The recognised definition has three parts and a clock. Impaired control over your gaming. Gaming taking priority over other interests and daily activities. Carrying on despite clear harm. And normally at least twelve months of it. Hours played is not one of the criteria, and nobody who tells you a number is quoting anything.
Someone has told you, and you're not sure they're right
That's a fair position to be in. The word gets used loosely, usually by someone who is worried about you and reaching for the strongest word they have.
So here is the actual wording, from the World Health Organization, which is the classification the NHS uses. Gaming disorder is "a pattern of gaming behavior characterized by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences".
Three things there, and all three have to be running at once.
Then the part that most arguments skip. "The behaviour pattern must be severe enough that it results in significant impairment to a person's functioning... and would normally have been evident for at least 12 months." A rough month is not it. A rough summer is not it. A dissertation you played through is not it.
And the sentence worth holding on to: "Studies suggest that gaming disorder affects only a small proportion of people who engage in digital- or video-gaming activities."
The label is genuinely contested
You should know this before you accept or reject anything about yourself.
Gaming disorder is in ICD-11. It is not a diagnosis in the DSM-5-TR, the American manual, where the American Psychiatric Association says internet gaming disorder "is included in the section recommending conditions for further research" and that "gambling disorder is the only behavioral addiction (as opposed to chemical substance use disorders) identified in DSM-5-TR".
Twenty-four scholars published a formal objection to the WHO proposal. Their "main concerns are the low quality of the research base, the fact that the current operationalization leans too heavily on substance use and gambling criteria, and the lack of consensus on symptomatology", and they warned specifically about "the treatment of abundant false-positive cases, especially for children and adolescents".
A wider caution from the same corner of the literature: "recent publications have suggested that nearly all daily life activities might lead to a genuine addiction". That is a real risk in how this language gets used, and you are allowed to be sceptical of a label applied to you in an argument.
None of that makes your nights fine or not fine. It means the label is doing less work than the question underneath it, which is what gaming is costing you and whether you want that back.
Three questions that beat any online quiz
Run these on your own last three months rather than on a feeling.
**1. What happens when you try to stop?**
Not "do you play a lot". Try to stop for an evening you had planned to stop, and watch what happens. Did the evening go the way you decided at six o'clock? Did you tell yourself one more and then lose three hours? Impaired control is the first criterion, and it is measurable at home. One evening is a data point. Four is a pattern.
**2. What has gaming actually displaced this year?**
Write the list. Not the things you feel guilty about, the things that genuinely stopped. Meals. Sleep. A course. A five-a-side. A person you used to see. Coursework. Showering some days. Priority is the second criterion, and a hobby that has quietly eaten three other things is behaving differently from a hobby.
Six hours a day with a job you keep, people you see and sleep you get is a different position from three hours a day and a life that has gone quiet.
**3. What harm has already happened, and did you carry on anyway?**
A job or a place at college at risk. A relationship gone. Money spent that you needed. Health, in the ordinary sense of not eating and not sleeping. If those things have happened and you kept going, that is the third criterion, and it is the one that separates a heavy hobby from something that has taken over.
Three yeses across twelve months is roughly what the recognised definition is pointing at. Two yeses across six weeks is a bad patch worth acting on, which is not the same thing and does not need a diagnosis to fix.
The questions that are not diagnostic, and get used as if they were
- **How many hours a day?** There is no threshold anywhere. If a quiz gives you one, someone invented it.
- **Do you play every day?** So do a lot of people with completely ordinary lives.
- **Do you spend money on it?** Spending is worth looking at on its own terms if it is money you needed, and it is not a criterion.
- **Do you get annoyed when interrupted?** So does anyone interrupted mid-task. It only counts if it is part of the wider pattern.
- **Does your family think you play too much?** Worth listening to and not, on its own, a diagnosis. Families are often right about the direction and wrong about the word.
If the answer is "not a disorder, but not fine either"
That is where most people who search this land, and there is nothing dishonest about it.
You do not need to qualify for something to change it. The practical work is the same either way, and it starts with the hours the gaming actually takes rather than with a label. [Three changes that make an all-nighter harder to start](/guides/gaming/how-to-stop-gaming-all-night) is the place to begin if the nights are the problem. If you are ready for the harder question, [what the game is actually giving you](/guides/gaming/what-the-game-is-actually-giving-you) tends to explain more than any criteria list will.
If the three questions above landed hard and it has been running a year or more, that is the point to get help rather than a better plan. [What exists in the UK](/guides/gaming/where-to-get-help-for-gaming-disorder), including the NHS clinic that takes self-referrals, is worth ten minutes.
If tonight is worse than tired, Samaritans is **116 123**, free, any hour. NHS urgent mental health support is **111**, option 2.
Common questions
**How many hours of gaming a day counts as an addiction?** No recognised definition contains an hour count. The criteria are impaired control, gaming taking priority over other activities, and continuing despite harm, normally evident for at least twelve months. Time only matters through what it has displaced.
**Is gaming disorder a real diagnosis?** In ICD-11, the classification used across the NHS, yes. In the DSM-5-TR it sits in the research section, and gambling disorder is the only behavioural addiction that manual recognises. Both are true at the same time, and researchers are still arguing about it.
**My partner says I have a problem. Are they right?** They are right about something, even if the word is wrong. Ask them for the specific thing that changed rather than the label, and check it against the three questions above. "You stopped coming to bed" is a fact you can both work with.
**Can I have a problem without meeting the criteria?** Yes, and that is the most common situation. The criteria describe a clinical threshold, not a line where something starts mattering. If it is costing you things you want back, that is enough reason to change it.
**Where can I get assessed properly?** The NHS National Centre for Gaming Disorders supports people in England aged 13 and over and accepts self-referrals as well as referrals from family members and professionals. Elsewhere in the UK, a GP is the first stop.
Sources
- [WHO, Gaming disorder frequently asked questions](https://www.who.int/standards/classifications/frequently-asked-questions/gaming-disorder). The ICD-11 wording, the twelve month duration requirement, and the small proportion of people who play who are affected.
- [Internet Gaming Disorder, American Psychiatric Association](https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/internet-gaming). That internet gaming disorder sits in the DSM-5-TR research section, and that gambling disorder is the only behavioural addiction in that manual.
- [Aarseth et al., Scholars' open debate paper on the ICD-11 Gaming Disorder proposal](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28033714/). The objection to the research base and the false-positive warning.
- [CNWL, National Centre for Gaming Disorders](https://www.cnwl.nhs.uk/national-centre-gaming-disorders). Who the clinic sees and how referrals work.
