While playing video games as part of your leisure time is one thing, to be obsessed with them to the point that one runs away from their home is too much. As per an expert, young gamers are addicted to the point where they resort to leaving their homes in the middle of the night. In 2020, a UK clinic was set up for the purpose of helping out with video game addiction. Initially, the clinic intended to help 50 people per year. However, since it was formed, the clinic has received more than 850 referrals.
As per a piece written by Prof. Henrietta Bowden-Jones, director of the National Centre for Gaming Disorders, for The Guardian, young adults majorly suffer from this gaming disorder. Prof. Jones said, “The pattern of harm often starts with a change of circumstance: it may be a move between schools or a change of home, and therefore a geographical distancing from real-life friends.” This change may also include a growing distance from family or any issue with friends, like bullying.
According to Jones, most of the patients are “young and male,” and they are around the age-group of 16–17 years old. It is not the case that these young people are falling behind academically or in any other aspect of their lives, but maybe something happens suddenly and that disrupts their journey.
“I have met parents whose young children ran away from home in the middle of the night to find wifi on the steps of random homes when their own internet connection was switched off by parents,” asserted Prof. Jones. She further asserted that she had met such children who would rather be dead than “not gaming” and expressed the same to their parents. Moreover, Jones added, “Doors, objects, possessions, things get broken in fits of rage. Sometimes people get hurt.”
As per a study carried out by Kyle A. Fausta and Judith J. Prochaska, there are nine characteristics that define the internet gaming disorder. Out of this, five must appear in the initial 12 months.
As the former director of the National Problem Gambling Clinic, Bowden-Jones became more conscious of the “compulsive and destructive manner” in which kids were spending money on games.
Loot boxes are common in games; they often contain unidentified things that can be acquired through further gameplay or by using real money or in-game currency. With one axe costing $178 in microtransactions when it was introduced, video game makers EA and Respawn have come under fire for the costly loot boxes in Apex Legends.
Adding further, Prof. Jones expressed, “To spend money, these children need to borrow money from parents or use monetary gifts received for birthdays and Christmas. The need for money is at the root of some of the domestic violence we see.”
Not long ago, a 13-year-old child in China was found to have spent 120,000 yuan (approximately Rs 13,93,000) on purchasing games. As her father confronted her, she further revealed that she had spent 210,000 yuan (approximately Rs 24,39,000) on in-game purchases and 100,000 yuan (approximately Rs 11,61,000) on buying games for her classmates. The child’s teacher had warned the parents that their child might be addicted, and that is when the mother checked the account that her daughter was using.
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While expanding on this menace of taking money for gaming, Bowden-Jones said, “When no money is available, the most impulsive patients have stolen it by spending on their parents’ bank cards.” According to the professor, “almost no one” at the clinic had both a gaming and gambling problem. Research is still required to determine whether gambling disorders can emerge in gamers.
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