One in every 10 young children in the United States who are playing videogames are prone to become game addicts, according to a study conducted by the National Institute on Media and the Family.
The Iowa-based research firm said in its report released on Monday that videogaming is almost like compulsive gambling as many children admitted to borrow money from their peers, lie their way out just to play games, and postpone studies in exchange for an extra time in front of a monitor to play video games.
The report, which interviewed and studied habits of 1,178 respondents between the age of 8 to 18, with an equal number of girls and boys, said that one in every 10 children demonstrated characters of an addict.
Meanwhile, 90 percent of the respondents admitted to be playing video games.
The survey also revealed that boys play an average of 16.4 hours every week while girls spend a shorter time with 9.2 hours weekly. This is not a surprising result as earlier reports have already stated that young males are more likely to play video games than their female counterparts.
In a statement, psychologist and research director Douglas Gentile said the study was done to prove if pathological gaming is an issue which should be immediately addressed to save children from ruining their lives.
With the result, Gentile said that they have concluded that there are real problems in excessive video gaming for some children.
Meanwhile, when asked why they like to play video games, 25 percent of the respondents said they try to escape their problems while majority admitted to play even they were supposed to do their homework or household chores.
The report concluded that excessive gaming can negatively affect a child’s school performance.
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very interesting article