Growing up with video games, I know there were definitely times that I played for too long. After a long time trying over and over again to reach a high score or get through a boss battle, you can stop enjoying yourself and forget why you got the game in the first place. However, there are people out there that have done a lot worse than waste a Sunday afternoon repeating the same level over and over again.

For those that have a particularly strong need to turn on their consoles and boot up a particular game, there is now a condition that describes their addiction. The World Health Organization has listed 'gaming disorder' in its International Classification of Diseases for the first time, meaning that this kind of behaviour is now being considered far more seriously.

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There are plenty of people out there who play video games frequently who don't meet these definitions, however. According to the WHO's guidelines, to be diagnosed you must "experience significant impairment in personal, family, social educational, occupational or other important areas of function" - and lived in this situation for at least one year.

One mother explained that her daughter's gaming addiction had gotten so bad she had to put her in rehab, meaning she would have met the conditions to be diagnosed as having 'gaming disorder'.

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Speaking to the Mirror, she explained how her nine-year-old daughter was so engrossed in the game Fortnite that she had wet herself while playing and fallen asleep in class:

"Our daughter told us it could be some extras she'd paid for on Fortnite. Of course we were furious and confiscated her Xbox. But then she lashed out and hit my husband in the face.

"My husband saw her light on in the night and found her sitting on a urine-soaked ­cushion playing the game.

"I found her backside was red-raw. She was so hooked to the game she wouldn't even go to the toilet."

Apparently, she had been waiting until they went to sleep before getting out of bed to play the game all night - sometimes for up to 10 hours a day. "We had no idea, when we let her play the game, of the ­addictive nature or the impact it could have on her mental health," her mother said.

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"She is in ­therapy for the addiction after she ­became withdrawn, ­agitated and disturbed from playing up to ten hours a day - sometimes playing until dawn, wetting ­herself so she didn't have to leave the screen.

"This is a serious issue which is destroying our little girl's life and someone needs to step in to ban it before it becomes an epidemic.

"We got called in by her head ­teacher asking if ­everything was OK. She had fallen asleep twice in lessons and her grades were slipping.

"When we asked our daughter what the ­problem was, she became unusually ­argumentative and aggressive, which we just put down to her hormones."

Thankfully she is now undergoing the relevant therapy to help her get back to a more stable home and school life.

I'm a major video game player. I have been since I was a little kid, and I can attribute some of my favourite storytelling experiences to the many video games I've enjoyed over the years. But every gamer out there knows that there's a very fine line between a hobby and obsession to the exclusion of all other activities. After all, games are designed to be enticing by their very nature, to squeeze the maximum amount of attention out of you. Even when it comes to something as simple and formulaic as Tetris, where all you're doing is moving shapes around, it's easy to lose all track of time as you keep saying "OK, just one more level" and the session turns into the equivalent of a bender. Some people have even claimed that video games are every bit as addictive as cigarettes, drugs and alcohol and that people require rehab in order to cure themselves. Video games are often subject to moral panics, since they're a relatively new medium anyway, and in the past we've heard many accounts of (typically young) people who have lost their jobs, ruined their relationships, and becomes estranged from society as a result of playing games for hours and hours each day. There are even websites and online treatment programmes out there which provide therapy for those poor souls who just can't seem to put down the controller.

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Despite this, new research seems to suggest that maybe video game addiction isn't a real phenomenon after all, according to a study that followed thousands of online gamers over six months. Currently, video game addiction is taken at least somewhat seriously by the medical community at large. The American Psychiatric Association has considered it for inclusion in their record of mental illnesses and addictions, but has stated that further research is required before hands. Has this new evidence proven it to be a myth all along? The way in which addictions are diagnosed currently means that a potential new entry must fulfil certain diagnostic criteria before it can count as one. These five criteria include the sufferer lying about how much time they spend gaming, whether they are willing to jeopardise their careers or their education because of their obsession with gaming, whether games are used to relieve anxiety, as well as a sense of distress or guilt over the time that they spend in their virtual worlds, and withdrawal, anxiety, stress or physical responses to a person losing their stimulant. So how did video games measure up when gamers were applied to these criteria? [[heroimage||http://cdn.junglecreations.com/wp/junglecms/2017/12/Gamers-compressor.jpg||Two men on a couch playing on a games console]] Netta Weinstein and her colleagues at Cardiff University, Wales, employed US census data in order to identify 2,316 adult individuals who regularly played online games and then asked them to participate in their study. The participants filled in a questionnaire which detailed their personal health, lifestyle, diet and how much exercise they took. Initially, a mere nine individuals fulfilled the five criteria for addiction, and claimed they experienced feeling of stress, anxiety and guilt as a direct result of how much they were gaming. Six months later however, these same individuals did not feel the same way when polled again, and therefore didn't meet the requirements for addiction. Another three matched four criteria, yet none of them felt ongoing distress over their gaming habits. This seems to suggest that, rather than behaviour that is damaging in its own right, and which causes problems for people who suffer from it, video games are seen as a form of escape for those who suffer from existing issues in their lives, such as anxiety, depression, morbidity and unemployment. Many of the participants who believed that they played video games excessively were found to have low self-esteem and had lower needs fulfilment in other areas of their lives. Playing online games allowed these people to experience a sense of achievement that was otherwise lacking in their lives. Commenting on her findings, Dr Weinstein stated: "We didn’t see a large number of people with clinical problems. The study’s results suggest that it’s not clear how many resources should go to gaming addiction, compared to other addictions like drugs ... This is initial evidence that having more needs fulfilment in life can make people feel better about their gaming."

