Is your child glued to the computer screen?
Your child may be playing a lot of computer games, and researchers have now identified the most important warning signs.
Many children and teenagers play games such as Fortnite, Roblox and Minecraft a lot and often with known and unknown online players.
This can be a great way to socialize with friends and acquaintances. But it can get completely out of hand for some.
However, Lars Wichstrøm, a professor at NTNU’s psychology department, said: “When gaming over a long period of time affects the young person’s ability to relate to the outside world, this may be due to an addiction to computer games or ‘Internet gaming disorder.’
An international research group has studied how symptoms of video game addiction develop and to what extent these symptoms are stable from childhood to late adolescence.
Two factors were repeated across age and gender among those diagnosed with IGD: high involvement (lots of gaming) and negative consequences (harmful consequences).
“About one in ten boys met the diagnostic criteria for computer game addiction called ‘Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD)’ at least once between the ages of 10 and 18,” Wichstrøm revealed.
Boys are more easily addicted to games while only 1 to 2 percent of girls develop this type of problem. An overall average incidence of between 5 and 6 percent therefore hides large differences between the sexes.
“Boys are simply more competitive,” says Wichstrøm.
“We don’t really know why more boys are becoming addicted, but boys have always been more interested in games than girls, whether it’s computer games, Ludo or chess,” he added.
When boys and men do things together, it is often centered around one activity, such as soccer, carpentry, or playing. Girls don’t need this type of structure as much.
“The brain releases dopamine in its reward center when we engage in activities we enjoy, such as gaming. This release increases when we expect a positive experience and when the expectation is actually met,” says Beate W. Hygen, senior researcher at NTNU Social Research AS.
Parents who wonder if their child may become addicted to computer games would do well to remedy this as soon as possible.
“Children who become heavily involved in games as they approach adolescence are more likely to become even more involved later. They also experience negative consequences more often, especially between the ages of 14 and 18,” Wichstrøm emphasized.
