Video Game Addiction Can Strike Anyone at Any Time

British researchers discovered that the average 10-year-old child owned roughly 238 toys, but only played with about 12 on a daily basis. Video games play a large role in that and are taking over the lives of not just the world’s youth, but adults as well.


According to Consumer Reports, if people are spending too much time playing video games, they could be developing a serious disorder.


Video game addiction is a real condition that can lead to some serious harm later in life for both children and adults.


“The Internet and gaming have become integral components of our everyday lives, including the lives of kids,” said Daria Kuss, Ph.D., senior lecturer in psychology at Nottingham Trent University. “Use becomes too much if it significantly interferes with daily life tasks.”


The World Health Organization even announced that it would now classify a video gaming disorder as a distinct condition and is teaming up with tech companies to promote screen time limitations.


Children nowadays have access to video game consoles, computer monitors, tablets, and even smartphone games — allowing addiction to become prevalent if they spend too much time in front of these screens.


“There are kids who can’t survive, in their mind, without gaming,” said Benjamin Shain, M.D., Ph.D., head of child and adolescent psychiatry at NorthShore University HealthSystem. “Leading to them using up their free time, homework time.”

Some countries even established laws that teenagers can’t play video games between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m. and installed alarms to sound after an individual has played consecutively for a certain number of hours.

Children are certainly at risk of developing the most severe video game addictions from an early age, but adults can easily succumb to the similar issues at any age.


“I went to Europe at one point, on a family vacation, and I was completely uninterested in being there because I just wanted to be back home, gaming,” said Cam Adair, who was addicted to gaming for a decade. “If it’s getting to that sort of level, I think that’s something you want to pay attention to.”