BENGALURU: With the gaming addiction on, it is now the children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), who have trouble paying attention or maybe hyperactive, are found paying attention to mobile games like PUBG and Call of Duty for more than eight hours a day, states Manoj Kumar, professor of Service for Healthy Use of Technology (SHUT) Clinic at National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS).
The professor said the clinic has been receiving cases of ADHD, where patients have been engrossed in playing action games for more than eight hours a day, thus effecting their daily activities. “ADHD is one of the most common mental disorders affecting children where the person has difficulty in paying attention, self control and impulsiveness. Cases of these patients have been coming up where they are found to be addicted to games like PUBG, Fortnite or Call of Duty. This is because the games have high graphics with endless enticements which keep them addicted. Even though they are concentrating more, which they earlier lacked, a line should be drawn,” said Kumar.
Like in the case of a 16-year-old with ADHD, who used to perform fairly well in his classes, suddenly got into game addiction and started paying more attention to it. After which, he no longer wanted to go to school and skipped school for eight months and continued to play for almost eight hours a day. “The child was doing fairly well in academics. He was impulsive but was manageable. However, with him starting to play games, he lost interest in everything,” said Kumar.
Another case was of a Grade 9 student with ADHD, liked going to school but couldn’t concentrate much and slowly developed interest for gaming. He started playing games whole night and made friends online and also refused to go to school. His worried parents had to get him to the SHUT clinic for consultation.
Kumar said certain studies say that children with ADHD are at a higher risk of developing mobile addiction while yet it is not proven. “Children overplaying mobile games can become distressed, argue when stopped them, sleep less, reducing social interactions,” he added.
On the measures that need to be taken, he said, “They should be slowly drawn from using phones. Parents should give more attention and they should be put in other sport activities, while also start exercises like blinking five times after every five minutes of play, rotating wrists and necks which helps in relieving stress. On observing such symptoms, parents should get medical consultationso that the condition does not aggravate,” said Kumar.