The Gaming

In this time of Lock down we are experiencing extreme lack of productivity in our daily schedule and all of us end up spending N number of hours in front of screen. Some of us are consciously keeping a track of it but some of us are finding it really difficult to shut off screens when not needed.

And it is most difficult for teenagers and younger kids. Teens find it difficult to sleep and end up spend sleepless nights gaming or chatting.

The same scenario was shared with me for our school kids, which was students not being able to attend online classes due to late night gaming. Students were also finding it difficult to stay away from game or playing games for hours. Though to some extent playing games helps in releasing stress but inability to sleep or not able to focus on anything else itself is an alarming sign to think about it or to do something about it.

I with team of well qualified and thoughtful counselors working in same organization, developed a checklist and strategies for dealing with gaming addiction.

but before that we also shared some of the risks of gaming., which are

• Lack of physical moment leading to sedentary life style.
• Inability to concentrate or pay attention.
• Inability to perform developmental task, tasks which help us grow in any way.
• Lack of social engagement.
• Excessive aggression, most of the games which teenager play are about aggression which might lead to aggressive behavior.
• Inability to play or achieve desired level lead to disturbance in moods and person might also feel sad most of the times.

To deal with such situations and also to reduce the gaming addiction one can use lot of strategies. some of them are

• Engage yourself in physical activities.
• Decide a time schedule with specific time for everything in it including gaming.
• Take help from family in sticking to the time schedule.
• Keep gaming device out of bedroom, try sleeping with some relaxation activities for better sleep.
• You can also use some app or extensions to block your game.