Wars, action, shooting, fighting, violence…These are the main themes present in video games occupying our children’s attention. By doing that, these games suck them into a new, virtual life and, ultimately, game addiction.

From the age of seven, schoolchildren sit in front of the computer playing games for hours. That’s why experts warn of the danger of spreading a new type of disease – game addiction.

This was highlighted in a recent webinar held by the World Health Organization.

The question is, should we treat this problem as an electronic drug or not?

How Does Game Addiction Take Root?

Playing video games at the beginning happens spontaneously, as a leisure activity. Player’s skills then improve with more time they spend in the game world. They manage to discover tricks that will enable them to keep achieving better results that act as a further hook. As a player with a large number of points climbs on the ranking lists, the feeling of success and power keeps increasing as well.

All this causes admiration from other players who, for various reasons like the lack of skill or time, cannot achieve such good results in the game. The addiction process goes through a “snowball” effect and keeps getting more out of hand as it increasingly dominates the player’s time and attention. Soon, control over the entire act of playing games is lost, and the euphoria and excitement during the game become greater.

Wanting to achieve even better results, the player spends more and more time behind the screen. This creates psychological dependence, the basis of which is the feeling of victory and success. Even when not playing a game, the player thinks of new tactics and devices that could improve the gaming experience. The obsession with the virtual world turns all activities in the same direction, towards the world of video games.

How to Recognize Game Addiction?

If your child doesn’t care about the real world, playing with friends, going to the park or the cinema, you have a reason to worry. Furthermore, if the child is irritable and, has a bad attention span, and throws a fit when you separate them from the computer – then they already belong to the category of “addicts”.

When you look at the facts from this angle, experts say that there is no dilemma. Video games create addiction and it needs serious attention because addiction leads to illness.

The reason for creating this detrimental habit lies in the fact that video games encourage aggression, the clear boundary between reality and imagination is lost, and as with other illnesses, obligations are ignored.

To top it all off, there are in-game purchases, and it often happens that children steal their parents’ credit cards to pay for it. Statistics show that children in the 13-17 age bracket make 34% of in-game purchases in modern gaming.

The Role Of the Parent

Parents play a very important role in their children’s lives. That’s why WHO recommends au.reachout.com as a website where you can read more about many issues your child may be experiencing, one of them being addiction. Parents need to set boundaries, rules and structures. Their online safety starts from home, it starts with you! But so do bad habits, unfortunately…

Game addiction starts with the parents wanting a little free time for themselves. The little one is at first interested in the TV, and then the computer. If a child has an older brother or sister, addiction can begin from the earliest age.

Video games “swallow” free time, endanger the health of children, reduce school performance and increase the amount of negative energy.

It is important to inform parents that violent computer games promote pathological conditions in children which manifests in the form of peer violence, cyberbullying, and the impossibility of self-control of anger.
After growing up, children with addiction issues become insensitive to normal communications. They all run away from reality.

What Can Parents Do?

Although turning off the computer is the ideal solution, it’s often not the easiest. Forcing the child away from the computer might turn them towards their smartphone, which can, in the end, stimulate other forms of addiction. It’s much better to offer them a more interesting alternative, seeing how they often turn to games to have fun.

The only recommendation to parents is to dedicate time to their child.

Parents must find ways to offer the child different content to prevent them from sitting in front of TVs and computers. The most important thing is to give them time and attention.
Talk to your kid, keep an eye on them, think of fun activities – play board games, go to the park, take them on a playdate with their friends. All this will distract them from the computer, prevent game addiction, and teach them about the important things in life.

Do You Have a Problem You Want to Talk About?

Is there anything bothering you? Do you feel like you can’t stop playing games, or you like a girl or a boy from school but don’t know if they like you back? Even you’re simply having a bad day, you can always count on headspace to help you!

Headspace provides online and phone counseling to teenagers, young adults and their families living in Australia. They created a safe space for you to talk about anything and they are available 7 days a week, 9 am-1 am Melbourne time.

You can chat with their clinicians individually or join a group chat where you can talk to people with similar issues.

Don’t hesitate to ask for help!

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Online Computer Coaching 

Online Computer training is for beginners to advanced – to learn to use effortlessly all forms of computer software.

Zoe’s career history has been steeped in education, mentoring, business, innovative technologies and health. She has strong capabilities in coaching and empathic mentoring to inspire, motivate and empower all types of people. Zoe will teach you to learn to learn skills in:-

WordPress, video editing, Microsoft & Apple software, online & social media platforms. Together we create a learning plan, goals & outcomes.

We believe in training people to spend less time in stress in front of screens and more time for a healthy life.

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