Stories by NATALIE HENG star2@thestar.com.my
Games are bad only when the line between entertainment and obsession is breached.
TAKE
a peek at
the iPad,
iPhone or any smartphone that belongs to a parent,
and chances are you’ll find screen upon screen of game apps. A lot of
these apps were downloaded onto the device by their tech-savvy kids. And
most of these parents may tell you that their children and teenagers
are hooked on mobile, computer or
interactive games – at home, out in
the malls or during outings with family or friends.
Apart from
these downloadable ones, there are also multi-player video games at home
and an array of free games on social networking websites like Facebook,
which is frequented by the kids as well. The gamers are indeed spoilt
for choice.
Parents may be resigned to such widespread
availability of games as an inevitable part of modern life, but when
play becomes extreme, the obsession will undoubtedly be detrimental to
the development and well-being of the child. It’s therefore absolutely
essential for parents to monitor the young ones’ gaming activities
before the situation gets out of hand.
To
be sure, gaming itself is entertaining and harmless if it’s done within
limits, and controlled. Being addicted to video or online games,
however, is a serious matter.
Keith Woo should know. It stole a
huge chunk of his youth until one day when he was 24, a near-death
experience jolted him into reassessing his life.
Getting off the
game wasn’t easy; he had spent seven years playing a text-based
multi-player
online role-playing game called MUD (
Multi-User Dungeon).
That
aside, Woo had done it all – everything from first person shooter games
like Team Fortress and Call Of Duty to massively multi-player
online
role-playing games like
World Of Warcraft.
The years of
relentless MUD gameplay culminated in Woo’s online character being at
the top of the virtual food chain. To maintain his leading status the
lad would neglect his studies for a psychology degree and spend an
average of 14 hours per day slaying fictional monsters in his student
accommodation in Subang Jaya, Selangor.
“I really messed up
college ... I skipped classes and handed in late submissions,” he
confesses in a recent interview in
Petaling Jaya, Selangor.
Game
for it: Nick Foong (left) and Keith Woo from Generasi Gemilang often
help youth and their parents tackle gaming issues. — FAIHAN GHANI/The
Star
Woo’s experience is every modern parent’s nightmare.
“My
parents would get upset and make a lot of fuss and noise about me
gaming both at home and outside,” admits Woo. But for him, it was the
ultimate form of escapism. As a sanctuary of high adrenaline and
excitement, the realm gave Woo a skill and prowess – and respect –
amongst the online
gaming community that he reckoned was more than he
could ever achieve in the real world.
Today, Woo, 28, has turned
his life around. Escaping serious injury in a car accident early one
morning after a gaming session at a cyber cafe with his friends, the
young man had asked himself: what has gaming ever really done for me?
For
years he had been running from personal problems – in study,
financially and with regard to his relationship with his family.
“I realised, you know, my parents weren’t going to be around forever, and what would happen then?” he recalls.
Getting
on the wagon, so to speak, was a difficult process. He received a great
deal of flak from the game’s online administrators when he requested to
delete his character and block him from playing. They asked him: “Why
don’t you just cut down on your play time?”
“I said to them,
‘That’s the problem, I can’t. I keep coming back, I keep playing, I
can’t stop; you guys have to help me stop.’ ”
Red flags
The
former gaming addict now works full time with Generasi Gemilang, a
non-profit social welfare organisation, where he is a leader for its
cyber wellness programme. Part of his job is to reach out to both youth
and their parents through workshops, talks, courses and counselling. He
teaches parents about video games, and even how to play them, and
educates young people about cyber wellness.
He doesn’t blame
video games for his past addiction. He hasn’t even stopped playing them.
The difference is that, he has a balanced life.
“Gaming is
recreational for me now,” he explains, adding that important things like
work and having a non-virtual social life take precedence, which is
what “cyber wellness” is all about.
“It’s about the positive use
of the
Internet and having a healthy, balanced life,” concurs Nick
Foong, Generasi Gemilang’s head of cyber wellness. “The Internet and
games are here to stay. We all love our social media, it’s there to
enhance our lives but it should never be the centre of it.”
Though
Foong, 42, can’t say for sure how serious the scourge of gaming
addition is in Malaysia, he has encountered enough cases in his line of
work to know that it’s cause for concern.
The definition of being
addicted to gaming, he says, doesn’t depend on the number of hours
spent playing, it relates to whether the habit is disrupting a person’s
normal life.
Neglecting important things like school, work, and
personal hygiene are some of the signs. Disturbances in the sleep cycle,
reclusive behaviour, self-isolation and uncharacteristic behavioural
changes are also major alarm bells.
Woo recounts a typical scenario where things have begun to go downhill.
“Shouting
at my parents, for example, or throwing a huge tantrum when asked to
stop playing, skipping meals, or lying about my video game usage.
“One
or two such incidents here and there are probably normal. But if you
notice them happening with uncharacteristic frequency, there may be a
problem.”
Dealing with it
Before you throw your child’s console out the window, take a deep breath and resist the urge.
“The thing we recommend not to do is to just turn off the game and get the child all excited and angry,” says Foong.
There is usually a lot more to a
gaming addiction than the game itself, he stresses.
“Games are not inherently bad, it’s how the individual uses (or abuses) them.”
