Gaming is a new malady affecting kids worldwide and though it isn’t new literally, the latest concepts of gaming creating the problem are definitely an upcoming dangerous trend. Interactive games.
Multiplayer gaming and action games with their photorealistic animation like “Fortnite” have well and truly trapped youngsters even as low as seven to nine, teens and those in their early twenties to a point where even the World Health Organization has issued a statement about gaming disorder. The latest extreme example is of a nine year old in Britain who even wet herself playing 24 hours a day because she wouldn’t go to the toilet. But it gets worse and shocking because she had to be put into rehab.
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The nine-year-old girl a primary student whose name has been withheld was addicted to the game “Fortnite” playing it for almost 10 hours a day and sometimes throughout the night. Her father reached his limit of his endurance when he found a urine soaked cushion she was sitting on. What she did next when he tried stopping her was crazy.
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When her father tried to stop her by taking away her X Box, she lashed out at him and even tried hitting him. Her mother stated in an interview “'My husband saw her light on in the night and found her sitting on a urine-soaked ¬cushion playing the game, she was so hooked to the game she wouldn't even go to the toilet.'
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The little girl has now been put into intensive therapy to fight her addiction for playing the survival game “Fortnite.” She was so obsessed by it that she would secretly play the game at night and would not even get up to go to the toilet preferring to wet herself right there on her cushion. She was also observed repeatedly dozing off at school.
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The parents of the girl had purchased an Xbox in July but little did they know that she would soon become addicted to a game that is being touted as the latest in gaming. Her addiction made her wet herself because she just could not bring herself to move away from the screen. Her mother said “We had no idea when we let her play the game, of the ¬addictive nature or the impact it could have on her mental health.”
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Before her addiction, the girl was a keen sportswoman but soon her parents noticed she was always tired and stopped her gym and ballet classes. She even avoided going to church every Sunday with her family. The parents soon got worried about her behavior when they were called to the school. Her teacher reported that she had started getting bad grades and falling off to sleep in school.
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As if her addiction to gaming wasn’t enough, she also started spending money because of it. Her father started receiving notifications of credit card payments to Microsoft for playing the game. It seems they had finally reached the end of their patience and decided to do something about it. She was son placed in intensive therapy to help her get out of the obsession.
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Fortnite is a popular multiplayer shooter game with high end photorealistic animation. Launched by epic games in 2017, it also doled out a free version in 2018. Since then the game has seen 40 million downloads with children as young as 6 and seven being targeted as an audience.
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The most popular gaming format in Fortnite is the battle Royale where almost 100 players combat each other until there is one winner. While youngsters are going into therapy because of it, the owners are reaping exceptional profits to the tune if almost 500,000 pounds a month from live streams for children to watch. Can you believe that?? It’s like a milder version of the movie death race. Culture secretary Matt Hancock has also issued a warning saying that online shooting games are damaging children.
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When the girl was confronted about her obsession, she lashed out at her father, but when she realized she couldn’t do anything to intimidate them she confessed that she had been staying up at night till 5 am when they were asleep. She also admitted to using her father’s credit card to purchase extras to boost her performance.
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The parents felt the last resort was to put her into therapy. After consulting an addiction counselor, and private psychotherapy sessions were arranged for her. Thankfully she is now slowly getting her life back on track. But this is one girl; experts feel that there are thousands of children out there suffering similar if not worse addictions because of overexposure to violent and addictive video games.
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The World Health Organization or WHO has issued a statement on their website outlining the problem as gaming disorder. ‘Gaming' is defined as 'a pattern of gaming behavior characterized by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences.'
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WHO also outlines the requirements for diagnosing gaming disorder defining a victim as one who had been gaming for a year and experiencing impairment in various functions of family and social life including dysfunctional behavior in education, society and occupation?
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WHO advises that people gaming should be mindful about their hours of gaming and that it should not impact daily activity. Gamers should also be alert to their own psychological and physical changes where health and social behavior is concerned. Negative changes are due to the adverse effects of gaming obsession.
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