In 2021, China government published a new policy to force corporations to only serves underage teenagers on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday between 8 pm to 9 pm. Netherlands
In June 2006, the Smith and Jones clinic in Amsterdam—which has now gone bankrupt—became the first treatment facility in Europe to offer a residential treatment program for compulsive gamers. Keith Bakker, founder and former head of the clinic, has stated that 90% of the young people who seek treatment for compulsive computer gaming are not addicted. Canada
At a Computer Addiction Services center in Richmond, British Columbia, excessive gaming accounts for 80% of one youth counselors caseload. United Kingdom
In 2018, the National Health Service announced its plans to open a treatment center, run by the Central and North West London NHS foundation trust, that will initially focus on gaming disorder, but is planned to expand to cover other internet-based addictions. The specialist treatment center opened in 2019 for treating adolescents and young people aged 13–25 who are addicted to video games. Outcomes
Physical health
The most frequent physical health-related outcome are alterations in physical functioning such as somatisation and sleep disturbances. Preliminary evidence suggest that internet gaming disorder and the induced sedentarity may contribute to a lack of physical exercise, even though the relationship is not causal. Epidemiology
The prevalence of internet gaming disorder range from 0.7% to 25.5% worldwide, or 1.0% to 26.8% worldwide, and 3.5% to 17% in China, and is higher among males than females and among younger than older people, with geographical region being an insignificant contributor.
Hagedorn & Young have suggested that social dependence may arise due to video games occurring online where players interact with others and the relationships "often become more important for gamers than real-life relationships". Controversy and alternative viewpoints
Common challenges involve the reliability of the methodology and validity of the results in some studies. Many rely on self-surveys from university students and also lack time frames making it difficult to study the impact, if any, of addiction on a long term scale. Other concerns also address the definition of addiction and how to measure it, questioning whether or not time is a proper unit to determine how addicted someone is to gaming. Daria Joanna Kuss and Mark D. Griffiths have argued the current scientific knowledge on internet gaming addiction is copious in scope and complexity. They state that instead, a simple framework should be provided to allow all current and future studies to be categorised, as internet gaming addiction lies on a continuum beginning with etiology and risk factors all the way through the development of "full-blown" addiction and ending with ramifications and potential treatment. In addition, they caution the deployment of the label "addiction" since it heavily denotes the use of substances or engagement in certain behaviors. Finally, the researcher promotes other researchers to assess the validity and reliability of existing measures instead of developing additional measurement instruments.Other challenges include the lack of context of the participants life and the negative portrayal of gaming addicts.