The world appears to be glued to their screens; thus, how can people explain the theory that all of a sudden a large portion of youths are getting addicted to video games? While this dependency connected with life-changing genuine addiction touches less than 1% of the 88% of teens who play games, a broader concern may lie elsewhere.
Gen Z is the most closely watched generation in human history. Parents used to be free, outdoors, unfettered, and unsupervised, as kids; but now, with their flesh and blood, they seem to view their children’s smartphones as if they were tracking devices, demanding a regimen of constant check-ins and social-media monitoring. This is not solely the fault of the pandemic, which merely intensified a trend already years in the making.
It’s a fact that young people nowadays have fewer places to go. It has been estimated by unions that over 4,500 youth workers lost their jobs since the beginning of this decade, and over 750 closed centers stand as witness; on the other hand, it is an ever-increasing number of grass-roots music venues closing at rates never seen before, while the nightclub-owning industry is gradually contracting. Public spaces, such as parks and city squares, seem to become ever more privatized and policed, and it is ever more difficult to find somewhere for young people to socialize free and unpoliced.
It’s no wonder that teens retreat to online gaming worlds, the last bastions of freedom from adult oversight. In games like Red Dead Redemption, Minecraft, and Fortnite, they can spend hours with friends without being moved along or scrutinized. These virtual spaces offer a respite from the pressures of a world that often seems hostile and unwelcoming.
It’s not unhealthy to spend the whole day inside a bedroom, but can we blame this generation for finding solace in the virtual world? Not so long ago, they were locked inside their homes for more than a year, and now they are standing at the threshold of facing a future where home ownership is a distant dream, stable careers are a rare thing, and they have often been labeled as lazy or complacent. The UK’s minimum wage for an 18-year-old is £8.60, the price of just one pint in a London pub, if they can find a job at all.
Nor does the media help with the constant ridiculing and demonizing of youngsters, backed up by criminalization. The suggestion that 18-year-olds should be brought back to some form of national service to learn respect and how to be more public-minded is an interesting contrast to their sacrifices over the pandemic to save older generations.
Meanwhile, bumbling politicians and right-wing conspiracy theorists hamstring meaningful progress on truly urgent issues such as climate change. And while water companies continue to foul the seas and the pundits weigh in on road-closing protests, it becomes clear that the older generation won’t be around to face the damage. But Gen Z will be, and this is the one lifelong job they can count on.
Today’s teenagers are more involved with video games than any previous generation, but they are also mired in a mental health crisis, with one in three reporting issues that range from anxiety and depression to addiction. If there is a relationship between these phenomena, it is not causative. But we always are too quick to point fingers at technology’s role in our children’s problems when maybe we should look closer to home.
Can we blame them when seeking offers from their few alternatives in a society such as ours? What is truly of concern is not the reason they want to escape but why they would want to return to the world we have created for them.
More for you:
- It’s not them, it’s us: the real reason teens are ‘addicted’ to video games.