(This article was originally published Thursday)
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- An American Medical Association committee recently took steps to classify video game addiction as a mental disorder.
After nearly a year of studying the issue, an AMA committee concluded, in a 10-page report, that excessive video game playing leads to what it describes as "social dysfunction/disruption".
As a result, the AMA panel "strongly encourages the consideration and inclusion of 'Internet/video game addiction' as a formal diagnostic disorder in the upcoming revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV," according to the report.
In the same report, the AMA panel also suggests video game playing be limited to less than two hours a day, and the Centers For Disease Control and the National Science Foundation conduct additional research into the long-term effects of video game playing on people under the age of 18.
An AMA policy-making body will take the recommendations into account when it meets later this month.
The findings, and the recommendations, are more fuel for the heated debate about the impact of long-term video gaming, especially among teenagers.
A growing number of medical professionals believe video game addiction is indeed a mental illness.
But, as to be expected, producers of video games and consoles say the worries are overblown.
For example, a 2005 study by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), whose members account for 90% of all the video games sold, concluded there is no causal relationship between video game violence and aggression.