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Blaming parents for kids’ game addiction is unjustified

Blaming parents for kids’ game addiction is unjustified

Posted May. 03, 2016 07:28,   

Updated May. 03, 2016 07:38

한국어

Konkuk University Prof. Chung Ui-joon has published a study suggesting that the more parents interfere with the life of their children who are elementary and middle students, and the bigger expectations the parents have on their children who are high school students, the more those students get addicted to games. That is, the study claims stress from parents is a main cause of children’s excessive immersion into games. These days, children often blame their parents for everything, be it their appearance, academic performance and employment, and parents are now being blamed even for game addiction, which seems to be making it all the more challenging to become good parents.

In order for us to accurately understand the findings from the latest study, we need to examine related organizations involved. The study was conducted with support from the social studies of Korea program of the National Research Foundation of Korea, while the related press release was issued by the Korea Creative Contents Agency. This agency is an organization tasked with supporting the contents industry including games, which is under the Culture, Sports and Tourism Ministry, while the NRF is overseen by the Science, ICT and Future Planning Ministry. The organizations are apparently trying to hold families and individuals accountable for game addiction particularly by underscoring stress afflicted to students by their parents from among various causes of game addiction.

An analysis of 70 studies published between 1999 and 2002, which was conducted through meta-analysis by Korea University Prof. Kwon Jeong-hye, suggested that risk factors for Internet addiction include individual’s personality, whether social assistance is provided or not, relations between parents and children, characteristics of Internet media, and environmental factors. For example, those who habitually try to escape from their reality and those who show a high level of anxiety and depression tend to depend more on games or alcohol. The Health and Welfare Ministry had announced that it would label game addiction as a disease just like alcoholism and gambling addiction, and give a disease code to it.

In Korean society, it is true that teenagers have more stress than those in other countries, because parents have high expectations on children’s academic excellence. If students are under stress, they could lose self-control and immerse more into games. However, not a few teenagers ease their stress by engaging in sound leisure activities, including sports, music listening, movie watching, and reading. There are also cases wherein parents who are addicted to games don’t take care of their children. Blaming parents for children’s game addiction is a mistake that is like finger pointing the victim as the perpetrator.