Cambridge IGCSE First Language English Comprehension and Summary Text 4B Teenage gaming addicts Are teenage boys addicted to computer games? Well, this is hardly a new question, but it needs to be revisited periodically, so here goes... I thought I’d start with some field research, so I asked my teenage son and stood back to await the blast of his wrath... but he was actually quite philosophical. ‘The trouble with old people is that they just don’t understand what’s going on. They ask questions like, do you spend all your time watching television and playing on the computer? Are you always talking on your mobile phone? Well, the answer is a simple ‘no’. I don’t have a computer, or a television, and I never talk on the phone. But I do have a gaming console, a tablet and a smartphone, and I use them most hours of most days, usually with all three on the desk in front of me simultaneously. Am I addicted? No. Am I a highly accomplished multi-tasker employing multiple communication tools at once? Yes. I’m also top of my class at school, in three sports teams, play a musical instrument and love cycling and snow-boarding. Go figure.’ A robust response, and, as long as you understand the distinctions he is drawing – they never talk on their phones, but they do text all the time, take, send and receive photos, share and listen to music, run their social lives on multiple platforms and access more computing power than an Apollo mission, all on their ‘phones’. They don’t own a television because they stream visual content on their tablets and, of course, play games (not ‘computer’ games, how dated can you get...?) on their consoles – what he says is entirely true. My son is a typical, well-adjusted, well-balanced, tech-savvy teenager who runs his busy, varied and very social life through high-tech platforms. But are all teenage boys like him? Sadly not. News has come through this week that in China, the government claims that up to 24 million teenage boys are addicted to computer gaming, spending up to 20 hours at a time in front of a screen, engrossed in a game. The most severe cases are sent Unit 4 Virtual existence to residential centres such as the one run by Dr Tao Ran, a psychiatrist who is also an officer in the Chinese Army, one of 300 such centres in China. He explains: ‘Internet addiction leads to problems in the brain similar to those derived from heroin consumption, but it can be even more damaging. It destroys relationships and damages the body without the person knowing. All my patients have eyesight and back problems and suffer from eating disorders. In addition, we have discovered that their brain capacity is reduced by eight per cent, and the psychological afflictions are serious. If someone is spending six hours or more on the internet, we consider that to be an addiction. 90 per cent of my patients suffer from severe depression and 58 per cent have attacked their parents. Many have committed serious crimes.’ Teenagers are sent to these centres for months at a time and are subject to a regime of military discipline to help them to break their habit. Dr Tao claims a 75 per cent success rate, but it is hard to know whether his patients are truly cured. If the government’s figures are to be believed, he will busy for years to come. So, in the light of that, I’m pleased that my son is only looking at his devices ‘most hours of most days.’ © Cambridge University Press 2018