The Children’s Welfare League Foundation (CWLF) yesterday voiced concerns at the number of children who may be addicted to Internet computer games at an early age, citing the results of a poll.
“Our poll shows that, on average, elementary school children spend more than four hours a day in front of their computers playing games as well as playing online games, at the weekend or on holidays,” foundation executive director Alicia Wang (王育敏) told a news conference to announce the results.
“It’s very scary that 15 percent of the respondents said they’ve played online games for more than eight hours a day during holidays,” she said.
With help from 17 elementary schools from across the country, the foundation collected 971 valid samples from students in June.
Wang said that the survey showed online game addiction can harm children’s health, cost them money and sometimes put them in dangerous situations with Internet predators waiting to make “friends” with online gamers.
“Nearly 50 percent of respondents said that they skipped meals or stayed up all night to play online games — this is quite harmful to health especially as the children are still growing,” Wang said.
Hsu Cheng-dien (??, a child psychiatrist at Tai An Hospital, told the news conference that he has been handling an increasing number of cases in which children could not sleep at night because they were too excited or too obsessed by games they played.
He said many addicted children clashed with their parents if they were stopped from playing.
“Compared to three or four years ago, the number of first and second-grade patients who see me with game-addiction related problems has grown by about 10 percent,” Hsu said.
Meanwhile, Wang said that many online game operators entice players by allowing them to play for free, “but then, when you get addicted, you want to buy special items, secret weapons, or better clothes for your character, and then start spending a lot of money.”
In one particular game, a suit for a character costs between NT$60 and NT$360, while in another game another costume costs NT$2,800.
The most expensive item that the foundation has found in an online game, costs NT$9,999.
“It’s scary to hear that two online gamers pointed a pistol at another player, and demanded he hand over equipment owned by his character,” Wang said.
She also cited numerous reports in which gamers were robbed or sexually assaulted by other players they met online.
The foundation asked the government, parents and teachers to pay more attention to games addiction in youngsters.
Wang said that the government should take a more active role in monitoring and enforcing ratings of online games, as well as ban TV commercials for online games at certain times of the day.
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