Fortune Phenomenon: Teenagers addicted to gambling and anxious parents



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Social retreat, isolation and confinement. Marathons from 12 o'clock until dawn, I beg parents who mute in bitter family discussions and adopt drastic measures: to hide the controls of Play by accepting dissuasive methods in WhatsApp ] groups to move them away from "vice", until consulting psychologists before the evidence that behaviors jumped from normal to compulsive. This is how the journalists Loreley Gaffoglio and Desirée Jaimovich in a note for Infobae.com

come into contact with us.Back, the prevalence of what appears to be a single interest appears mainly among teenage men: children fanaticized or captured by an "addictive" game, able to change the ways to bond, since they now refuse to join friends because synchronized virtuality at a certain time is the only place meeting. [19659003] For many parents, this "demon" is called Fortnite Battle Royale a "drug" that breeds dependence – they say – and transforms the zombies to their children. they even dream of being football players, lawyers or anything, now they aspire to be players because they are passionate and know that they will be able to earn fortunes, "he said. Ecstasy a mother

. 03] "I come home and shoot the game", he graffiti this week Matías Martin on the radio in reference to the "hell" that he is suffering at home . All for the omnipresence of a video game that put parents on alert and with their guards on winter holidays.

Almost at the antipodes, local specialists relativize the harmful impact of the video game and explain that they are not objects (in this case Fortnite Battle Royale ) which generates the dependence but the predisposition and lability of the individual who takes refuge in the object.

To add more angles to the phenomenon, last month the World Health Organization (WHO) gave parents the reason: defined video game addiction as a mental health disorder. In other words, he included this pathology in his new International Classification of Diseases.

Of course, these extreme cases involve well-defined images: he describes a "persistent or recurring gambling behavior that is mainly via the Internet." ] And they mention the inability to control the frequency, intensity, and duration of the activity; the prioritization of the game on other interests of life and daily activities and, ultimately, the recurrence of behavior over time despite adverse negative consequences. The WHO estimates that between 2% and 3% of people who play video games are abusive and pernicious.

A real battle in the virtual world

Pokemon Go, an augmented reality game, where bulk fans roamed the cities in search of pokemons, Fortnite, is a real fighting and survival game, developed last year by Epic Games. There is a lot of individual strategy and collective help. According to parents, he has established a new form of self-absorption and even alienation, through his two versions: Fortnite Save the World (payment) and Fortnite Battle Royale (free and most used).

In the game virtuality, which begins on an island, as you advance the stages can be almost infinite, although the spaces where the fight is increasingly reduced. However, in physical reality, the player remains confined to the speaker where the game screen, the PC and, to a lesser extent, the mobile phone is inducted (it is available for iOS and will soon reach Android ).

A colossal, planetary boom, which produces fascination in adolescents and even adults. According to a study by Newzoo, which includes data from 16 countries, 68% of players are between 10 and 30 years old.

In the game's Battle Royale mode, up to 100 players compete online or in teams of 2 or 4 players online. The last player or team alive wins. The key is the elimination of opponents and the skill to deploy survival tactics: with different tools, all kinds of weapons are provided and structures are built to "eliminate or hit" the enemy. The game of the team requires a virtual team work. As a result, many users organize to meet their friends online.

Virtuality as the only meeting place

"The meeting place is no longer a home or burger as until recently during the winter holidays , my son celebrated that, unlike in other years, we did not go on a trip because it allowed him to stay home until 12 noon time, I came back late, now my insomnia is that she does not go out. "

The speaker is Mariela, the mother of Javier, a 14-year-old girl who barricaded herself in the playroom of her house and, except for the insistence that she feels at the table, the boy does not leave the screen.

