Young gamers are going to rehab due to their Fortnite addiction, it has been reported.
The co-op fantasy ‘Battle Royale’-style survival game – developed by Epic Games and People Can Fly – became hugely popular in 2017. It recently surpassed the 200 million registered players mark.
Now, it has been reported that some children are being sent to rehab after becoming addicted to the multi-platform game.
The mother of a 17-year-old user spoke to Gadgets 360 about her son Carson’s gaming habit, which resulted in him playing for up to 12 hours per day.
“We’d made some progress in getting him to cut down his Fortnite hours and get better sleep, but he’s slipped back into his old habits,” Debbie Vitany said. “I’ve never seen a game that has such control over kids’ minds.”
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Lorrine Marer, a British behavioural specialist for children who are addicted to gaming, even said that “the game is like heroin”. “Once you are hooked, it’s hard to get unhooked,” she added.
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Child psychologist Randy Kulman also claimed to have seen a rise in parents taking their children to counselling due to their intense gaming.
“I had a 13-year-old in my office who said he had 300 Fortnite wins,” he said. “I had to stop for a minute and calculate what he had to invest just to get those.”
Back in June, The World Health Organisation identified “Gaming Disorder” as a disease for the first time.
The UN health agency said that classifying the addiction as a separate condition would “serve a public health purpose for countries to be better prepared to identify this issue”.