MillenniumPost
Delhi

Online games addiction as real and dangerous as drug addiction, reveal experts

New Delhi: The online battle games keeping the youngsters glued to mobile screens till late at night also giving sleepless nights to parents and teens of Delhi.

With the increasing popularity of mulitplayer online games such as PUBG (Players Unknown Battleground) in the city, mental health professionals have sounded the alarm bells.

Last month, the WHO had designated 'gaming disorder' as illness and updated its International Classification of Diseases (ICD) to include it in the list of modern diseases.

Gaming addiction is as real and dangerous as drug addiction, experts reveals. The impact of these violent games, with high-quality graphic imagery, on the mental health of youngsters, especially children and teenagers, has forced even the World Health Organization (WHO) to take note.

The WHO last month designated 'gaming disorder' as illness and updated its International Classification of Diseases (ICD) to include it in the list of modern diseases.

"Teens between 15 to 19 years of age face various mental health effects from indulging in video games excessively. Firstly, they may develop violent behaviour as they play violent games. Repeated exposure to violence has a deleterious effect and the child might become completely desensitised to it, indulging in violence perceiving it to be normal behaviour. They train their brain in responding to real life issues with aggression towards their family and friends," Dr Anuneet Sabharwal, Delhi based renowed Psychiatrist.

According to the experts from AIIMS Psychiatrist department cited the case of Class X student, who went into depression because of continuously losing while playing PUBG.

He was playing more than four hours every day for the past 6 months and whenever he lost he locked himself in his room and wouldn't come out for hours. Thankfully, his parents spotted the changes in his behavior and brought him for counseling.

Another case that came to him was that of an undergraduate student who had suicidal thoughts because no one was ready to play the game with him, which led him to believe he was worthless and the only thought that came to his mind was of dying.

War games such as PUBG are facing severe criticism from mental health professionals in the city for being an unhealthy obsession among youngsters. The game has too much violence, they say.

Dr Sabarwal also added, "The line between the real world and fantasy blurs. Children may start imitating their online character, and display maladaptive behaviour towards others as a result of this lack of discrimination between real and virtual." He further informed that video game addiction is similar to drug addiction, in that it triggers and puts into overdrive, the same brain pathways as do drugs.

Last but not the least, children may start exhibiting awkward social behaviour in the social set up or family gathering. Since they are so heavily involved in their virtual world, they hardly have contact with the real world, and either unlearn, or do not learn at all, normal social behaviour.

Experts from AIIMS further added that almost every day, 4 to 5 parents come to my clinic purely with the complaint of excessive use of mobiles by their kids even as young as 5 for over involvement in social media and games.

It is toxic for personal relationships. Many of the children are either in depression or have just disconnected themselves from the outer world."

"Anything that works on the brain that produces pleasure is addictive. It causes release of a neuro chemical called dopamine, which is a centre of drug of abuse causes," he explains.

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