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However, not everyone has been so quick as to dismiss the study's claims entirely. Daria Kuss, a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Nottingham Trent University, and a member of the International Gaming Research Unit and the Cyberpsychology Group, believes that further research with a larger body of participants is needed before we can write off gaming addiction entirely: "If someone uses gaming to meet basic psychological needs, this could become a problem if they are not able to satisfy these needs in real life. But to confirm this, we need clinical samples of people who are being treated for addiction in centres." People who have claimed to have suffered from gaming addictions in the past have included celebrities such as Mila Kunis and Felicia Day; both of whom spent countless hours playing World of Warcraft when it was at the height of its popularity. The newest Nintendo console, the Nintendo switch, now includes override controls to ensure that concerned parents can limit their child's video gaming time to prevent it becoming too dangerous, but other companies have not been keen to follow through. In fact, the prevalence of mobile games and pay-to-play titles seems to suggest that developers are intentionally making their games more addictive. It doesn't matter whether or not gaming addiction is real; personal responsibility is still important, and when things stop being fun, that means it's time to switch off.

Mental illness is a concerning crisis. More and more people are gradually becoming aware of its prevalence and debilitating effects. Unfortunately, the stigma surrounding mental health issues, or any frank discussion of the subject, has always held us back as a society and left those afflicted by mental sickness largely marginalised by medical professionals and the general public. Things are only just beginning to change, but we still have a way to go before we can stamp out shaming completely. Scratch beneath the surface and you'll find that a lot more people are suffering than you might have otherwise assumed. For instance, according to studies conducted by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, nearly 20 per cent of adults in the United States - some 43.8 million people - will experience at least one form of mental illness every year on average. Moreover, the stats for children and youths are just as alarming. Approximately 21.5 per cent of adolescents between the ages of 13 to 18 will experience a severe mental disorder at some point, and 13 per cent of children aged 8 to 13. The worst part? Those are just the figures for those people who have been conclusively diagnosed. There are even more people out there who will never have their mental malady formally identified by a doctor. But the cost that mental illness bears, both financial and emotional, is staggering. The same NAMI study also determined that serious mental illnesses cost America $193.2 billion in lost earnings per annum and that America's already-overstretched healthcare system is struggling to cope with the shocking number of people who have been admitted to hospital as a result of mental problems. Additionally, many Americans are unable to afford healthcare insurance, meaning that these mental problems remain ultimately untreated. The situation is little better in the United Kingdom, a nation which does boast free healthcare. In Great Britain, austerity measures and public service cuts have left the National Health Service in dire straits and last year thousands of doctors around the country went on strike to protest being overworked and underpaid. Under these conditions, where patients can expect to wait months, or even years to receive cognitive behavioural therapy and other forms of treatment, is it any wonder that so many people are subjected to inadequate psychiatric care long after they should have been diagnosed? Quick and early diagnoses are utterly necessary, yet they remain elusively uncommon. The good news is that scientists have managed to develop an unconventional solution, in the form of a digital doctor which can assess mental health over social media. This computerised shrink never sleeps, doesn't need to be paid and can give almost anyone a quick and accurate consultation eventually. It's all thanks to a new Twitter algorithm. Pretty amazing huh? Researchers from Harvard University, Stanford University and the University of Vermont collaborated on the project, which collected data and details of depression from 204 individuals using Twitter. Of these 204 people, 99 had no previous or current history of mental illness and 105 had suffered or were suffering from a mental illness. The scientists then employed a bespoke supervised learning algorithm that they had personally designed. This algorithm analysed certain keywords and word choices, as well as the sentence structure and syntax, of mentally ill people. Eventually, the program was capable of finding language that indicated symptoms of mental illness and was able to apply this knowledge proactively in order to forecast which Twitter users were mentally unwell and which were neurotypical. The program discovered that depressed individuals employed negative words such as "no", "never", and "death" in their tweets, and words which had a positive association, like "happy" and "photo". The algorithm was also capable of detecting symptoms of depression in the subject approximately 100 to 200 days before they were clinically diagnosed. The same algorithm was also applied to Twitter users to determine whether it could detect who was suffering from PTSD. The algorithm eventually managed to predict PTSD in Twitter accounts approximately 90 per cent of the time, according to a screening characteristic known as positive predictive value. By comparison, an average doctor can only expect to boast a PPV of around 50 per cent. Commenting on their findings, researcher Chris Danforth, from the University of Vermont, stated that: "We recruited individuals who were active on social media, and had been diagnosed by a psychiatrist as having depression or PTSD. Using a subset of their tweets, we trained an algorithm to identify differences between their behaviour and that of a control population on Twitter who had not been diagnosed. Our main finding is that there are predictive markers distinguishing the two groups, and this is often true well before individuals are first diagnosed with these mental health problems." Fellow-researcher Katharina Lix concurred, stating: "We hope that our research will eventually help improve mental health care, for example in preventive screening. We could imagine clinicians using this technology as a supporting tool during a patient’s initial assessment, provided that the patient has agreed to have their social media data used in this way. We want to emphasise that any real-world application of this technology must carefully take into account ethical and privacy concerns." We often hear people decry the role of Twitter when it comes to modern communication, with some critics of the social media tool claiming that it provokes division, sows poor debate and encourages political echo chambers, fake news, online shaming and mob rule. Yet this experiment proves that, properly harnessed, it has the potential to act as a profound tool to improve overall quality of life.

