A Losing Game
Video game addiction in Singapore is on the rise, with no silver lining if the trend persists
By Nguyen Thanh Tung
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With teenagers between the ages of 13 and 15 making up 60 percent of the 3000 cases of gaming addiction reported to the Institute of Mental Health’s Addictions Management Service between 2015 and 2017, more needs to be done to educate educators and the public on prevention and treatment of gaming addiction in Singapore.
Defined as a pattern of gaming behaviour- whether digital or video gaming- where impaired control over gaming is its main characteristic, gaming disorder sees priority increasing priority given to gaming over other interests and daily activities. Those with this addiction will continue to escalate their time spent gaming despite any negative consequences.
On the 25th of May this year, the World Health Organisation announced that it now recognises video-gaming addiction as an illness. This elevates the need for spreading awareness about the signs of gaming addiction and how to curb its rise, especially in this day and age where more and more youth are getting access to laptops and computers, as well as mobile devices on which they can get hooked into games.
Filled to the brim on a Tuesday school night, the Internet Cafe is for many youths almost a second home.
“Youth are encouraged to get into games because their friends play it. It starts a chain reaction as many popular games nowadays are multiplayer”, said Ms Jenny Liew, Senior Counsellor at the Institute of Mental Health’s Addictions Management Service. “Online leaderboard systems in these games create a sense of competition between them and it’s what keeps them coming back for more.”
Good Speed CyberCafe is the most popular establishment of its kind in the North, and the store’s 120 computers are almost always at least half-occupied by Secondary school students playing after dismissal time, or other young adults loitering about until late in the evening.
“There’s a surge of traffic after six pm because we only allow Primary school students to start playing after six”, said Mr Jack, manager on duty at Good Speed Cyber Cafe. “We also don’t allow them to use our facilities if they are still in their school uniform, so some of them work around this by bringing a change of clothes with them to school when they intend to visit us right after.”
At 7 am on the morning of a public holiday, schooling youths burning the midnight oil through the previous night take a breakfast break before resuming their games.
“They play to keep up with their friends and it creates a cycle where they spend more and more time on it,” Ms Liew added, citing that gaming addiction was becoming quite common- more than you think.
An internal survey from Touch Youth Prevention, another major cyber-wellness group dedicated to helping curb gaming addiction, showed that gaming disorder in Singapore is at close to 11 percent, ever on the rise since a 2010 study on pathological video gaming among Singaporean youths standing at 8.7 percent, with more than 3000 cases reported in a two year period between 2015 and 2017.
“Parents and teachers who are the ones interacting with youth the most besides their friends need to be aware of abnormal behaviour from these youth and make sure they aren’t appropriating too much time to games,” Ms Liew said in response to being asked what could be done to curb this negative trend of gaming addicts.
“When educators and adults band together to offer guidance, I believe it is wholly possible to reduce gaming addiction amongst our youth.”
“You think that you can stop,” said Ms Laura Tan, a polytechnic student who admits to spending a lot of time playing Mobile Legends with her friends on her mobile devices, “but opening the game is just a couple of swipes away, and most people carry a phone around with them so it’s very easy to find yourself playing it all the time.”
As more of our youth get access to mobile devices, laptops and computers, some of the strategies that we can help educate them to embrace in order to prevent gaming addiction from occurring is effective time management, practising personal and sleep hygiene, and not skipping meals.
If someone you know is struggling with gaming disorder, you can call All Addictions helpline 6-RECOVER (6-7326837), or TOUCHline’s toll-free number 1800 377.