Young teens now hooked on gaming
Irish students ‘going on 24-hour binges’ and ‘dropping out of school’
PSYCHIATRISTS have started to treat young teenagers in Ireland for gaming addiction.
Last year the World Health Organisation made it official that digital games can be addictive and those addicted to them need help.
In extreme cases where young teenagers are addicted to gaming, they can be locked into a virtual world for 12 to 15 hours a day and can go on binges of 24 hours.
Dr Gerry McCarney, consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist, has revealed that he has started to see a handful of Irish cases of young teenagers with what the WHO classed as gaming disorder.
He said: ‘We have seen some cases, not a lot, but we have seen some. They are cases that are being referred specifically for what you might term excessive online gaming. I’d expect to see more of this.
‘There can be periods where if they’ve had some sleep they might game for the day, game through the night and game all the next day. There would be occasions in a binge pattern where they would go over 24 hours. There is a discussion as to whether this is an addiction or not. The bottom line is you are seeing people engaging in a behaviour past the point where it becomes a problem and it is causing difficulties in their lives and they are unable to stop despite ongoing harm.
‘That in a nutshell is what addiction is about.’ Dr McCarney, who works in addiction services in Dublin, admitted that some teenagers he has treated have dropped out of school. He said: ‘At the moment there is no drug treatment in relation to gaming disorder so it’s about cognitive behavioural therapy approach in trying to challenge the logical reasons they have for staying with the gaming even though they can see the difficulties. There’s the health reasons, the family relations issues, the dropping out of school. It’s about engaging with them, essentially trying to broker a compromise.’ But Dr McCarney did caution against over-medicalising the use of the internet. He said: ‘There are people who will play games from time to time but won’t let it take over their life, but there will be a minority for which it will become a problem.’