Let's not beat around the bush here: we've all watched porn before. It doesn't matter whether it was just a one-time curiosity trip or if it's an ongoing source of "entertainment", all of us have had some sort of experience with blue movies.

And you know what? That's fine. As much as some people like to claim that it's immoral, or unhealthy, or even an act of unfaithfulness to watch pornography, it's really not all that bad. As long as the people in the films are happy and willing to be there, and the audience is happy and willing to watch it - then what's the issue? Well, as psychologists have discovered, it is possible to watch too much of it. Researchers from the Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary have devised a questionnaire to establish whether people who watch pornography are doing so at a rate that is detrimental to their health or well-being. Throughout their work, they stress that enjoying porn is not in itself problematic - but an excessive consumption can lead to problems with relationships, jobs, and even mental health. While a proper diagnosis of pornography addiction can only be determined through an in-depth interview with a qualified individual, this simple survey should give you a rough idea of how "addicted" you are. For each question, you must answer with a number between one and seven, with each number corresponding to the following responses: never = 1, rarely = 2, occasionally = 3, sometimes = 4, often = 5, very often = 6, all the time = 7. Scroll down to see the statements for yourself. "I felt that porn is an important part of my life I used porn to restore the tranquillity of my feelings I felt porn caused problems in my sexual life I felt that I had to watch more and more porn for satisfaction I unsuccessfully tried to reduce the amount of porn I watch I became stressed when something prevented me from watching porn I thought about how good it would be to watch porn Watching porn got rid of my negative feelings Watching porn prevented me from bringing out the best in me I felt that I needed more and more porn in order to satisfy my needs When I vowed not to watch porn anymore, I could only do it for a short period of time I became agitated when I was unable to watch porn I continually planned when to watch porn I released my tension by watching porn I neglected other leisure activities as a result of watching porn I gradually watched more ‘extreme’ porn, because the porn I watched before was less satisfying I resisted watching porn for only a little while before I relapsed I missed porn greatly when I didn’t watch it for a while" So how did you do? According to the study, a score of 76 or more suggests an unhealthy level of pornography use. So, if that applies to you, you might want to consider cutting down on how often you watch porn, or even consult a professional if you're struggling with an addiction. The researchers came up with this number after questioning 772 respondents: 390 females and 382 males. After conducting the test, they found that just under four per cent of people were "at risk" of developing an addiction to pornography.

Despite all our protestations, we can't deny that we all love a good selfie. I mean, we have to immortalise our experiences, travels and relationships somehow. And how else would we show off to some standoffish family member or the other come Christmas time, if we didn't come armed with an arsenal of selfies featuring monuments such as the Taj Mahal and our newest love interest? It's certainly not with our actual accomplishments, that's for sure. However, researchers have recently concluded that selfie taking can be taken too far. No, I'm not referring to that select group of people who choose to wield selfie sticks, or those who incessantly post pictures on Instagram. In fact, "Selfitis" - or the obsessive taking of selfies - has been classified as a genuine mental condition. Researchers at Nottingham Trent University and Thiagarajar School of Management, India have tested a framework for assessing the severity of Selfitis. They deduced that there are three strains of the condition: "borderline", "acute" and "chronic". "Borderline" Selfitis occurs when people take at least three selfies a day, but refrain from posting them on social media. People are classified as "acute" sufferers of Selfitis when they take at least three selfies a day, and actually post them online. If it's a "chronic"condition, on the other hand, people feel an almost uncontrollable urge to take photos of themselves, and post them to their social media platforms over six times a day. The study involved two focus groups of 200 participants. And the eventual paper was written by Dr Mark Griffiths from Nottingham Trent University, who surmised:

"This study arguably validates the concept of selfitis and provides benchmark data for other researchers to investigate the concept more thoroughly and in different contexts.

The concept of selfie-taking might evolve over time as technology advances, but the six identified factors that appear to underlie selfitis in the present study are potentially useful in understanding such human-computer interaction across mobile electronic devices.

The physiologists found that those who suffer from Selfitis were generally attention seekers who lacked self esteem. Such individuals would use selfies and photo-sharing platforms to bolster their social standing, and to make it seem as if they were part of a wider community.

In other news, there's now an algorithm which catches serial killers, but police aren't listening...