Video games are a marvelous source of entertainment for kids are supposedly harmless if played occasionally for fun. Internet games or video games are one of those activities kids enjoy in their spare time. But teenagers are becoming absolutely occupied with video games these days. They start to neglect their studies and other social and physical activities just for the sake of playing video games. This leads to gaming addiction.
Video game addictions in teens is a big deal as it causes serious effects on the social, physical and emotional behavior of the teen. Does your child spend a significant part of his/her time in front of the screen while playing games? Are they not interested in hanging out with their friends anymore? If yes, then you need to check the gaming addiction in your teen. Because the first step to curing addiction is to accept that it exists.
Here are the signs which show the symptoms of video game addiction in your kid.
1. Diverted Attention
The first sign to detect video gaming addiction in your teens is their preoccupation with the game. If your kid displays diverted attention while doing other things when he/she is not playing video games, he/she looks irritable and distracted, all they want to do is talk about video games then they have become addicted to gaming.
2. Lack of Self Control
A person who becomes addicted to video games loses the sense of time while playing and can spend several hours while playing, ignoring all the other chores of the day which is why video game addiction is a serious problem for teens. They have no control over their temptation towards video games. They face trouble in their studies and their grades suffer because of their addiction.
3. Anger Outburst
Aggression is a precise symptom of teenage gaming addiction. Teens get easily violent or aggressive upon losing a game. They show anger outburst if they are denied to play games for a long time. Parents need to control their kid’s addiction before it goes out of hand.
4. Frequent Lies
Gaming addicts never admit the truth about the number of hours they spend while playing in a day. It is the unconscious behavior of video game addicts that they lie about their playing time. Especially, teenagers sneak out and try to play games as much as they can, in secret. They make false excuses for playing games.
5. Your Teen Becomes a Loner
Video gaming addiction makes your child neglect other activities. They prefer to stay at home while playing games. They become a loner and cut ties with their social circle. In most of the cases where teens become highly addicted to gaming, they start ignoring their personal hygiene and their health starts getting affected because of their addiction.
6. Enormous Expenditure on Video Games
Another symptom of video gaming addiction is that your teen may expend a generous amount of money on video games. Sometimes kids even start stealing money for spending on numerous gaming-related things.
Use parental apps to rescue them
To rescue kids and stop the above-given behaviors, parents are suggested to make use of parental apps such as FamilyTime.
With the app in hand parents can:
- View all installed apps and their details.
- Keep track of app usage frequency
- Apply restriction and time limits to use gaming apps
- Blacklist any of the apps you find inappropriate.
- Check browsing history with the details of the URL and the date and time stamps
- Look at their bookmarks and favorites stored in their browser
- Keep an eye on most visited sites
- Put internet filters to restrict them from accessing online games
- Schedule auto-screen locks for a specified duration at any time
- Remotely lock their devices to restrict device access
And more. Do you want to give this app a free try? Download it today from the app store on your phone says Google Play Store, iTunes.
