The following is a conversation I had with a teenager immersed
in a computer game.
Me: How long are you going to be with this game?
Teenager: (not looking away from the screen.) Huh?
Me: I said, how long are you going to be with this game
Teenager: Donno
Me: How long have you been on the computer?
Teenager: Donno
Not wanting to be a badgering adult I leave him alone and
return in half an hour
Me: It’s a lovely afternoon, do you want to go for a
little bike ride?
Teenager: Nope
Me: Do you want to call your friends then, and go out liming?
Teenager: Nope
Me: What do you want to do then?
Teenager: (eyes glazed over as the computer game’s 3
D sucks him into another world of which I play no part and
have little knowledge) Five minutes
Me: Five minutes for what?
Teenager: What did you say?
Me: (shouting now) Take off that thing. It’s turning
you into a zombie. Go outside and get some fresh air at least!
Teenager: Five minutes
Half an hour and a shouting match later, the teenager reluctantly
goes outdoors to join his family. For the entire period he
is absorbed by something on his cell phone, pushing buttons.
His eyes are watering. He barely seems aware of anyone around
him.
I start telling him about childhood—breezy days being
in and out of friends’ houses, biking aimlessly, climbing
trees, but his blank stare freezes me out.
To understand the force of his rage at being separated from
the computer/video games I go to Google, type in computer
addiction and came up with 30,600,000 sites. I gather from
the first its psychological symptoms include: Having a sense
of well-being or euphoria while at the computer; inability
to stop the activity; neglect of family and friends; feeling
empty, depressed, irritable when not at the computer; lying
to employers and family about activities, problems with school
or job.
The physical symptoms include:
Carpal tunnel syndrome; dry eyes; migraine headaches; back
aches; eating irregularities, such as skipping meals; failure
to attend to personal hygiene; sleep disturbances and change
in sleep pattern.
I was not alone. I read thousands of entries like the one
below:
My son plays online games and will play for 12 or 14 hours
straight, every single day if no one objects, playing from
the time he wakes up till he falls asleep in the early hours
of the morning. He’ll skip meals to play. He will wait
until we have gone to bed and then play games until 3 or 4
am. Of course he cannot get up at 7 am to go to school.
That electronic addiction is confirmed by a study conducted
at the Cyclotron Unit of Hammersmith Hospital in London where
researchers determined that playing video games triggers the
release of dopamine in the brain, the production of which
doubles during video game play.
The increase of the psychoactive chemical was roughly the
same as when a person is injected with amphetamines or the
attention-deficit disorder drug, Ritalin. This is the first
hard evidence that video game playing is addictive, “the
equivalent of a dose of speed.”
The panic sets in. Then I read. Like any addiction this one
can be treated. Parents have done it by setting strict limits
on times spent on electronic games to one hour a day, or only
on weekends. One fed-up set of parents took away all their
teenaged son’s electronic games. He was devastated, but
the parents substituted electronic time with homework, football
and socialising, which left him no spare time. As the teenager
became fit and learned social skills he revelled in his new
confidence and agreed to play games only occasionally at friends’
houses.
It’s ironic, I’m using the Internet on the computer
to find out how to conquer its addictive destructive power.
www.iramathur.org
