Psychiatrists remind that the World Health Organization declared video game addiction a disease in June 2018.Addiction experts have been warning for years that the number of people who spend more time in the virtual than in the real world is growing
What is seductive about video games is the fact that it does not require much engagement, and the feeling of reward and satisfaction is great. Games are easily accessed from a mobile phone, and a person does not have to put much effort to win(easy games)
Most children enjoy playing games more than playing football with their peers, because football requires physical effort. When you play a game in reality, sometimes you lose, sometimes you win and you are constantly exposed to criticism. If you play a video game, there are no witnesses to the defeat and it is easy to start again.the symptoms of video game addiction are identical to those of alcoholism or drug addiction. When a child is deprived of the thing with which he spends so much time, an abstinence crisis occurs, which manifests itself through anger and anxiety.
Addiction is not defined by the number of hours spent playing the game, but by the fact that other activities such as school, sports and socializing with peers "suffer" due to playing games. Parents usually sound the alarm when they realize that their child is seriously failing at school, and they are less worried about the fact that the children have become overweight and pale.
A young person who plays video games for ten hours a day is exhausted as if he had been training for ten hours, but an additional problem is the fact that he/she did not engage in physical activity, but was nailed to the screen for hours and probably took a bunch of snacks and energy drinks. In addition to school success, the emotional and social life of teenagers suffers - they have no girlfriends or friends and do not play sports.
The number of video game addicts has been growing since Android phones were launched because a computer used to be needed to play games. At that time, parents could more easily control their children's behavior because they could simply take the computer out of the room or unplug it. Today, a child moves everywhere with a phone in his hand and it is impossible to control what he does on it - because even when he goes to "sleep", he plays a game under the covers.
So..how much time should a child spend on the Internet? My answer is - a third of free time, cleared of all obligations, which is approximately two hours a day