bodyType

customContents

entityId

printArticlePageQuery

filter

article

body

urlAlias

articleSectionsContent

articleSeoArticle

articleSourceHeaderArticle

contentSchemaRenderContent

contentSubHeadlineContent

contentHeadlineContent

mainImagePrintArticleArticle

authorBlockPrintArticleArticle

contentSponsorTagContent

articlePianoPaywallContent

scmpYoutubeContent

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

query printArticlePageQuery(
  $entityId: String!
  $customContents: [CustomContentInput]
  $bodyType: BodyFormatTypeEnum
) {
  article(filter: {entityId: $entityId}) {
    entityId
    body(customContents: $customContents, type: $bodyType) {
      json
    }
    urlAlias
    ...articleSectionsContent
    ...articleSeoArticle_3o8td4
    ...articleSourceHeaderArticle
    ...contentSchemaRenderContent
    ...contentSubHeadlineContent
    ...contentHeadlineContent
    ...mainImagePrintArticleArticle
    ...authorBlockPrintArticleArticle
    ...contentSponsorTagContent
    ...articlePianoPaywallContent
    ...scmpYoutubeContent
    ...hooksTrackPageViewArticle
    id
  }
}

fragment articlePianoPaywallContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksPaywallPromiseContent
}

fragment articleSectionsContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  sections {
    value {
      ...helpersCheckIfNewsSectionInFirstIndexSection
      ...entityLink
      name
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment articleSeoArticle_3o8td4 on Article {
  ...hooksArticleSeoArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersGetArticleTypeArticle
  entityId
  publishedDate
  updatedDate
  summary {
    text
  }
  subHeadline {
    text
  }
  body(customContents: $customContents, type: $bodyType) {
    text
  }
  keywords
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  topics {
    name
    entityId
    id
  }
  urlAlias
  authors {
    name
    id
  }
  images {
    style(filter: {style: "768x768"}) {
      url
    }
  }
  readingTime
}

fragment articleSourceHeaderArticle on Article {
  urlAlias
  ...entityLink
}

fragment authorBlockPrintArticleArticle on Article {
  ...defaultArticleDateContent
  ...authorNamesArticle
}

fragment authorNameAuthor on Author {
  ...entityLink
  name
  entityUuid
}

fragment authorNamesArticle on Article {
  authorLocations
  authors {
    entityId
    location
    ...authorNameAuthor
    id
  }
}

fragment blockquoteQuoteContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...contentShareWidgetContent
}

fragment checkersCheckContentContainsStarlingImageContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment contentHeadlineContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  headline
  socialHeadline
  ...contentHeadlineTagContent
  ...helpersUseContentSponsorContent
}

fragment contentHeadlineTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksContentHeadlineTagContent
}

fragment contentNewsletterWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    relatedNewsletters {
      ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
      id
    }
    id
  }
  sections {
    value {
      relatedNewsletters {
        ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
        id
      }
      id
    }
  }
  ... on Article {
    relatedNewsletters {
      ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment contentSchemaRenderContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...blockquoteQuoteContent
  ...imageContent
  ...inlineWidgetContent
  ...photoGalleryWidgetContent
  ...scmpYoutubeContent
}

fragment contentShareWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  urlAlias
  shortUrl
  socialHeadline
  headline
}

fragment contentSponsorTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...helpersUseContentSponsorContent
}

fragment contentSubHeadlineContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  subHeadline {
    json
  }
  summary {
    json
  }
  ...contentSchemaRenderContent
}

fragment defaultArticleDateContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksArticleDateUtilsContent
}

fragment entityLink on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  __typename
  entityId
  entityUuid
  urlAlias
  urlRedirect {
    toUrl
    id
  }
  application {
    entityId
    id
  }
  ... on Section {
    fullSectionPath {
      entityId
      id
    }
    parentSection
  }
  ...helpersAppBarVariantBase
  ...helpersApplicationBase
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusArticle
  ...helpersStyleSectionContent
}

fragment helpersAppBarVariantBase on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  ...helpersCheckIsLiveArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  ...helpersSectionContent
  ...helpersStyleSectionContent
}

fragment helpersApplicationBase on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusPage
}

fragment helpersCheckIfNewsSectionInFirstIndexSection on Section {
  name
}

fragment helpersCheckIsAmpEnabledArticle on Article {
  entityId
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  disableOffPlatformContent
  sponsorType
  published
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
}

fragment helpersCheckIsLiveArticle on Article {
  flattenTypeIds
  liveArticle {
    status
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsMainTopicContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPlusArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ... on Article {
    paywallTypes {
      entityUuid
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPlusPage on Page {
  urlAlias
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle on Article {
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle on Article {
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostiesPage on Page {
  urlAlias
}

