A study of young online gamers showed that the prevalence of Internet gaming disorder in Taiwan is about 3.1 percent, slightly higher than many European countries and the US, National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) researchers said yesterday.
The WHO in June classified “gaming disorder” as a mental health condition in its International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) — a list used by health professionals when making diagnoses and treatment plans.
Lin Yu-hsuan (林煜軒), a National Taiwan University Hospital psychiatrist and assistant research fellow at NHRI’s Institute of Population Health Sciences; Pan Yuan-chien (潘元健), a psychologist; and Chiu Yu-chuan (邱于峻), a psychiatrist at Mackay Memorial Hospital, discussed their study at a news conference at the Ministry of Health and Welfare in Taipei.
They asked mental health counselors at 169 schools, from elementary to senior-high, to conduct structured diagnostic interviews of 8,110 students aged between 10 and 18 who had played Internet games in the past year.
“We used a globally recognized system of diagnostic criteria for Internet gaming disorder, which has nine symptoms, and those who meet five or more symptoms are defined as having Internet gaming disorder,” Lin said. “These symptoms have to frequently occur and continue for over a span of one year.”
Children or adolescents who play for long hours during summer vacations, but not during the school year, were not identified as having the disorder, he said.
“We found that the prevalence of Internet gaming disorder in children and adolescents is about 3.1 percent,” Lin said.
That figure might surprise many people, because studies that used other criteria have suggested the prevalence of Internet gaming addition to be 20 to 30 percent, he said.
However, nearly all studies using diagnostic criteria established by the American Psychiatric Association in 2013 for Internet gaming disorder suggested the prevalence to be less than 5 percent, and that the core symptom is being focused on “gaming behavior leading to distress or significant impairment in daily life functioning,” rather than “spending too much time on gaming,” he said.
A large-scale study conducted last year in Germany, the UK and the US suggested that the prevalence is only about 1 percent, Lin said.
“Up to 71.5 percent of the students in our study do not even have one symptom,” he said, adding that many children and adolescents use Internet gaming as a method to relieve stress or negative emotions, but those who are “addicted” need to play more frequently to feel satisfied.
Up to 52 percent of those identified as addicted have spent money in the games and spend an average of 41 hours per week playing games, which is about twice the percentage of non-addicted players — 25 percent and 24 hours respectively, Lin said.
From a clinical perspective, the problem is not just that the games are addictive, but that the addicted youngsters usually have real life problems that lead them to seek escape online, the trio said.
The government and the public should encourage these youngsters to improve their health, rather than treat them as mentally ill, they said.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
MULTIPRONGED APPROACH: China has sought to pressure Palau across a number of fronts, but the island nation has staunchly resisted overtures to ditch Taiwan Palau has been firm in backing Taiwan despite Chinese pressure that uses tourism economics, cyberattacks and criminal infiltration as tools to threaten the Pacific ally into renouncing its recognition of Taiwan as a sovereign state. The Presidential Office yesterday announced that Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) would visit Palau from Saturday to Wednesday next week at the invitation of Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr. Whipps in April said in an interview that China had outspokenly asked Palau to “denounce Taiwan.” “And we have said: ‘We have no enemies, but nobody tells us who our friends are,’” he said. Whipps has told reporters multiple times
RSS