James Driver is the founder of Net Addiction website who, during his teenage years believes he developed a gaming addiction playing games every waking moment of his day. It triggered his interest in researching gaming addiction and he later trained as a psychotherapist to help people with this addiction.
"Once it starts to have a noticeable negative impact on things like physical or psychological health, on a person's relationships, on their ability to function at school or at work, any of those things that's where you start to see it become potentially a problem."
In January this year, the World Health Organisation classified gaming as a mental health disorder in their first draft of beta. Driver told Kawe Kōrero you can develop an addiction to gaming but not solely as a result of gaming too much.
"Addictions develop as a response to other complex mixes of social, psychological and biological factors. Obviously, while a lot of people game and it doesn't become a problem for them, those who might be predisposed towards an addiction could be at risk of developing that problem."
The World Health Organisation states on their website that for gaming disorder to be diagnosed, the behaviour pattern must be of sufficient severity to result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning and would normally have been evident for at least 12 months.