Javier, who is a good pupil according to his mother, contradicts her: "I play Fortnite for several hours because I do not have anything more interesting to do, my friends, while we are talking n & rsquo; It recognizes that, among his friends, he often hears the same warning: "You are addicted again, we say when we see that the other can not stop a moment

For his part, Alejandra, Martín's mother, he describes it in these terms: "It's three o'clock in the morning and you hear the cries of him and his friends on the speakers, everyone in his house. "Almost always exalted, as if possessed by the game. Lower the volume and the next day make another program, which includes girls as before in the meetings – as they say at their meetings – but it does not matter. There are no cases: there are 15 days that do not leave the house. "

cases disturb parents but not to the point of what happens to Roxana, with his 12-year-old son

Behavioral changes

" Mom, I need of the map information. I do not buy combat cards today, I'm going to kill myself, "Tomás said to his mother Tomás is a quiet boy, but that night he was out of control. kicked in bed, cried all the time and was out of it.This night "I had to" connect because it was the end of the season.And it was "the last chance" and " I had to "do it because if it was not the end of the world." This virtual world that sometimes blurs the border with the real.

This episode is unleashed there is a month and it was the turning point for Roxana to turn to a psychologist to deal with what she's already considering as an "addiction."

Those little clues she'd been watching for months , and that seemed to be "child things", were actually symptoms of something more serious. "

" My son was like an addict And all because that I asked him to turn off the game and go out and play ball or at least take a breath, "Roxana says.

His son came to secretly use his credit card to skip meals because he did not want to "cut" and spend hours on his cell phone to coordinate games with his friends. That aside so many hours in front of the game screen to play this virtual survival adventure.

"In addition to seeing my son insane, I feel that I live in a kind of Big Brother, I have no privacy because it transmits all day, games on your YouTube channel, I tell you to stop, and cut a second, but then continue, it's crazy, "says Roxana anxiously.

Is it addictive or not? [19659003ThisgreatgreaterquestionLediplomeanpsychology Diana Litvinoff, author of the book "The Hidden Subject in Virtual Reality" and member of the Argentine Psychoanalytic Association is categorical: "We must differentiate the enthusiasm, although seen from there. outside, it is excessive, "" If the boy stops doing his homework, he becomes anxious when he does not play and he isolates himself, then there is a pathology, but for this to happen, it is necessary that 39, there is a predisposition to addiction, he keeps to the game like any other thing. other, but the addictive is never in the object but in the psychic structure of the subject. "

Litvinoff puts his finger on the wound:" What are the alternatives offered by parents? Parents have the power to set boundaries and for that they have to offer something they need to understand that today the virtual world is where the guys are telling each other. The girl who was looking for a boyfriend before went instead, then bowling. In Tinde The virtual world, even, can facilitate the meeting just as the video game is now the meeting place in the virtuality. These are all phenomena of the time that do not need to be demonized. It should be noted that adolescents do not isolate themselves from the world, isolate themselves from their parents, since the elderly are excluded from their world. It's a generational struggle. And the proof that they do not withdraw from the world, is that at school the boys are all day together. "

The psychiatrist of the University of Paris 12, Juan Eduardo Tesone, agrees with Litvinoff." And he draws a parallel: "It's as if this game allowed them to to train to survive in a more and more difficult world.And as for the modality, they are only contemporary ways of relationship with others.Before they meet in the houses, now they do it online, with this community component that has the game. And the virtual does not stop being so real. It all depends on how the person relates to the game. "

With Similar arguments Tesone is categorical in defining addictions "like meeting a personality with a product", no matter what. "I've had a patient addiction to something that's not going to happen." as harmless as water, he took 16 liters a day and this compulsion affected his kidneys. "

The sociologist of UBA Manuela Gutiérrez, master of social medicine, observes video games as an example of postmodern society. "The game reveals some of the sociocultural transformations in which we are immersed. The virtual link between those playing seems to have the same intensity as a face-to-face bond. But this element is not exclusive to the Fortnites, but has become a defining characteristic of the globalized society.

However, Gutiérrez postulates that the parents' concern is correct in the face of the threat of losing meeting spaces, and this, he says, applies to both adolescents and adults.

"Go to the club, the theater, the cinema, the park to counter the individualism of consumption that becomes an invisible tyranny that sneaks in different ways in our daily lives. This is where you have to put the magnifying glass. We are social subjects, not robots, he argues. Technology presents us with undeniable advancements and advantages, but we must manage with caution and caution in order to avoid more complex situations that can generate addictions, phobias and violence. "

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