Report - 1 in 10 children in Singapore addicted to games

According to a recently-released study, one in ten children in Singapore are addicted to videogames.

A total of 3,000 school children were part of the study. It found that the one in ten children who were addicted to games were "stuck" with it.

In the study, it's said that the kids played around 20 hours a week. Between nine and 12 percent of boys qualified as addicted whilst compared to three to five percent of girls.

Of those who were addicted when the study started, eight in ten children stayed addicted while the study was being carried out.

It was stated that excessive gaming sessions made behavioural issues worse.

"When children became addicted, their depression, anxiety, and social phobias got worse, and their grades dropped," said Douglas A. Gentile of Iowa State University, who helped with the study.

"When they stopped being addicted, their depression, anxiety, and social phobias got better."

He added that not enough attention was being done by parents.

"We tend to approach it as 'just' entertainment, or just a game, and forget that entertainment still affects us.In fact, if it doesn't affect us, we call it 'boring!"

But an independent expert has doubted the results found in the study.

"My own research has shown that excessive video game play is not necessarily addictive play and that many video gamers can play for long periods without there being any negative detrimental effects," said director of the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University, Mark Griffiths.

"If nine percent of children were genuinely addicted to video games there would be video game addiction clinics in every major city!"

There's more over at Reuters.