Gaming detox

Gurjot S Kaler

Somehow, I hadn’t realised how big a problem digital dependence could be. But, when I recently came across parents of a 15-year-old in my neighbourhood really worried about their son suffering from digital addiction, it was an eye opener. The child would spend a major part of the day on gaming. The parents realised the gravity of the problem when they could not get him off the hook. And this isn’t true for him alone. Worldover gaming addiction is a serious issue. While the WHO has called it a mental health disorder, more than 200 couples have got divorced in the UK over online gaming addiction.

Pokemon Go, Angry Birds, Candy Crush, Fortnite and now, PUBG (Players Unknown Battle Grounds). Not only teenagers, adults can also be seen spending more than 10 hours on their computers or mobile screens everyday as they continue to indulge in playing their favourite games online. As such, they start showing symptoms of excessive anxiety, depression, loneliness, aloofness and start withdrawing from the social reality of life. Slowly, they are unable to differentiate between real happenings in society and fake incidents of internet games.

While PUBG has been around for some time, championships are now being organised in Bengaluru and Mumbai. A PUBG-themed café opened in Jaipur recently. For the uninitiated, PUBG is a multiple partner online game, which can be played on the PC, mobile phones or playstations. As you start the game, you land on an island through a parachute and start your battle by collecting items such as clothes and weapons and then, killing others to finally survive as the ‘last man standing’. The size of the battlefield keeps shrinking in order to increase the lethal chances of causing more physical confrontation and violence between the players. Indeed, PUBG seems to be promoting the hidden anger, frustration and killing instinct of its players. Recently, a 15-year-old boy was reported to have killed his parents and sister in Delhi when he was asked to stop playing the game and rather concentrate on his studies.

It is surprising that the level of addiction of online games has reached highly dangerous levels in today’s times of high-speed internet and is now threatening to rupture the fabric of relationships, both intra-personal as well as inter-personal. Playing video games online is not in itself a bad or condemnable thing, but the problem arises as soon as it becomes an addiction and we start prioritising gaming over all other day-to-day activities.

It manifests into a serious disorder when we start skipping our meals, shunning office, bunking school and stop socialising in real life with friends and family and remain awake for long hours at night for the sake of playing games. Prolonged exposure to HEV (high-energy vision) or the blue light emitted by mobile phone screens has led to CVS (computer vision syndrome), damage to the retinal cells and loss of precious eyesight in children and adults alike.

Online games reward a player for killing others in the game and give a sadistic pleasure or pseudo-masculine ‘high’ to them by giving them a false feeling of being a ‘winner’, thus, satisfying their hunger for immediate sense of achievement. Many parents are now taking their children to digital detoxification clinics. However, much before the need for that arises, parents need to communicate with their children and adults on the negative consequences of spending too much time on online games. To help them evaluate their behaviour, they can be asked to keep a tab on the time spent on internet. Limit the screen time to 2 hours daily. Encourage them to step into their sports shoes and get involved in active physical games such as badminton, basketball, etc.

Games are meant for entertainment. You can’t allow them to ruin your lives.