Niren, Ria and Abhay are not alone. More children are beginning to turn to their PCs than ever before. Reading, outdoor games, and contact with peers are slowly taking a backseat. Who can blame their parents, then, for being a worried lot? After all, the only thing to divert us from our studies was Spiderman on Sunday mornings, wasn't it?

Shubha Gupta cribs about her son Ketan, who's all of nine. "He likes nothing more than computer games," she says. "And I can't seem to get him off his addiction".

Then there's that little issue about the money involved. The BBC article reveals the big moolah involved and the rate at which gamers shop.

What you have, then, is a huge market, and a good chance that your kid could get hooked as quickly as the day after tomorrow. In fact, cyber cafes in Mumbai now have as many kids playing computer games as they had people surfing the Internet a year ago. The bad news: Too much computer gaming is injurious to health.

By calculating the time spent by kids playing computer games, researchers have tried to determine the side effects involved. Also, apart from the hours spent in front of a monitor, the kind of games opted for can also be a determining factor in the effects they could have on a child. For one, games curb mental growth and affect the way they think. Children between 7 and 14 can grow up in an environment devoid of social interaction, which can lead to cravings for a feeling of being wanted later in life. The propensity of violent games (by far the most popular) to instil a feeling of anti-social competition is also high.

Even teenagers aren't spared, as games tend to eliminate their ability to think objectively. Prolonged playing also causes psychological problems like obsessive, addictive behaviour, dehumanisation, desensitising of feelings, personality changes, hyperactivity, learning disorders, premature maturing of children, psychomotor disorders, anti-social behaviour, etc.

An article by psychologists Craig Anderson and Karen Dill discusses these and other effects. They claim that content can have long term and lasting negative impact on a child's mind.

Like most problems, however, solutions to this one also exist. The negative effects of computer games can be diminished to a certain extent. Parents can limit their playing hours, for instance, or try and involve them in other activities exciting enough to hold their interest. Parenthood.com also offers tips on selecting computer games that can actually help.

For the moment, Niren, Ria and Abhay are still at it. As virtual environments become increasingly 'real', the line between reality and a virtual environment is blurring fast. Will kids like them grow up to tell the difference? Chances are they might, but why risk waiting to find out?

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