• ~~parents are less involved in their kids lives~~
• ~~it's no longer safe for kids to play outside in many places~~
• ~~societal distancing is worse then ever~~
• ~~there's a mental health crisis that has been ignored~~
• ~~there's a lack in healthy role models and an abundance of toxic ones~~
• ~~all across the world there's political turmoil caused by politicians convincing the people to hate eachother rather than those in power~~
• ~~addiction has been normalized, kids watch their parents glued to their phones and they learn~~
• ~~kids are taught that they can become anything but will need to come to grips with the reality that they simply cannot~~
• Muh video games

Video game addiction is a symptom of multiple societal issues, you cannot simply solve it dealing with the symptom.

What else are they gonna do? Play outside in the 100+heat highway adjacent parking lot?

I am 51 years old. I distinctly remember "articles" with headlines like this about arcades and the Atari 2600 when I was a kid. This bullshit never ends.

"And now our next story. Despite record heat waves, funneling money from public programs, ipad kids, crowed and underfunded schools, book bans, increasing everything so parents can afford less, increasing political unrest and an ever present threat of violence due to lacking gun control, kids seem to only want to play video games!"

10 years old... impossible to resist

The solution here is parenting.

I have kids that age, my kids have consoles, and they don't play into the wee hours of the morning. Why? Because I don't let them. I don't have draconian parental controls or whatever, I just tell them they're not allowed and put consequences in place if they disobey. As they get older, the allowed playtime goes up, provided they're meeting their obligations.

It's not rocket surgery, just don't suck at being a parent.

That said, I imagine there are cases where even a good parent can not notice deviant behavior like this. But for the vast majority, a few rules and regular checking in should cover it.

Why are so many old people addicted to propaganda?

Escapism in this world? Imagine that...

Idk, same reason older generations liked TV so much. Keep in mind they had to air the "It's X o'clock, do you know where your kids are" commercial because they literally were glued to the TV. So when an older person says some shit about video games, remind them of this.

Serious boomer shit that somehow managed to completely miss the question of why the kid was that heavily into games in the first place. The very idea was mentioned once, in the whole article. As an aside. Blegh.

just a cope for the shitty world that the people who write articles like this helped to create, nbd

Also of concern:
Why are so many people addicted to reading?

We need more third places that kids, teens, AND adults can access. Without needing to drive to them.

Well it's either that or heroin

His first console was a gameboy advance? My first was a gameboy and I'm 31! How old is this jabroni from the article?

"Sixteen at the time" is doing a lot of work in this article.

Taking the question at face value - probably because addiction is the business model now.

Only legislation will fix this.

Make real life great again /s

I'm 29, started gaming at 7yo on the game boy color. Just did my resume and cited videogames for a bunch of skills they gave me. This article is 20years too old

If I were young I would totally play all the games I could. They young ones saw 2008, pandemic, wars, inflation. If not escapism then what?

So many comments on this thread are very dismissive and just wave it off as "bad parenting" or "escapism". While both of those arguments are valid and probably a very big part of the problem, should we leave everything on the parents?

We don't allow businesses to sell alcohol towards children because we know it's extremely harmful and addictive. Should we simply let it free for all and then blame parents for not teaching their children that alcohol is bad and for allowing them to go out to the local shop and buy alcohol? Same goes for multiple other restrictions. Not all parents are responsible and educated enough to know how to parent. Articles like this at least show unaware parents this is a real threat and they could at least keep an eye out or educate themselves on the parental control available.