On Tuesday 5 February, Delhi government’s Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) listed out video games that it considers unhealthy for the mental growth of children. The list includes popular games like PubG and Pokemon, both of which boast of a huge following across age groups. However, the advisory has made it clear that they’re considered particularly harmful for its younger audience.
The development is a relevant one and comes in the wake of The World Health Organization (WHO) recognising ‘gaming disorder’ as a mental health condition. The WHO has now included ‘gaming disorder’ as a mental health condition in its International Classification of Diseases (ICD).
The ICD, a diagnostic manual published by the WHO, was last updated in 1990 and its new edition, ICD-11, has included gaming disorder as a serious health condition that needs to be monitored.
Gaming disorder is described as ‘a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behaviour (digital or video gaming), which may be online (i.e over the internet) or offline.WHO
This classification means health professionals and systems will be more "alerted to the existence of this condition" while boosting the possibility that "people who suffer from these conditions can get appropriate help", Vladimir Poznyak, a member of the WHO's Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, was quoted as telling the CNN earlier in 2018.
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