The National Health Service (NHS) in the U.K. has revealed it has been treating hundreds of children for video game addiction, with some even becoming violent towards their families, reported The Times.
The first NHS center for gaming disorders opened in October 2019 and has already dealt with 745 patients, including 327 people in 2022, and 220 patients in 2021. It's worth noting that the majority of those treated were teenage boys with an average age of 17, who usually receive 12 sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy as treatment.
What is exactly gaming addiction? The symptoms include a lack of control and gaming “taking precedence over other interests and daily activities” for at least a year, and it was classified as a mental health condition in 2018 by the World Health Organization.
“Sometimes out of frustration, the child is self-harming. I have seen a couple of children trying to strangle themselves with their own hands, saying they’d rather be dead than not game,” Professor Henrietta Bowden-Jones, psychiatrist and founding director of the NHS gaming disorders center, told The Times.
“Often children are not going to school or attending sporadically. They are not focusing because they’re not sleeping because they’re gaming. These children are gaming 12 to 14 hours a day. The police are getting called out regularly to these homes,” she added.
Microsoft Corp.'s MSFT Minecraft, Epic Games' Fortnite, Electronic Arts Inc.'s EA FIFA and Activision Blizzard Inc ATVI Call of Duty are among the 68 games recorded as being used by those seeking treatment, with no single game standing out as leading to addiction.
Problems frequently arise when children use live multiplayer gaming platforms, enabling them to remain online all night with strangers from around the globe in various time zones. Children referred to the clinic have often previously excelled academically or at sports but then “suddenly transfer their competitive nature to gaming.”
The NHS is encouraging parents not to take away gaming consoles, as total abstinence can lead to aggression. Parents going to the clinic have often previously tried to block access to the internet, or locked devices and gaming consoles away so that children will sleep.
“I had one very young child get up in the middle of the night and walk in the dark to his grandmother’s house where he knew the internet was not turned off,” Bowden-Jones recounted.
Lisa, the mother of Ryan, age 14, explained how the NHS helped her and her family overcome her child's gaming disorder: “Through both the group and individual sessions I felt listened to and I also learned some invaluable strategies for helping my child, which has made a real difference.”
Photo: Yuganov Konstantin on Shutterstock and NHS logo on Wikipedia
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