There hasn’t been a game that has taken the tween world by storm quite like Fortnite has. Its “freemium” business model and “T for teen” rating has caused it to become a larger hit than any game ever has before. Recently, psychologists are making news because they are beginning to treat more and more kids who are addicted to gaming, namely, Fortnite. An article by Bloomberg quotes behavioral specialist Lorrine Marer:
“This game is like heroin… Once you are hooked, it’s hard to get unhooked.”
Game addiction was named an official disorder by the World Health Organization and can be diagnosed with some of the same symptoms of other behavioral disorders. Here’s a list of those symptoms:
- Obsession, or constant thoughts of the behavior
- Continuation of the behavior despite adverse consequences, risky situations, and poor performance of responsibilities
- Compulsive engagement of the behavior or inability to stop despite a desire to quit.
- Cessation of the behavior causes irritability, cravings to resume the behavior, restlessness, and depression.
- Denial of addiction and issues resulting from the behavior
- Concealment of the behavior from family and others close to the addict
- Amnesia regarding the behavior
- Depression, even when engaging in the behaviors
Many parents report their children failing classes in school, falling asleep during classes, lying about how much time they’ve spent playing, and throwing toddler type temper tantrums when asked to turn the game off. Many of these behaviors are signs of an addiction and a combination of many of these could mean your child needs expert treatment. Children aren’t the only ones, however, with this problem. Medical and mental health professionals are also documenting cases of adults who have had many of the symptoms of behavioral addiction when it comes to playing video games, and even Fortnite itself.
Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite, hasn’t said anything about the addictive nature of their game but it is obvious that their business model depends on gamer’s inability to give up the game. Since the game is free, Epic Games can only make money by encouraging gamers to buy items within the game to enhance the look and actions of their characters. This is causing kids to spend their parent’s money, sometimes without mom and dad even realizing what they’ve done.
What Parents Should Know
I have counseled several parents about potential addictive gaming behavior by their kids and I believe it’s important to keep the eight key symptoms in mind when looking at your child’s behavior. How are their grades? Do they have an offline social life? What is their reaction when you mention taking a break? If their responses to these conversations aren’t healthy, it might be time to get some help in convincing them they need time off from gaming.
Games like Fortnite, Minecraft, and Roblox, are what experts call, “lost time” games. This is when players can spend so much time in-game without even realize how many hours they’ve been playing. This is how your son can play twelve hours of fortnite before you realize you haven’t seen him all day. Twelve hours, if you pretty good at the game, is only six to ten Fortnite matches. That’s nothing to your child while they are sitting there playing.
If you haven’t opened the gaming pandoras box for your child yet, good for you. (My oldest is eleven and we are just now easing him into it.) Prevention is key. It is important to only allow gaming with time limit parameters set. If you can introduce these time limits as they start to get more into gaming that’s great. Sometimes you aren’t that lucky and you have to have the battle to set time limits once it’s already gone too far. My advice, though, is to do what you have to do because your child needs you to help them learn self control and your teenager needs your guidance as they learn time management. Remember to talk to them about it often and use terms like healthy and unhealthy instead of dumb, stupid, or right and wrong. Hopefully your child will never need a professional counselor to help them get over Fortnite. We have enough problems in the world, we don’t need a widespread epidemic of entertainment addiction.
