My life on the Fortnite frontline
The addictive game is threatening family life, says Helena Pozniak, as she explores the extreme measures taken by parents
Today, the gaming remotes are in the fridge behind the vegetables. Yesterday, they were in the bathroom cupboard. My friend hides hers in her knicker drawer – she knows teenage boys will never dare venture there. This is to exert some semblance of control over our children’s gaming. And later, it’s oh… at least 10 minutes until I crack.
This is Fortnite, one of the most successful games ever. So much has it upset family life, it’s even made it onto the Today programme. Since last July, it’s been downloaded 40million times. The survival game is brilliant, multi-layered and utterly addictive.
Left to their own devices, my two youngest might never, I mean never, switch it off. I’ve heard this many times from many parents. One father this week talked about finding his primary school aged daughter sitting on a urine-soaked cushion because she didn’t want to go for a lavatory break during her 10-hour gaming sessions.
It sounds extreme, but I fear stories like this will be increasingly common. Parents I know who started out being bamboozled by this new obsession, are being driven to their own outbursts of “Fortnite fury”, as they desperately try to pry their children off their “just let me finish this” (endless) game.
I’ve personally smashed our games console against the wall. It didn’t break. But I’ve read of parents removing the fuse from the Xbox, or hurling the whole thing out of the window.
My eldest son, now 17, spent his early teens outside with his mates. He can take it or leave it. My daughter, 16, looks on, bemused. But my youngest boys, aged 14 and 11, often don’t want to leave the house. Mealtimes pass in a blur, homework is done in a jiffy and even if they hide it well, I know they’re desperate to return to the game.
Thanks to a not-so-easy-to-use online control, we can switch it off remotely at fixed times, which we do every day, first to howls of anguish and now, finally, acceptance. They’re still active, funny, lively and love kicking a ball about and yes, they giggle and chat when they game, too, but this just isn’t how I imagined family life. Weekends begin and end with Fortnite.
We haven’t yet come to blows. But in the gaming world, it’s perfectly normal for children to smash controllers in anger, and I know just how they feel. Mention Fortnite to any parent and you’ll get an empathetic eye-roll. One friend makes her son do a park run before he can play. Another has to tidy his room. Another banned her son for a month for some transgression. But temporary injunctions seem to have a similar effect to dieting – it makes them crave it even more.
Until just over a year ago, we didn’t even have a console. Family life wasn’t The Waltons, but it wasn’t the war zone of today – with perpetual negotiation, confrontation and disappointment.
When they play, they do so online with friends, bellowing commands and insults through the microphone. “You idiot” is as polite as it gets. When they meet in real life, they’re still in the game, discussing tactics, details that sound real.
When Tina bought her 15-year-old an Xbox last Christmas, he had to sign a contract. He has to stick to set times and ask for the controller. If he exceeds his hours or swears, she takes it away.
“We’ve had fights, but now he accepts it. I’m his parent, not his friend. But I know other parents who have completely lost control.”
Games are more exciting than books, than friends, and certainly more than parents. But they’re too much fun, says therapist Sally Baker, who counsels gaming addicts. “It’s sensory overload,” she says. “They create unnatural highs and compelling behaviour. Children don’t have the mental capacity to deal with that situation. It’s toxic.”
As The Daily Telegraph’s Duty of Care campaign has shown, research from California State University found that excessive use of games and social media can have a marked effect upon young brains. MRI scans have revealed that the impulsive part of the brain – the amygdala-striatal system – is not only more sensitive, but also smaller in young, excessive users, so it processed stimuli faster. Further studies suggested that teenaged heavy gamers might be more prone to develop addictions.
All this is alarming, but how much is too much? Working with the NSPCC, The Telegraph is asking the Government to hold social media and technology firms to account, provide a duty of care to young users, and recognise the negative fallout technology can have.
Ms Baker suggests going cold turkey: “Time limits don’t seem to be helpful. Remember, manufacturers in Silicon Valley won’t let their kids play, because, when they’re gaming, they’re not interacting with peers or parents in a natural way. They are becoming robotic and hyper-charged. And we can’t expect them to understand the consequences.” It takes 21 days to break addiction and carve new habits.
Their addictive nature is making it harder for parents to parent. We are a long way from our own childhoods, when it was as simple as turning off the TV and slinging children out of the house, telling them not to come back before teatime.
When a friend asked her husband to help control on her son’s gaming, he ended up playing, too. These games hook you in and won’t let you go. This makes it even harder for parents to interest a child in anything else. But it’s vital that we try.
Experts advise parents to deploy their remaining powers and unplug screens regularly. Who knows, they might rediscover the joys of day trips, or hanging out with friends also turfed off their consoles.
We signed our son up for a week of watersports – he’d rather have been gaming, but at least we could relax knowing he’d been outside all day.
Total resistance, however, feels futile. Most parents, like ourselves, eventually worn down by pester power and peer pressure, caved and bought a console. We never wanted our children to play, but this stuff is everywhere. One parent I know had resisted until her son got into gaming at his primary school’s club, another laments the fact that she can’t even turn off the Wi-fi because her son’s coursework is set via worksheets that can only be accessed online.
“It’s like putting cigarettes in front of a smoker and telling them on no account can he touch them. If he’s in front of a screen for homework, he’s quickly going to want to scratch the itch to game, too.”
Manufacturers and internet providers could do far more to make it easier to control devices in the home as the current tools are unwieldy and inaccessible. In the meantime, thousands of parents are, like us, bumping along with not enough control, along with a gnawing anxiety that gaming will soon replace real life.