This post was originally made on my LinkedIn profile. If you would like to book a consultation with me for you or your child, please click the "Book a Session" button. 

Seems as though I’ve pissed off many important people in the #videogaming #videogamingindustry yesterday with my comments to a journalist on what I have seen clinically in my practice. I read the “article” myself last night when I went to visit my brother who buys the Sunday paper and I couldn’t see what the fuss was all about. To me the headline sounded quite bizarre. I don’t even know what “criminally let down” means but as you can see the headline was different according where you read the headline (online or offline, in Adelaide or in Sydney). See the same article but with a different headline.

Just to be clear, in clinical practice I do see domestic violence and I do see children on the dark web spending other people’s money on the dark web in the context of #gamingdisorder and #addiction . This type of behaviour is not displayed by a majority of gamers. As a psychiatrist, I see the most severe cases.

I am no better at predicting violence or criminal behaviour than the police. I am a child and adolescent psychiatrist, not the AFP. I’m not in the business of using operation Ironside and ANOM to find children on their computers enagaging in criminal activity. I am trying to help parents make sense of their child’s behaviour in the context of gaming disorder and gaming addiction.

What I have observed is that the video games industry is alive and well in Australia and growing rapidly, they are obviously producing something people want. They are receiving investment dollars and are being praised for creating jobs. Unfortunately, for some children they want it more badly than others. If people really want to whinge about my involvement in the headline...

I must WARN you it’s super boring and about some of the latest video gaming addiction imaging studies. The original interview asked about imaging studies which was the hook that was used to get the interview with me. But of course, brain imaging studies don’t sell as well as “criminally let down” or “violent criminals”. #mediawatch would have a field day I’m sure.

To date, my MRI brain imaging studies video has a total of 18 views on Youtube and probably even less on LinkedIn. Maybe I should take a lesson from the professionals on how to increase the number of views to my content. What do you think?