Internet and Gaming- Are you Addicted??

Well what you are going to read now is something which is very hard to believe in the real world. Who said internet and gaming is just changing our lives? But it is also risking our lives.A recent spate of deaths in Korea - mostly of teenagers and young adults has sparked a serious debate on problems faced in this technological age.

There are actually treatment centers being set up to deal with this growing problem. Treatments such as counseling and medication are being prescribed to help curb this serious addiction.Children and teenagers who play excessively often do so at the expense of homework and playing solo can isolate children from their peers, potentially causing problems for them later in life.

It has been also suggested, though not confirmed, that the Virginia Tech shooter, Cho Seung-Hui, may have played the popular first-person-shooter game Counter-Strike in high school.
And recently a student got kicked out of school for making a Counter-Strike map of the school.
A study found that adolescents who play violent video games may exhibit lingering effects on brain function, including increased activity in the region of the brain that governs emotional arousal and decreased activity in the brain’s executive function, which is associated with control, focus and concentration.

In India, the Internet Addiction Disorder is fast taking pace. Internet addiction can refer to a range of behaviors. One may be the online gaming or gambling addict, the pornography addict, or the ‘information junkie’ who surfs the internet for random information, often trivia. There are those who are addicted to chatting online or those who engage in compulsive cyber sex.
Dr Latha Nithyananda a clinical psychologist puts it in a very simple way “when you are aware that you spend too much time online but can’t stop, you have crossed the line into addiction”; “You have lost control, and the net is dictating how long you are staying online.”
With around 43 million online users in India (According to IAMAI) - and around 38% of them identified as ‘Heavy Users’, there is no doubt that India is now experiencing an internet boom, and this makes it all the more important that we become more aware of potential hazards of too much time spent online