Mr. Li has been very upset recently. His son, Tucki, is 14 years old and a sophomore in junior high school. During the epidemic, Mr. Li bought his son a mobile phone because he had to go online for classes. I didn’t expect my son to be addicted to online games while studying on his mobile phone. Now when Mr. Li comes home from work every day, he sees his son playing games with his mobile phone. No matter how criticized, his son refuses to give up the game. In a hurry, Mr. Li confiscated his son’s mobile phone several times, but he had to return it to him because of his study needs.
Tucki is disgusted with the confiscation of mobile phones. He told the reporter of China Youth Daily and China Youth Network that in fact, he was not obsessed with games, just because all the students around him were playing, so he joined them in order to have a common topic with them. In the games they play, people with high rankings will be respected and worshipped by their friends, just like people with good grades in the class, and they have a lot of face.
Tucki said that he now spends 1-2 hours playing games every day, and it may increase to 3-4 hours on weekends, which is actually a very common phenomenon among his classmates. He also knows that it is for his own good that his parents don’t let him play games, but he doesn’t like the way his parents treat him-they always force him to stop playing games in the middle.
In order to prevent his son’s game addiction from affecting his study, and to seek a better way to communicate with his son, Mr. Li and Tucki took part in the "Youth Network Healthy Use Summer Camp" held in huilongguan hospital, Beijing (hereinafter referred to as "Summer Camp").
Like Mr. Li, other parents who come to the summer camp are worried about their children’s long-term addiction to the mobile phone world. Many parents said that they were anxious about their children playing mobile phones. A mother said that as soon as she saw the child pick up the mobile phone, she immediately thought that he might play for hours in a row, and then she would think that the child’s grades would decline, which might affect her future life, so she felt anxious. She believes that this is not her own imagination, but something that really happened, so she is more anxious and unable to control her emotions.
Teenagers need to be respected and treated equally.
At the summer camp, Liu Liping, a well-known family education psychologist and director of China Psychological Crisis Intervention Association, said that in reality, many times the parent-child relationship will become tense because of the mobile phone problem. What parents need to know is that adolescent children are at a special stage of life, and what they need is respect.
Many parents think that their children become "rebellious" after puberty. In fact, "rebellious" is just a label that parents put on their children. The child is unwilling to "obey" because he feels that he is an independent person and needs to be respected and treated equally. For example, on the issue of playing with mobile phones, if parents only allow their children to play with their mobile phones for 30 minutes every day, but they hold their mobile phones and brush them all the time, "never leave their hands" anytime and anywhere, or even play with their mobile phones until late at night, children will feel that their parents are "unfair" to their requirements after seeing them. Therefore, parents should set an example when limiting their children’s use of mobile phones. In fact, parents should abide by any rules made in the family together with their children.
Many times, the conflict between parents and children is that parents think that children use mobile phones for too long, but children feel that they are not overused, let alone addicted. So, how to distinguish between normal use, overuse and internet addiction?
Liu Liping said that the normal use of the Internet is manifested in the following aspects: out of curiosity, surfing the Internet to relieve tension and fatigue, appropriate surfing time, balanced relationship between the Internet and real life, and social functions not affected by surfing the Internet. The performance of overuse of the internet is: indulging in it, spending too much time online, at least 4 hours a day, taking up most of the spare time, and the social function is damaged to some extent. The manifestations of Internet addiction are: a strong desire to surf the Internet, a withdrawal reaction will appear when you leave the Internet, the real life and online life are seriously out of balance, the Internet occupies a dominant position in life, and the social function is obviously damaged.
"Excessive use does not mean Internet addiction, but it is likely to lead children to Internet addiction. Therefore, if parents find that their children use mobile phones for too long, they should pay great attention to it." Liu Liping said.
Reward surfing the internet and completely quitting the internet are both dangerous methods.
