Why do children become online gaming addicts?

Although the details of the murder have not yet fully emerged, after his teenage cousin was arrested by police on Thursday in connection with the killing, Musa’s affinity for and skill in an international online role-playing game has emerged as one of the potential factors that may have led to his death.

In Musa’s game of choice, “Metin2,” players build characters over time, and the characters can develop a real-world value of thousands of dollars. Musa’s character was allegedly worth TL 500, and media reports said he had cracked the game’s code and won a great deal of money that way, possibly creating a motive for his murder.

Parents often lag behind developments in computer technology, paving the way for their children to become gaming addicts without their knowledge, said Ekrem Çulfa, a child psychologist at the 7/24 Counseling Center in İstanbul.

“Our country was unprepared to meet cyberspace,” he noted.

Speaking to Sunday’s Zaman, Çulfa explained that most children are introduced to online gaming in the summer months, when schools are closed and they have more time to spend in front of a computer screen. A lack of sufficient opportunities for socializing, as they spend most of their time at home because parents believe playing outside is not safe, is also an important factor that turns children into gaming addicts, according to Çulfa.

“The games in cyber space [through which children defeat enemies, earn points and become heroes] serve to fill a gap in their self-esteem,” he suggested.

Various stories have appeared in the pages of Turkish newspapers recently on online gaming enthusiasts attacking their parents, not showing up for school, playing online between 30-120 hours a week, committing suicide and even peeing in bottles instead of leaving their game long enough to walk the five meters from the computer to the bathroom.

According to Esra Albayrak, a child psychologist, children opt to play computer games because they are not given a chance to use their creativity, as they are given toys that have many automated features and do not require children to use their own skills. She said online games give children the opportunity to make an active contribution and use their creativity and skills.

She also said it was wrong for parents to praise their children’s success in computer games in public.

A 15-year-old dropout in İstanbul, Altun Sezer, said he had to quit high school because of his addiction to online gaming. “I used to tell my parents that I missed the shuttle bus or forgot my tie at home as excuses for not showing up for school and would stay at home and play computer games instead. When my father cancelled our Internet access, I began to go to Internet cafes with a group of five or six friends instead of going to school. We were getting extraordinary pleasure from fighting in cyberspace. I earned TL 500 through these games. I gave this money to my mum, and she would say, “Well done,” because I was earning money at the end of the day,” Sezer said.

What measures should be taken?

Dismissing the idea of completely banning children from the Internet as wrong, Çulfa said parents should allow their children to use the Internet for two hours a day in the summer and for one hour during the school year. He suggested that the computer should be in the living room, not in the child’s own room, so that parents can see what their child is doing on the computer.

In addition to parents, Çulfa said the state needs to take measures to prevent children from becoming online gaming addicts. In this regard, he said restrictions should be imposed on Internet cafes, where gaming addicts tend to spend a great deal of time, and these places should be supervised. Çulfa also recommended not allowing children to spend more than two hours at Internet cafes.

Albayrak agreed and said it would be wrong to completely forbid children from using the computer or playing games on the Internet. She said parents should take the initiative and let their children play only instructive games that they choose.