When gaming becomes too much
For some young people, gaming can start to negatively affect their mental wellbeing if it becomes too much. When this happens, a young person might feel less in control of what they’re doing. For example, they might start to regularly game in a way that stops them from doing other important things. These include spending time with family and friends in real life, sleeping, eating well, exercising and doing schoolwork.
This might happen because a young person needs a bit more help from the adults around them to set healthy limits. Or sometimes, it can happen when a young person starts to use gaming as a coping mechanism. We all need to ‘check out’ and distract ourselves from our worries sometimes, and that’s okay. But if a young person feels like they ‘need’ to game to cope with their feelings, it can make it harder to have healthy boundaries. This means that gaming can sometimes seem like the ‘problem’ from the outside, when it’s actually a symptom of how a young person is feeling about another part of their life.