A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
The video game monetisation strategy termed 'loot boxes' have come under fire from gamers and mental health organisations alike, but rarely from an organisation as well-known or respected as Britain's NHS. Claire Murdoch, the mental health director of the NHS, has called for the practice to be banned over concerns that it sets up children [...]
If your child spends long hours playing video games, you might be worried they’re addicted. “Gaming disorder” is real, and has now been classified as a disease in the World Health Organisation’s International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD). The new ICD will be adopted in 2022. If you are worried about your [...]
Youth are using e-cigarettes (also known as vaping devices) at a rapidly increasing rate — a practice that constitutes an urgent threat to public health. Preliminary survey data suggests that, for the first time in 30 years, the youth smoking rate has increased in Canada, with e-cigarettes being the suspected cause. Recent data from the [...]
Psychiatrists have issued a warning over the link between depression and video game addiction, after MRI scans revealed for the first time the potential damage caused to young brains. The images showed the signals between the different parts of gaming addicts’ brains were disrupted, driving them to continue playing but also worsening their depression. The “emotional” [...]
A mum has urged the NHS to diagnose her 15-year-old son with gaming addiction, as she says he has become so consumed by online games that he has not been to school for a year. Kendall Palmer, from north London, told The Telegraph she has fought for three years to have her son’s condition recognised [...]
Apple has unveiled new tools to help people control their smartphone use, after facing accusations that its technology is "addictive". A tool called Screen Time will create daily and weekly activity reports, the technology giant announced on Monday at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose. The reports will detail how long you spend in [...]
How concerned should people be about the psychological effects of screen time? Balancing technology use with other aspects of daily life seems reasonable, but there is a lot of conflicting advice about where that balance should be. Much of the discussion is framed around fighting “addiction” to technology. But to me, that resembles a moral [...]
The world health organization added gaming disorder to its list of mental health issues just this year. How often do your kids play video games? Some moms admit, the games can be like a babysitter -- keeping kids busy. But does your child play more than an hour a day? There is a new concern [...]
Lisa Pont, a social worker at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, has heard plenty of skepticism about video game addiction and whether it’s truly a medical condition that should be classified as a disease, as the World Health Organization plans to officially do in a couple of months. “Some people think it trivializes other [...]
An app that rewards students for time spent away from their phones is being released in the UK. Hold was developed by three students who met at Copenhagen Business School and wanted to develop something to help with the issue of device distraction. It has proved popular in Scandinavia, with more than 120,000 users across [...]
