OOn Sunday, the Observer magazine published a sensitive article on video game addiction, speaking to therapists working in the field and a family affected. A truly compulsive, life-altering addiction, whether to video games or anything else, is of course devastating for those who suffer from it. WHO classified video game addiction as a specific disorder in 2018 (as distinct from technology addiction), the UK’s National Centre for Gaming Disorder has treated just over 1,000 patients. Fortunately, the figures suggest that the disorder is rare, affecting less than 1% of the 88% of teenagers who play video games.
The article asked the question: “Why are so many young people addicted to video games?” which must have struck a chord with many parents who despair at the amount of time their children spend in front of computers and consoles. As the Guardian’s editor and games correspondent, however, we believe that most of us who are concerned about the amount of time our teenagers are spending on games are not dealing with an addiction problem, or compulsive behaviour. If we want to know why so many teenagers are willingly choosing to spend 10 or 20 hours a week playing games, rather than seeing them as pathological, we should look around us.
Gen Z is the most surveilled generation of all time. We criticize children and teenagers for not going out, but at the same time we limit their freedoms and close their spaces. Parents remember days spent outdoors, riding bikes around the neighborhood, but at the same time they treat their children’s smartphones as tracking devices, demanding regular check-ins, infiltrating their social media feeds and creating databases on their activities and friend groups. The pandemic may have subsided, but it wasn’t just lockdowns that kept kids indoors.
And even without the parental anxiety surrounding them: Where are teenagers going? Over the past decade, YMCA Data shows that more than 4,500 jobs in the youth sector have been cut and 750 youth centres have been closed. According to the Music Venue TrustEvery week, two popular concert venues close their doors. The nightclub industry is in free fall. Teenagers can no longer hang out in parks without arousing the suspicions of overprotective adults who have decided that these rare recreational spaces belong only to their toddlers. Public squares, skate parks and pedestrian zones that were once public are now insidiously privatized, monitored by surveillance cameras and patrolled by private security guards.
It’s no wonder, then, that teenagers are retreating into online video game worlds, the last spaces they have left without the intervention of their parents or other authority figures – the last places where they are mostly beyond the reach of adult control. You can spend all day with your friends in Red Dead Redemption, Minecraft or Fortnite doing whatever you want, without being ousted or criticised, or having to spend £5 on a coffee every 30 minutes. If you can’t access therapy, you can at least unwind with comforting games like Stardew Valley, Unpacking or Coffee Talk, or chat with your friends in-game. You can travel freely and for free in Elden Ring or Legend of Zelda; no elderly parent can suddenly vote to restrict your access to the continent in Euro Truck Simulator.
It is true that spending all day in your bedroom is unhealthy and alienating. But can you blame this generation for being more anxious and withdrawn? They have recently been imprisoned in their homes for over a year. There is enormous despair and disillusionment with a world in which home ownership is a fantasy, where stable careers for life are increasingly rare and where young people are accused of being lazy and complacent. The minimum wage for an 18-year-old in this country is £8.60, which means that an hour’s work could buy him a pint in a London pub; if he can find work at all.
Outside of gaming, the media landscape is dominated by news sources that mock and vilify young people as woke “softies” while criminalizing them. The Tories’ last attempt to drum up support before the election was to reinstate national service for 18-year-olds, in order to teach them respect and civic duty. This generation has simply put their lives, friendships, loves and education on hold to save their grandparents. We shouldn’t be surprised that they want to escape to virtual worlds. We should be surprised that they want to come back to the one we built for them.
Meanwhile, real action on the climate emergency is being stymied by ineffectual politicians in league with polluting companies and right-wing conspiracy theorists in denial that the problem exists. Pundits are moaning about how we should allow protesters to close roads, while water companies are filling the sea with human excrement. These people will all be dead when it comes time to reap what we have sown, but not Gen Z – it’s the only job for life they are guaranteed to get.
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Today’s teens are gaming more than any other generation. They’re also suffering from a mental health crisis: One in three report mental health issues, ranging from anxiety to depression to, of course, addiction. While there’s a connection between these problems, it’s not causal. We tend to blame everything from smartphones to social media to video games for our kids’ problems—everything but ourselves.