Children addicted to video games ran away from home in the middle of the night to find WiFi when parents turned their internet connection off, says expert::Children have been found sitting by the front door of random homes, desperately trying to tap into the owner’s WiFi connection.
Have video games now been found addictive by professional psychologists — the only people qualified to make that determination? Last I heard, “technology addiction” was a myth promulgated by abusive “boot camp” operators who were practicing unlicensed mental health care (i.e. scams, and dangerous ones at that).
Those microtransactions-laden mobile games employs a whole stack of evil tricks to make sure their users got addicted and can’t miss even a single day not playing.
I’m sure those kids sneaking out of home to find wifi aren’t doing so to play Mario Kart. They’re probably playing one of those free to play mobile games.
No doubt some games manipulate users to increase engagement. This is not addiction. I wouldn’t presume to speculate which games these kids play.
You could make the same ridiculous reductionist statement about casinos.
Are you claiming that the statement is incorrect? Or did you just feel the need to show off an ad hominem fallacy?
There can be mental addictions, but older generations don’t tend to care unless it’s something they don’t like.
I don’t feel like I was addicted to games growing up, but I know I was using them for escapism. Nobody from the outside would have looked any farther than “you spend X amount a day playing games”, and ignore why I felt the need for it.
Too many self important people act like addiction is a personal failing when it’s usually somone trying to find some relief in a society that has failed them.
Addictions are, by definition, mental. They are also complex and multifaceted phenomena with myriad causes and expression.
I’m sorry that you felt failed by society. I hope things are better now.
For me it was that I didn’t have the information I needed to process what I was feeling and deal with what was wrong. I didn’t have the language to even describe that something was wrong.
I know many others in my situation that ended up with worse coping mechanisms in the same circumstance. Heavy drinking and drug use is common in the community.
That said, addictions can be physical. There’s a reason you have to ween people off of certain substances because withdrawal can kill them.