Aside
from being “fun”, research suggests that some people get hooked because
games offer a source of self-validation or positive reinforcement for
things lacking in other areas of their lives. Rewards, personal freedom,
a sense of control and a connection to other players, to name a few.
Rewinding
the clock on Woo’s addiction offers an insight into why he, and many
other youths, are more likely to cross the line between a healthy amount
of recreational game playing and obsession.
The first signs of his addiction appeared in secondary
school
when he would head straight for a cyber cafe after class, play until
six or nine in the evening, and continue gaming into the early hours of
the morning.
In school he would talk about the game at every
opportunity, and he was usually so tired from playing the night before
that he couldn’t concentrate in class. Worse, at the time he was having a
lot of problems at school; he wasn’t doing well academically nor
socially.
“But when I found out I was good at Counterstrike, I suddenly became a person that was really recognised.”
For him, gaming was also an excellent way of running away from family issues.
“By
immersing myself in the virtual world I could disassociate myself from
reality. I could forget my problems, feel good about myself, and feel
like I was achieving something,” he remembers.
He made it to
college but his problems persisted; he continued to avoid dealing with
them. He would be so engrossed in the world inside his computer that
sometimes days would merge into one another, and the only breaks he took
were for food and going to the toilet.
In Woo’s case, the reasons for developing a gaming addiction are evident.
But
Foong points out that banning the game only deals with the immediate
symptoms, and not the underlying causes. In today’s technology-driven
society, such a “solution” also poses practical problems.
He says
there will come a time, in college, for example, where laptops are
necessary. In most neighbourhoods, there are also cyber centres
scattered in convenient locations.
In the end, he notes that
“banning” video games may end up being counter-productive, and may
increase the likelihood that, in order to feed their addiction, the
person you are trying to help starts lying about their game usage.
In
a bid to enforce their “ban”, parents often ask how they can check on
or monitor their child. The truth is, there is no easy solution to this.
The
only real way of ensuring their children are spending as much time as
they say they are is trust, which comes from having a healthy
relationship with them.
“It won’t be easy and the problem won’t
just go away overnight. You have to be committed to helping them and
accept that it may take time.”
It is interesting to note that
some psychologists see “addiction” as a kind of attachment disorder,
with humans being driven by an inherent need for pleasure and
gratification. When people are unable to establish these things through
interpersonal relationships, they hypothesise that we turn to substances
and eventually become addicted.
Nurturing parenting, on the
other hand, has been correlated to high self-esteem in children, which
is said to reduce the risk of addictive behaviour.
In other
words, if a long-term solution is what you’re looking for, the objective
should be about building trust with the child, so that you can help
them with their problems.
Spending time with them is the first
step, says Foong. In addition to building a bond, it serves to directly
help cut down the number of hours spent gaming.
“Rules without
relationships will always lead to rebellion. And when I say spending
time, I’m not just talking about the token dinner.” Quality time could
be in the form of one-on-one sessions, watching a movie, doing sports,
washing the car.
“Find out what the child is interested in doing;
doing that regularly will help to break the routine habit of gaming,”
he advises.
Bonding sessions
Foong also suggests
parents step into their child’s shoes and learn about the game. This
will help them understand what is so appealing about it, and also
provide a common ground where they can connect and bond with their
child.
He recounts how this really helped to build a relationship
between a niece and her aunt after a family tragedy thrust them
together.
“The aunt wanted to find out how to connect with the
niece, who would usually come home after school and spend hours playing
MapleStory, so we advised her to learn the game. Woo taught her the
basics of the game.”
Foong asked the aunt to take her laptop into a public space, the living room, and play it.
“When the niece came in she said her usual ‘Hi’, and then ‘
Wah, you play MapleStory!’ The niece sat down and they talked for almost 45 minutes, just about MapleStory.
“Eventually, they started talking about other things too, like school, her teachers and her friends.”
Bonding is an important exercise.
“It’s
about earning trust, most often parents won’t approach the issue
through conversation. It will be an interrogation, which, for teenagers
especially, won’t work,” says Foong.
Once a bond has been
established, the next step is to find out what motivates the person, so
that a productive alternative to gaming can be found.
In the case
of 17-year-old gamer Brian (not his real name), his mother discovered
he had an interest in learning to play the guitar and bought him one,
signing him up for classes.
It worked. Brian took to his new
hobby and now spends fewer isolated hours at his computer while he
practises his guitar and meets up with friends to jam.
Foong
stresses that once the foundations of a relationship have been
established, it becomes easier to address the gaming issue successfully.
“Boundaries
and limitations to the number of gaming hours per day should be
mutually agreed upon by both parties. If a child has had a say in
setting their own rules, they will be more likely to stick to them.”
As
much as most parents would love to hear it, however, there is no
universal benchmark for how many hours of gaming per day is acceptable.
“The
situation shouldn’t be judged on how many hours are spent playing, but
whether they have managed to balance between gaming and other important
activities.
“Each person’s time management skills may differ, but
when a person finds time to play games, to study, to be with friends,
to do sports, to be with family, that’s what we should be aiming for.”
If you suspect that you or someone you know has a gaming problem, there are a number of websites that offer advice: try www.video-game-addiction.org or On-line Gamers Anonymous at www.olganon.org.
How do you control your children’s gaming activities? Or, do you? E-mail us at star2@the star.com.my.
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