How Mobile Game Addiction Harms the Kids – The Way to Stop the Addiction

There’s been a dramatic increase in the mobile phone usage among the kids. Matter-of-factly, they spend every single moment of their leisure time and even the time that’s meant for more important things in playing around their phones. Mobile based games form one of the biggest reasons behind such a habit.

According to psychiatrist Michael Brody, MD, addiction to Internet and mobile based games is quite the same as addiction to substances. Once a person gets habitual of gaming, he or she will not live without it, just the way an alcoholic won’t live without the dose of alcohol.

Another psychologist, Kimberly Young, suggests that it works the same way as compulsive gambling does and names it as clinical impulse control disorder. So, if your child is continuously playing online games and feels miserable when it is not available, you can be sure that things aren’t working the right way – in other words, your child has got addicted.

Any idea why kids get so involved in these?

They are easily available as digital downloads

Your child loves certain games and just can’t live without playing them? Now, if he or she comes to you whining for it, you’ll surely not get one, simply because you think that it wastes the time or eats away a good amount of time. But your child is really smart and so is the digital technology! Your child will get the thing through digital download!

Mobile storefronts offer them at easy prices

Wondering who is going to pay for them? Here too, your child has better plans as mobile storefronts offer them at really easy prices. And they are so many of them that your child doesn’t have to worry about getting bored with just one or two of them!

Some of them are available as free-to-play option

Free-to-play option further eases up your child’s price burden. One can easily get the games like Subway Surfers, Temple Run, Candy Crush Saga, and so on for free on sites like Google Play and other. However, some of them are available only on ‘Freemium’ policy that offers only certain part or till certain number of levels of the game for free or the free availability is only for a certain period of time. Once, the free availability is over, your child needs to pay for availing the game further or get on to next levels.

They are interactive and interesting

Doubtlessly, they are super interesting and once you form a habit of playing, you just can’t think of living without them at all! And if you pick up the multi-player and role-playing online games, they are insanely addictive! Once your child starts up playing them, there is no chance giving them up! Their interactive quality makes them extremely popular and of course, very engaging.

They prove great option to stay connected to the social networks

There are several gaming sites that offer social networking options too, this way they give more opportunity to interact with the fellow players. Various social networking sites such as Facebook also offer interactive multi-player games that keep kids busy with their devices all day long.

Apart from getting too indulgent in such addictive activities, there are other troubles too. One also has to face some or other kind of dangers either because of excessive usage or because of following unsafe ways.

Take a look at some of the possible issues that may turn up if your child is too obsessed with the digital entertainment.

Education gets overlooked

Kids spend all their time in gaming and give up studying in the process. This results in neglected education, overlooked development, and poor grades in the term end tests and other exams. If this continues for longer, it can even spoil the entire career of the kid.

Kids often come in touch with wrong people

As multi-player type online gaming is more popular among the kids, they often befriend wrong type of people. Say, your child groups up with drug consuming crowd or starts smoking or drinking alcoholic drinks because of the company of bad crowd.

Vulnerability increases

Kids are really vulnerable on gaming sites and even while simply downloading some app on their mobile phone. First, there are online predators that purposely come to these sites to allure the innocent kids and prey on them for gratifying their insincere sexual desires. Second, some sites offer free digital downloads on the mobile phones that also save with them all the confidential information from the users and some even affect the handheld with virus attack.

Over expenditure

Since, all the games are not available for free and some are free only till some of their levels. Once, the player crosses those levels, one has to spend some amount to buy the next levels. And an addict never realizes the pros and cons of such expenses, thus, if your child is already an obsessive player, you’re bound to face over expenditure.

Tips that parents can teach their kids for safer use and stop them from being obsessively involved

Always check the rating

Your child may plead for any app or plaything available online or on the mobile storefronts but you mustn’t spoil the kid by fulfilling all the demands. Always check the ratings and also go through some of the review sites to make sure that the thing is really fit for your child.

Let your child learn why it is important to protect identity

Don’t allow your child to give real name, address, and pictures or go for voice chat with strangers online. Let your child know why it is not safe to give identity online and how one has to keep it safe by using special display names, avatars, or made up pictures and not giving information to strangers.

Restrict the play time

By restricting the play time, you’ll be able to help your child study well and concentrate on other important things. This is necessary for improving studies and performance in education and other activities such as games and hobbies. If you’re planning to ban the usage completely, you’re going to do one of the biggest mistakes as this will never work. Moreover, such a plan will make your child tell lies and keep secrets and continue doing things without your knowledge. Thus, it will be better to talk to your child and agree upon a certain amount of time and a proper restriction scheme.

Teach your child to handle difficult situation and wrong people

Kids, when playing online, may have to face predators, interfering strangers, bullying fellow players, or just anybody who tries to harm them. Surely, you will do your best to keep your child safe; yet, you won’t be able to be with your child all the time. Thus, it is important that you educate him or her about the kind of troubles and people that may come up while getting into any kind of gaming escapade.

Enable parental monitoring on the devices

Parental monitoring software will let you keep a close watch over all the sites that your child visits and the things that he or she downloads on the device. With a proper knowledge of what your child is up to, you’ll be able to guide him or her in a much better way as well as let you restrict and discipline your child properly. This also makes things easier for you as you won’t have to do anything manually. All the information will get registered and saved up in your special account from where you can access it any time. Further, these apps work under complete stealth; thus, your child will never get to know that you’re keeping an eye on all the activities that are taking place on the device. So, there won’t be any arguments between you and your child, though you’ll know about everything that he or she tries to hide from you.

Reference:

http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/features/video-game-addiction-no-fun