Page 17 - Bexar County Medical Society Purchasing Directory

MEDICAL
TECHNOLOGY

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stand the phenomenon. despite the mounting acknowledgment and billion in profits in 2018. What makes that earnings statistic par-
investigation of IGd, some researchers suggest that this “push to ticularly interesting is that Fortnite is completely free to download
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pathologize video games” may be unfounded. In June of 2018, the and play. by simply creating an account for free you can join 99
World Health Organization (WHO) released the newly proposed other players from across the world in a battle royale. Your character
11th Revision of the International Classification of diseases, which is dropped onto an island with the other players where you have to
designates IGd as its own unique disorder. 7 gather weapons, medical supplies, and building materials while fight-
ing your way to victory. This can be done
alone or in a squad of up to four players. Epic
Games has made Fortnite such a lucrative
business by offering aesthetic upgrades to
players’ virtual characters which they can pur-
chase in-game. These virtual costumes, re-
ferred to as “skins”, range from eight to
twenty dollars each and provide absolutely no
advantage or change to the base gameplay
aside from making your character look super
cool.
The WHO defines IGd as “…a pattern of gaming behavior IGd has long been associated most with adolescent male gamers,
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(“digital-gaming” or “video-gaming”) characterized by impaired so I figured I would find one to talk to about all of this. I didn’t have
control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other to go far. My 15-year-old brother has been playing increasing amounts
activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other in- of Fortnite for a year now. When he isn’t playing the game, he is usually
terests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming watching YouTube videos of other people playing the game, studying
despite the occurrence of negative consequences. how to perform better in the next battle he enters. Our parents strongly
For gaming disorder to be diagnosed, the behaviour pattern must limit his time spent gaming, only allowing him to play on the weekends.
be of sufficient severity to result in significant impairment in per- because his urges to play Fortnite are constantly constrained, when he
sonal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important gets the chance to finally play on the weekend it can turn into an all-
areas of functioning and would normally have been evident for at night binge session and a very disordered sleep schedule. by hording
least 12 months.” 7 birthday and Christmas money, and through a bit of deception, he has
A 2009 survey by Gentile reported that 8.5 percent of children spent somewhere around $500 on skins for his Fortnite character. In
and adolescents (8 to 18 years of age) who play video games in the the podcast linked below, when asked if it was worth the $500 spent,
United States display signs of pathological addiction. If we com- he tells me that the added enjoyment that comes from having the rarest
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bine this proposed statistic with the recent Pew Research Center and most sought-after skins for his character has been well worth the
data on gaming prevalence, it can be said that about one in thirteen cost. My brother goes on to reveal how playing Fortnite allows him
United States teens are likely experiencing some kind of patholog- and others to escape from the problems or negative feelings plaguing
ical effects related to the use of video games. them in their real lives. We talk about how young video game players
One of the first stories of video game addiction came in 2011, sometimes choose to spend time in the virtual world at a real cost to
when The Guardian published an article telling the story of dr. their lives back on earth. For young Americans, this cost can materialize
Ryan van Cleave, a Ringling College of Art and design creative in the form of worsening school grades, failure to maintain daily re-
writing professor whose life was almost totally consumed by the on- sponsibilities, or even sacrificing the quality of relationships with oth-
line game World of Warcraft (WoW). According to The Guardian, ers. When I ask my brother if his Fortnite use has ever had real
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dr. van Cleave was playing upwards of 60 hours of WoW per week negative effects on his life he tells me “there are definitely times where
at the height of his addiction. 9 I do let [my video game consumption] slip and it does get away from
More recently, since debuting in late September of 2017, the on- me.” This seems pretty alarming, doesn’t it? Are our teens’ lives being
line game Fortnite has absolutely dominated the video game world. ravaged by addictions to modern technology like video games and so-
As of November of 2018, there are now over 200 million registered cial media?
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players. Fortnite’s creator Epic Games reportedly earned over $3 continued on page 18
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