fragment helpersCheckIsStyleArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersGetArticleTypeArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ... on Article {
    types {
      value {
        entityId
        id
      }
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter on Newsletter {
  entityId
  name
  alternativeName
  description {
    text
  }
  summary {
    text
  }
  homepageDescription {
    text
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizeArticleTypeEntityIdsArticle on Article {
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizeAuthorTypesArticle on Article {
  authors {
    types
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizedAuthorEntityIdsArticle on Article {
  authors {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersSectionContent on Section {
  fullSectionPath {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersStyleSectionContent on Section {
  fullSectionPath {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersUseContentSponsorContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    sponsor {
      ...sponsorTagSponsor
      name
      type
      id
    }
    id
  }
  ... on Article {
    sponsorType
  }
  ...helpersCheckIsMainTopicContent
}

fragment hooksArticleDateUtilsContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  createdDate
  publishedDate
  updatedDate
}

fragment hooksArticleSeoArticle on Article {
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  ...hooksContentHeadlineTagContent
  ...helpersCheckIsAmpEnabledArticle
  entityId
  headline
  socialHeadline
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  authors {
    entityId
    id
  }
  images {
    generic_og: style(filter: {style: "og_image_scmp_generic"}) {
      url
    }
    styles(filter: {styles: ["og_image_posties_article", "og_postmag", "og_image_style", "og_image_scmp_analysis", "og_image_scmp_explainer", "og_image_scmp_editorial", "og_image_scmp_fact_check", "og_image_scmp_debate", "og_image_scmp_live", "og_image_scmp_obituary", "og_image_scmp_opinion", "og_image_scmp_review", "og_image_scmp_series", "og_image_scmp_generic"]}) {
      url
      style
    }
    type
  }
  urlAlias
}

fragment hooksContentHeadlineTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  __typename
  ... on Article {
    types {
      value {
        name
        entityId
        description {
          text
        }
        id
      }
    }
    ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  }
  flag
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  ...hooksContentHelperContent
}

fragment hooksContentHelperContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...helpersSanitizeArticleTypeEntityIdsArticle
  ...helpersSanitizeAuthorTypesArticle
  ...helpersSanitizedAuthorEntityIdsArticle
  flag
}

fragment hooksPaywallPromiseContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
}

fragment hooksTrackPageViewArticle on Article {
  entityId
  publishedDate
  headline
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  urlAlias
  authors {
    name
    id
  }
  entityUuid
}

fragment imageContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  headline
  ...checkersCheckContentContainsStarlingImageContent
}

fragment inlineWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...contentNewsletterWidgetContent
}

fragment mainImagePrintArticleArticle on Article {
  images {
    title
    url
    isSlideshow
    size_652x446: style(filter: {style: "652x446"}) {
      url
    }
  }
}

fragment photoGalleryDialogContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  __typename
  ...contentShareWidgetContent
}

fragment photoGalleryWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...photoGalleryDialogContent
}

fragment scmpYoutubeContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  urlAlias
  publishedDate
}

fragment sponsorTagSponsor on Sponsor {
  name
  type
  images {
    url
  }
}


sections

types

disableOffPlatformContent

sponsorType

published

headline

socialHeadline

authors

images

publishedDate

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

keywords

topics

readingTime

authorLocations

entityUuid

Bloomberg

Arcadia Kim devoted her career to video games, until one hit her in the face. The incident happened several years ago when Kim, a former studio operating chief at Electronic Arts Inc, was trying to peel away her then 10-year-old son from a game of Minecraft. He threw the iPad at her in frustration.
Kim, 48, said the experience inspired her to start a business in 2019 advising parents on forming healthy relationships between their kids and their screens. The work took on greater urgency this year when the World Health Organization began formally recognising video game addiction as an illness for the first time.
Among gamers and parents and even within the medical community, there’s disagreement about whether gaming addiction is real. Either way, the WHO’s designation could provide a boon to Kim and other businesses like hers. Dozens of consultants operate in the US alone, as well as an assortment of apps, camps, self-help books and treatment centers.
Why does the Chinese government hate video games?
A diagnosis of addiction is based on a series of symptoms, according to the WHO. They include a lack of control over the impulse to play video games, a tendency to prioritise it at the expense of other interests or obligations and continued or escalated involvement despite experiencing negative consequences.
Studies offer varying conclusions, in part due to disagreements over how to define addiction, but they typically show the illness in 2 per cent to 3 per cent of people who play games. A similar condition called gaming disorder is more prevalent in the population than compulsive gambling but less than compulsive shopping, estimated Matthew Stevens of the University of Adelaide in Australia.
Achieving recognition was a years-long process. WHO member states voted in 2018 to add it to the organisation’s disease classification list, which helps standardise health reporting and tracking worldwide. The change didn’t go into effect until last month, a lag designed to give the health care industry time to prepare.
Yet, the debate rages on among behavioural scientists. Some therapists argue the American Psychiatric Association should follow the WHO and acknowledge gaming addiction. The effort would require proposals and academic papers. The last time the association classified a new addiction was in 2013, when it added gambling, said Paul Appelbaum, chair of the APA committee in charge of making such designations. Changes come slowly and “really need to be backed up by data if they’re going to be widely accepted,” he said.
A broad recognition of the disorder would have legal ramifications. “It would make it more difficult for courts to exclude experts who testify on video gaming addiction,” said Matt Bergman, an Oregon lawyer who has filed lawsuits against social media companies on behalf of teenagers.

