WHY I’M WORRIED ABOUT . . .

COMPUTER GAMES: How can a nine-year-old girl become so addicted to the computer game Fortnite that she forgoes going to the loo and secretly sits up all night playing it?

Of course, youngsters have always been hooked on the latest ‘thing’. When my children were young, the fight was to limit the amount of TV they watched. The issue with this was straightforward: it kept them from playing outside.

Fortnite is more insidious: it’s been designed by experts to make youngsters want to play time after time, but what might this do to young brains? The problem is we just don’t know, but I think we urgently need to find out.