The Ghaziabad sisters' suicide: How online gaming is addiction is impacting teen mental health
The death of the three minor girls- Nishika (16), Prachi (14), and Pakhi (12) in Ghaziabad has once again put the spotlight on online gaming addiction. The three sisters were addicted to an online Korean game that allegedly involved completing a series of 50 tasks.
While the probe is still going on, mental health experts and parents have renewed concerns about how online content can affect young minds. Over the years, several suicide cases have been linked to several games and online trends.
The Ghaziabad incident and the rise of the Korean culture among the Indian youth have sparked debate among experts on how to ensure online safety, supervision and digital well-being.
Games including Blue Whale Challenge, Momo Challenge and PUBG have resulted in the suicide of teenagers. The Blue whale challenge, similar to the Korean game these sisters were addicted also is the deadly 50-day challenge, which was believed to have originated in Russia. It claimed over 130 lives across Russia.
According to mental health experts, a mix of elements, including limited social interaction, blurring of lines between reel and real and addictive online gaming, could lead adolescents to take extreme steps.
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Any addiction can be looked at in terms of the brain responding to a reward system, forensic psychologist Deepti Puranik told PTI.
She also added that gaming may not directly cause an individual to take extreme steps, but can lead to a lot of these factors that can make one's life chaotic and uncontrollable.
In the case of the Ghaziabad sisters' death, the police said that the extreme step was taken by them after their parents objected to their excessive use of mobile phones.
Adolescents identifying themselves with the game characters pose a major risk, and it could lead to drastic measures. "When you take away the identity, to which their entire psyche revolves around, rather than in real life, the individual collapses," said a Mumbai-based psychologist.
Experts also point out that peer pressure is another major factor that forces kids to be a part of the gaming culture.
Regulating phone usage and engaging in transparent conversations with the children should be done as the initial steps towards creating a healthier setup for children of this age group.