On August 28th, China Internet Network Information Center released the 52nd Statistical Report on Internet Development in China, which showed that by June 2023, the number of netizens in China had reached 1.079 billion. According to previous statistical reports, the average online time of Chinese netizens is 26.7 hours per week. The number of online game users reached 522 million, accounting for 48.9% of the total netizens.
According to the data of "Research Report on Internet Usage of Minors in China in 2021", in 2021, the number of underage netizens in China (note: students under the age of 18, excluding groups under the age of 6 and non-student samples) reached 191 million, and the internet penetration rate of minors reached 96.8%-according to the data of China Statistical Yearbook 2021 of the National Bureau of Statistics, the national ordinary primary schools, junior high schools, ordinary high schools and secondary vocational education. In 2021, the Internet penetration rate of primary school students in China reached 95.0%. Among underage netizens, 90.7% use mobile phones to surf the Internet, and 62.3% often play games online (note: based on the 191 million underage netizens).
"Playing mobile phones is really addictive, and adults are still like this, let alone children." Another parent surnamed Du who participated in the summer camp said.
He told the reporter of China Youth Daily and China Youth Network that his 12-year-old daughter was taken care of by her grandmother since she was a child and only recently lived with him. With the doting and conniving of the elderly, my daughter holds her mobile phone every day when she comes home from school, and plays games and videos without looking up. It takes hours to play, and she will lose her temper if she is criticized. Mr. Du decided to get rid of his daughter’s "bad habits", so he went out to play with her whenever he had time. When he had no time, he let her go out to play with her peers and keep her away from her mobile phone. After two weeks of hard work, my daughter has changed a lot. She no longer holds a mobile phone at night, and her temper is much better, and the communication between father and daughter is much smoother. However, Mr. Du is also worried about how long this change will last.
Ms. Meng has a lot of experience in controlling the time when children use mobile phones. She strictly manages her children and adopts the method of "reward mechanism" learned in psychological counseling class. Her child is 9 years old and has shown great interest in mobile games. Ms. Meng allows her children to play mobile phones for half an hour every day, only 10 minutes at a time, which can be increased to 1 hour on weekends. If children perform well, such as excellent grades and helping with housework, they can earn themselves a few minutes to play mobile phones. "The child is still young, so he is very obedient and can abide by the rules, just don’t know what will happen in the future." Ms. Meng said without worry.
In contrast, Mr. Chen’s handling method is more "extreme". His son is 11 years old and is still in primary school, and he has already put on glasses. My son spends an hour or two playing mobile games every day. The mother of the child earnestly educates him, but the child is disobedient. If he talks too much, there will be conflicts between mother and child.
Mr. Chen was so cruel that he removed the router at home and didn’t take all the children’s electronic devices, so that the children didn’t have any chance to contact mobile games. Mr. Chen said that he works in an internet company, so he knows that the mechanism of game setting is addictive. He thinks that if you want to quit the game, you have to take a radical step. When the game was just stopped, the children were also very uncomfortable, but Mr. Chen would accompany the children to read books and discuss the contents of the books with them. Gradually, children have developed the habit of loving reading. However, Mr. Chen is not completely relieved. "I don’t know if he will have the opportunity to contact the Internet again in the future, and will he be addicted to games again."
Yu Jianjin, director of the huilongguan hospital Alcohol Addiction Ward, said that the reward mechanism should be used carefully for young children. Because unlike adults, younger children have weak self-control, and using the reward mechanism, children will be more likely to be addicted to "prizes" when they grow up.
"Because the’ prize’ was earned by his hard work, when one day he found that he could easily get the reward he had worked hard to get, he would be particularly addicted to it. Similarly, it is also a dangerous way to let children quit the Internet quickly and completely at one time, because psychoactive substances, whether alcohol or mobile games, will have obvious withdrawal reactions if they are forced to quit, such as palpitation, anxiety, emotional instability, and inner lack. The upper hand, the result is likely to be that once the child has the opportunity to contact again, he will be madly infatuated. "
The root of game addiction is that children’s needs are not met.
