I’ve been a gamer for a long time — long enough that I don’t really want to say for fear of dating myself too much — and I’m happy to say that as much as I enjoy it, I’m not addicted. I can put the controller down without any trouble at all. You can always save the game and pick it up later!
That said, there have definitely been periods in my life when I really didn’t want to put the controller down. And maybe I missed a shower I shouldn’t have, but meals? Never. Apparently neither has this kid, but that’s not for lack of trying.
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Lilybeth Marvel, a 37-year-old mother in the Philippines, is so worried about her 13-year-old son’s video game addiction that she’ll hand-feed the boy as he plays.
Carlito, enraptured with an online game called “Rules of Survival,” gets so caught up in his 48-hour marathon gaming sessions that he won’t even pause to feed himself. So, Lilybeth has to take a plate of food down to the gaming cafe to feed him.
In a video she posted online, Lilybeth can be seen walking into the little cafe delivering the boy’s breakfast.
She says that she used to nag Carlito about the amount of time he spends gaming, but when that failed, she opted to try something different.
Instead of the usual rage kids are met with when they become too consumed with technology, Carlito’s mom has a different take on the situation.
“I try to make him feel that whatever is happening in his life, I am his mother who loves him and takes care of him,” she said, according to The Daily Mail .
In the video, as she feeds Carlito, she says “My poor child…Here, eat now.”
“You have so much money, it might take till tomorrow for you to get home. Are you still needing to pee? My goodness, I just feel sorry for my child. You are so irritating.”
His mother isn’t the only one concerned over his health.
She explains how his extended family, including his grandmother voice their concerns as well — sending vitamins for him because she’s worried he will become malnourished.
Carlito’s gaming addiction has gotten so bad, his parents have pulled him out of school since he would skip class anyway.
“My husband and I decided that he should stop schooling first because of his addiction,” she said.
However, things haven’t been as easy as they’d hoped.
“Now we’re trying our best to manage the situation but it is still difficult,” she said. They are attempting to “deal with the problem” but unfortunately, he remains “like a zombie” in front of the screen.
Although Carlito might seem like an extreme case, gaming addiction is a serious concern.
The World Health Organization has recognized gaming disorder as a mental health condition in which “increasing priority [is] given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities.”
It’s especially troublesome in Asia, where governments have been pondering what to do about the problem.
Iain Garner, who writes for the Tech in Asia blog and has taught in China for a few years, has seen the effects in person.
He places the blame for China’s young addicted gamers squarely on the country’s “brutal” education system.
Perhaps if the hold on children’s academics wasn’t so suffocating, kids wouldn’t seek such intense escapes from it.
China is trying to crack down on the amount of time kids spend in front of games.
According to The Telegraph , China’s education ministry will “‘implement regulations and controls’ on the number of games that can be played online.”
Furthermore, they also want to “limit new releases, explore an age-restriction system for games, and take steps to reduce playing time by minors.”
These new regulations were technically set out by President Xi Jinping to address the “worsening nearsightedness” of minors, however there are clearly other motives in play.
Gamers have been known to take things to even greater extremes than Carlito does, too.
Deaths from marathon gaming sessions are thankfully uncommon, but not unheard of. In 2015, a 32-year-old Taiwanese gamer died during a three-day binge, according to CNN .
And three years earlier, an 18-year-old, also in Taiwan, died after 40 hours of gaming without eating or sleeping, according to The Mirror.
All in all, there seems to be a desperate need for reform across the board to prevent things like this from happening.
h/t The Daily Mail
