Gaming Addiction: The Risks For Teens

'The child's entire psyche starts moving around their competency in that game rather than in real life.'
'When you take that away, their identity as an individual collapses.'
'They may experience complete emotional isolation that can lead to them taking extreme steps.'

Limited social interaction, blurring of lines between reel and real, addictive online gaming... this toxic cocktail can lead to an alternate reality prompting adolescents in particular to walk a dark path that can end in suicide.

Is that what happened in Ghaziabad where three sisters -- aged 16, 14 and 12 -- jumped off their ninth floor home in the early hours of February 4?

Police investigations point to their addiction to an online Korean game involving a series of tasks.

Their father Chetan Kumar said they had been playing the game for close to three years and had not attended school since then.

A pocket diary offered a glimpse into their inner world, marked by intense attachment to Korean culture and anguish over family strife.

It also mentions physical punishment and ends with an apology: 'Death is better for us then your beatings. That is why we are committing suicide... Sorry Papa.'

How online gaming addiction affects mental health 

According to Vandana Prakash, clinical psychologist and senior consultant at the Max Superspeciality Hospital, Vaishali, apart from consuming time and resources, online gaming addiction can keep individuals away from meaningful activities like school, office and outdoor games.

"It also keeps the person away from social interactions, making her/him isolated and lonely. The lack of a productive life and keeping away from the real world often affects a person's mental health, making them suicidal," Prakash said.

As the apparent suicide pact put the spotlight on the severe effects of online gaming addiction and the increasing craze for Korean popular culture among youth, other mental health experts also expressed their concern.

Forensic psychologist Deepti Puranik said adolescents associate themselves with their gamer identities; taking that away can lead to drastic results.

"Their entire psyche starts moving around their competency in that game rather than in real life. When you take that away, their identity as an individual collapses. They may experience complete emotional isolation that can lead to them taking extreme steps," she said.

Any addiction can be looked at in terms of the brain responding to a reward system, she added.

"Games give pleasure to these kids through rewards or appreciation. Gaming directly may not cause an individual to take extreme steps but it can lead to a lot of factors that can make an individual's life chaotic and uncontrollable," the Mumbai-based psychologist told PTI.

Police said the sisters took the extreme step after their parents objected to their excessive use of mobile phones.

Their obsession with Korean popular culture became clearer with their diary details and further police investigations.

Unaware of the nature of the Korean Love Game his children were addicted to, Kumar said he later learned that the game involved instructions which the children followed.

'If I had known that such tasks existed, no father would ever allow his children to be part of it,' he said.

The father also said the girls would often say they wanted to go to Korea.

How parents can protect their children

According to clinical psychologist Shweta Sharma, the fascination for Korean pop culture in young children arises from the emotional unavailability of parents.

"Parents don't have time. Emotional availability is definitely not there. We are providing children with all the facilities without understanding whether they are able to handle it or not. So that emotional need is not getting fulfilled.

"In Korean culture, if you see any series, any game or whatsoever they are making, they are made mostly on the basis of friendship, love and belonging," the Gurgaon-based expert said.

Sharma's argument found echo in an incident from 2024 when three school girls from a village in Maharashtra decided to travel to Korea to meet their favourite Korean band, BTS.

The Class 8 girls, without passports and money, were returned home before any untoward incident could occur.

"For them, that was their reality. And you are actually trying to attempt to or you are actually separating them from their real world. For them, it is more real than actual reality. For them, the real versus reel is a basic challenge," Sharma explained.

Discussing increasing instances of gaming addiction among the youth, she said children start out in such games with a "curiosity to prove something under peer pressure".

"At each stage of the game, there is constant need to prove yourself. Usually, these children cannot understand proper emotional regulation. They have a strong need to be seen, need to be acknowledged."

She added that adolescents don't have a fully developed prefrontal cortex that is responsible for complex, high-level cognitive processes, including decision-making, personality expression and impulse control.

"The addiction level is high in this age group because they are still under development. They can't differentiate between reality and perception," she said.

On the same day the Ghaziabad sisters ended their lives, a 14-year-old boy in Bhopal allegedly committed suicide in the city with his family members suspecting that his addiction to a mobile game was responsible.

The Class 9 student, the only child of his parents, was allegedly addicted to the mobile game Free Fire and was reprimanded by his mother, police said.

How to keep children safe

These tragedies recalled the 2017 Blue Whale challenge. The deadly 50-day challenge, which was believed to have originated in Russia, claimed over 130 lives across Russia and the central Asian countries of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

The game reportedly consisted of a series of tasks assigned to players by administrators over a 50-day period. Starting innocuously, administrators would gradually introduce challenges involving self-harm before the final challenge, which required the player to commit suicide.

The experts noted that regulating phone usage and ensuring transparent conversations among family members should be some of the steps towards creating a healthier setup for children of this age group.