Recently, some incidents of minors being addicted to online live broadcasts have attracted public attention: an 8-year-old boy in Taiyuan, Shanxi, logged into his parents' social platform account, became obsessed with watching game live broadcasts, and was rewarded 17,000 yuan in three days; a 12-year-old girl in Huangshan, Anhui, logged into the live broadcast platform with her parents' mobile phone number, bought gifts for the dubbing anchor, and spent nearly 3,000 yuan in a short period of time...
Not just minors. It often takes 3 to 4 hours to watch short videos; stay up late playing games, which affects work and study; addicted to watching live broadcasts, spending all their savings to become the "big brother" or "big sister"... With the rapid development of social media and live broadcast industry, many people have symptoms of addiction. How does the medical field define addiction? What are the factors that lead to addiction? How to deal with it?
What are the criteria for judging addiction?
Some people attribute this kind of behavior to playfulness and poor self-control, and believe that as long as you make up your mind to control yourself, you can quit Internet addiction. In fact, it is difficult to achieve effective results in quitting Internet addiction if family members blame and patients blame themselves.
"Addiction is not a single self-control problem, but a mental and psychological disease that involves multiple factors such as psychology, neurobiology, and social culture, and requires joint intervention by individuals, families, and society." Kong Qingmei, director of the Special Clinic Department of Peking University Sixth Hospital, said that in 2019, the World Health Organization included "gaming disorder", commonly known as "gaming addiction," for the first time in the latest edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) as a mental and behavioral disorder.
Kong Qingmei introduced that addiction refers to "impaired ability to control a behavior", such as substance addiction, abuse of alcohol, drugs, etc.; behavioral addiction, addiction to online live broadcasts, games, short videos, etc.
There are three criteria for judging whether you are addicted.
A sense of loss of control. Use something uncontrollably.
tolerance. You can feel the pleasure within one hour of use at first, but gradually it takes two hours or even longer to maintain the original pleasure.
Withdrawal symptoms. When not in use, a series of physical and mental changes will occur, such as palpitation, hand shaking, fatigue, sweating, depression, anxiety, lack of concentration, and upset, etc.
Which groups are prone to addiction?
Among the patients Kong Qingmei received, there were two addiction patients who impressed her deeply.
One is an 11-year-old boy who is quite playful. He lives at his grandparents’ house during holidays and often plays games. After school started, he returned to his mother and was strictly disciplined. Unexpectedly, the more disciplined the child became, the more rebellious he became. Later, he stopped going to school at all and hid in the house playing games all day long. The conflict between mother and child became more and more intense. When seeing a doctor, the child reported that he was under a lot of pressure from studying and was not in a good mood. Playing games made him happy. "My suggestion at the time was that mothers should adjust their parenting methods and see the emotional problems behind their children's addiction to games." Kong Qingmei said that the child's condition has improved greatly after undergoing psychological treatment.
Another patient is a man in his 30s. He paid millions of dollars in live broadcasts and even sold his property. The family took various measures, including denying him access to mobile phones, reducing his living expenses, and sending him to a correctional institution, but none of them worked. During the consultation, the man said that his father was strict and he was dissatisfied with it, so he wanted to go against his father. The more his family objected, the more he wanted to do it. "This patient's addiction has both personal and family reasons. I suggested that his father also make corresponding adjustments, strengthen communication with his son, change his repressive teaching methods, and provide more positive incentives." Kong Qingmei said that after psychological treatment, the man gradually gave up his Internet addiction, later got married, had children, and returned to normal work and life.
Kong Qingmei observed that there are more adolescents among addiction patients. First, adolescents’ brains are immature, their self-control is poor, and they are prone to Internet addiction. Second, the psychological development of teenagers is immature and they are prone to lack of self-confidence and low self-worth. They hope to gain a sense of accomplishment through games or live streaming rewards. Third, there may be problems in family education. For example, parents are overly controlling and fail to adjust their parenting methods according to the physical and mental development of teenagers, leading to tension in the parent-child relationship; or there may be less parental companionship, especially the lack of father's love, which has a greater impact on boys' physical and mental growth. This is one of the reasons why male teenagers are more likely to develop addictive behaviors.
The main reasons for addiction among elderly patients are loneliness and low self-worth. When giving rewards in the live broadcast room, the anchors were friendly and enthusiastic, satisfying the spiritual needs of some elderly people. Once they feel their self-worth, they will be trapped in it and unable to extricate themselves.
From the perspective of external factors, the entertainment, convenience and instant reward mechanisms of games can also easily make users addicted.
How to prevent addiction?
Kong Qingmei reminded that addiction is a disease state and requires medical intervention. It cannot simply be regarded as playfulness and poor self-control, and it is not appropriate to discipline by belittling, blaming, suppressing, etc. It should be diagnosed by a professional medical institution and an intervention plan should be formulated based on the predisposing factors and the degree of addiction. The main intervention methods include cognitive behavioral therapy, motivational interviewing, family therapy and other intervention methods.
How to prevent addiction? Kong Qingmei suggested that you first consciously control your online time, clarify your purpose before going online, and actively invite relatives and friends to supervise your online behavior. Secondly, enrich your life, strengthen physical exercise, and avoid scrolling through your mobile phone all the time due to emptiness and boredom. Explore positive ways to regulate emotions, such as meditation, so as to gradually reduce the individual's online time, rather than forcing violent abstinence. You can also establish good interpersonal relationships, increase offline communication, obtain emotional support from others, and achieve self-growth. This can not only effectively avoid addiction, but also help cope with difficult challenges in life.
For minor addicted patients, parents need to adjust their parenting style and change the way of parent-child interaction, with less blame and more encouragement. At the same time, increase the richness of teenagers' daily activities, especially strengthen physical activities, and ensure children's sleep. Schools should provide diversified extracurricular activities to meet the exploration and social needs of teenagers as they grow; popularize knowledge on emotional management and coping with stress to enhance their mental toughness and flexibility.
Reporter Shi Fang
Source: People's Daily Online