In Kim’s line of work, she often deals with people who overindulge in games, but she’s reluctant to use the word addiction. “It has a very specific meaning,” said Kim, who advises parents through her consultancy Infinite Screentime. “Let’s not turn it into something it’s not.”
Before her son hit her in the face with an iPad, Kim spent almost a decade at Electronic Arts, the publisher of Apex Legends, FIFA and Madden. She was COO of the Los Angeles studio, where she helped publish a Lord of the Rings game, oversaw development of the war games Medal of Honor Airborne and Command and Conquer 3 and worked on the Sims 2. She’s proud of her time there.
But there are aspects of Kim’s work that she still contemplates to this day. She compares part of her job to a novelist crafting a suspenseful plot or a television writer creating a cliffhanger for the end of an episode. The goal was to ensure the games were hard to put down. “The more I was able to hook people, bring them into the world, bring something people could escape to – the better I was at that, the more successful I was at my job,” she said.
EA said it offers various parental control options to facilitate healthy habits for kids and ran an ad campaign in the UK to raise awareness of these tools. “Game play must be balanced with responsible play, and we take seriously our role in ensuring parents are empowered and aware of all the resources available to help them make the right decisions for their families,” Chris Bruzzo, the company’s chief experience officer, said in an emailed statement.


Developers at EA also spent considerable amounts of time strengthening what’s known as the compulsion loop, Kim said. Fine-tuning certain techniques can help draw players back, using such tools as a point system, character upgrades, extra lives and ample surprises. Many of the principles were laid out in a 2001 essay, Behavioral Game Design, by one of the industry’s most renowned researchers, John Hopson, whose credits include Microsoft Corp’s Halo 3.
Kim left Los Angeles in 2006 for South Korea and consulted for an EA studio there for two years. She now lives in Hong Kong. The iPad incident took place on a trip back to LA in 2017. The family was staying with Kim’s brother, Bernard Kim, the president of Zynga Inc, itself the creator of many enthralling games such as FarmVille. (He said he supports his sister’s work.) Kim had rounded up her two young daughters for an outing but couldn’t find her son. She suspected he was in active violation of the family rule limiting daily screen time to 20 minutes. Then she discovered him in a guest bedroom, a screen’s glow gently illuminating the covers he was hiding under. The ensuing outburst left her in tears, face stinging, slumped on the floor of a nearby bathroom.
Kim concluded that her limits were unreasonably tight, borne out of a sense of guilt about her prior professional work on games and fear over their power. She was unintentionally creating an association of shame with her son’s interest in the medium. Now Kim tries to embrace her children’s hobby. “My son gets so excited when he talks about his Minecraft world,” she said.
For clients of Infinite Screentime, Kim advises parents to play video games with their children and encourages kids to decide how long a game session should last before it starts and plan for intermissions. Kim also tells clients about the compulsion loop and how to recognise the hooks. People dislike being manipulated, she said, and simple awareness of the strategy helps control the impulse to overdo it.


Debate about treating video game addiction continues despite status as WHO-recognised illness

Arcadia Kim, founder of Infinite Screentime, plays Minecraft with her daughters in Hong Kong on February 19, 2022. Photo: Bloomberg

Arcadia Kim plays Minecraft with her daughters on February 19, 2022. Photo: Bloomberg

Tech

Policy

Tech Trends


Parents and the medical community still disagree over whether gaming addiction is real, but it is said to affect 2 to 3 per cent of gamers
The effects of gaming addiction include a lack of control over the impulse to play video games and prioritising it at the expense of other obligations



Parents and the medical community still disagree over whether gaming addiction is real, but it is said to affect 2 to 3 per cent of gamers.


Video gaming

Mobile gaming

World Health Organization (WHO)

Technology

Debate about treating video game addiction continues despite status as WHO-recognised illness

Parents and the medical community still disagree over whether gaming addiction is real, but it is said to affect 2 to 3 per cent of gamers The effects of gaming addiction include a lack of control over the impulse to play video games and prioritising it at the expense of other obligations

Parents and the medical community still disagree over whether gaming addiction is real, but it is said to affect 2 to 3 per cent of gamers

The effects of gaming addiction include a lack of control over the impulse to play video games and prioritising it at the expense of other obligations