games about collecting flowers. They're up there for 18 hours a day playing computer games about killing people."