"Internet game addiction is one of the common psychological problems among teenagers." Liu Yan, a psychotherapist at Beijing huilongguan hospital Addiction Medical Center, said that the manifestations of game addiction are persistent or repeated game behaviors, which are out of control and become a priority in life. Although the negative consequences of the game still cannot be stopped, the game behaviors lead to obvious functional damage.
For example, Liu Yan said that children addicted to games often have the following specific manifestations: playing games repeatedly and continuously, obviously promising their parents to play for only half an hour, but they can’t control it, trying to extend the game time in various ways, and playing games has become the only important thing in life. They don’t go to school well, don’t like making friends, and even don’t care about eating and sleeping, knowing that games have brought many bad consequences to themselves, such as poor eyesight, upside down sleep, falling grades, and bad temper.
"Game addiction is a kind of behavioral addiction. Unlike substance addiction, game addiction reflects a real demand. If you want to know why a child is addicted to games, you must understand what he needs from games. " Liu Yan said, "If a child knows that something is bad but still does it, it must be because it is very important and will bring him some meaning. What parents need to know is what these meanings are. Usually, children are addicted to games, which must be because they get what they need that they can’t get in real life, such as a sense of accomplishment, the joy of communicating with their peers, or a channel to vent their emotions; Another possibility is that children face a lot of pressure in life, which may come from poor parent-child relationship and poor peer relationship. In order to escape the difficulties in reality, children hide in the game world. "
Liu Liping told the reporter of China Youth Daily and China Youth Network that adolescent children are changing physically and psychologically, and the second grade of junior high school is a particularly obvious "watershed". During this period, children will have different academic achievements, and some children will have clear learning goals and motivation. Study hard and prepare for the senior high school entrance examination; Some children will get worse grades at this stage, and their interpersonal relationships will become worse, thinking that their parents don’t understand themselves. In this case, they are likely to fall into online games and look for a sense of accomplishment, value and belonging in the virtual world that they can’t get in reality.
"It is very important for parents to accompany and recognize their children, so that children can get enough happiness in reality, and children will not be overly addicted to the virtual world." Yu Jianwei said.
She told the reporter of China Youth Daily and China Youth Network that it has been found that patients with alcohol dependence can be treated by alternative therapy, that is, another psychoactive substance is used to replace alcohol. Slowly, patients will get used to the psychoactive substance instead of relying on alcohol. Yu Jianwei believes that the same method can be used to keep children away from mobile games. Parental companionship, care and praise can be used as another safe and healthy psychoactive substance, which can bring children a feeling of confidence and happiness. Parents give their children enough companionship, and children will not rely too much on games.
"Internet and games are not original sins. The real original sin is that children’s needs in life are not met, which leads children to seek what they need in games." Liu Yan said, "Psychologically speaking, this is actually a self-help behavior of children, and it is also a compensatory and compensatory behavior. So parents can think about what children are missing in real life. How can parents help their children get what they lack in real life? In this way, children can be brought back from the game world to real life. "
"Parents can also reflect on whether the reason why children always like to hold their mobile phones is related to themselves." Yu Jianwei said that clinical findings show that in many cases, parents’ emotional instability is also the reason why children are addicted to mobile phones. They often blame their children, and when they talk to them, they go into a rage, making them feel that talking to their parents is worse than talking to people on their mobile phones. Some parents have a low opinion of their children in life, and often disapprove of their behavior, which makes them feel frustrated in the real world, so they just want to stay in the virtual world of mobile games.
Liu Yan suggested that parents can learn some knowledge about teenagers’ psychology, understand the characteristics of teenagers’ stage, and make adjustments from the family level to meet the psychological needs of teenagers. When children have psychological problems, parents should try to understand the causes of the problems without anxiety and panic. "These problems can be treated, intervened and solved." Liu Yan said.
(The parents and students interviewed in the article are all pseudonyms)
Zhongqingbao Zhongqingwang reporter Xia Wei Source: China Youth Daily
Original title: Behind the game addiction, see the real needs of teenagers
Source: China Youth Daily
