It is hard to believe that even today there are still media outlets that continue to deny the positive impact that video games can have on people. However, an example from the British newspaper The Telegraph shows that this issue is still being questioned.
The information comes from a recent article they published under the title “Spiritual opium: could video game addiction ruin a generation?”, as a reflection of the recent Chinese media comparison between video games and “electronic drugs”.
In The Telegraph article, we can read content such as the following:
- He mentions that the use of screens through smart devices, tablets and “iPads in the classroom” could be “potentially harmful to the adolescent brain.”
- “It’s time we all woke up to the possibility of gaming ‘opioids’ before screen addiction in teens becomes another global pandemic,” one can also read.
- In one part of the article, The Telegraph talks to author Abi Silver, who claims that her son became “obsessed with the addictive dopamine-releasing game Fortnite.” Silver adds the following:
I was shocked and outraged that there was something out there, unregulated and freely available to our children, that was considered very dangerous but no one was doing anything about it. It was like someone walking into my son’s room at night and injecting him with an addictive drug.
Following the publication of this article, The Telegraph has been widely criticized, not only for these questionable claims, but also because it appears to include potentially misleading figures related to video games. For example, they claim that there are 86 million people worldwide affected by “video game disorder recognized by the World Health Organization”. The media outlet VGC has responded by sharing that the real figures are 56 million people in treatment “for gaming addiction”.
Ukie media has also strongly criticized The Telegraph, stating that it is “disappointing” to see how the reality of video games is misrepresented, an industry that they point out is “regulated and responsible”.