By Hetty Musfirah | Posted:
06 February 2011 1649 hrs
SINGAPORE: The results of a National Youth Survey
released recently have raised concerns over youths spending too
much time online. Experts have said that if not monitored, the
habit may lead to addiction.
When it comes to internet usage, the latest "State of the Youths in
Singapore" report revealed that nearly 8 in 10 youths "strongly
agree" or "agree" that they spend their time online for
entertainment purposes.
It might not be much of a tell tale sign of a growing social
problem but the TOUCH Cyber wellness centre has already begun to
see an increase in cases of gaming addiction.
The number of counselling cases went up by 40 per cent last year,
to 71 cases, compared to 2009.
Anthony Yeong, programme executive with TOUCH Cyber Wellness &
Sports, said: "There are some who play because it is an act of
achievement for them, they play just for a competitive nature for
the fact of satisfying their personal ego. There is also a lot of
personal reason that they are playing because of peers who are
playing, and in that sense it's a group activity that they must
indulge in.
"Then of course there are also people who are escaping from their
real world. They don't like who they are, they prefer to go into
the online world. So there are varying reasons why people will get
addicted...these are generally the trends that we have
noticed."
The good news is that about 7 in 10 of those seen at the centre,
attain their counselling goals. However, those who are getting
addicted are also much younger.
Ray Chua, assistant manager of TOUCH Cyber Wellness & Sports,
said: "Our clients are typically about the age of 14-15, so early
teenage years, but we are also seeing cases where they are in the
upper primary so 11-12 years old, where parents come to us and say
their kids gaming habits are becoming out of control and ask us to
help them."
Dr Tan Hwee Sim, a consultant with the Addiction Medicine
Department at the Institute of Mental Health, said that the amount
of time spent on a computer is not an obvious sign of
addiction.
"The actual hours is not a tell-tale sign whether it is an
addiction.They will skip school so they can stay home, so they play
the game or whether they will play computer games over night. So
it's more of whether you are spending the time that you can afford
or not, rather than the actual hours," said Dr Tan.
Experts have said that the popularity of social networking sites
like Facebook may also add to the problem.
Cases of youths addicted to games on such sites are already
starting to crop up.
Mr Chua elaborates: "Besides just gaming, we also notice and are
observing a lot more people getting into social media, of course
instances like Facebook, games such as Mafia wars, Mouse Hunt are
all on the rise. To date these are just observations that we have
made, there are awareness of this platform, we are still
observing.
"But we expect it to go grow and we are expecting that it may get
big. For the gaming cases, we actually get kids dropping out of
school or failing their exams, not so much for social networks as
yet, it's an area that we are observing."
-CNA/ac
