Difficulty: Summiteer (Level 3)
Hong Kong children as young as seven years old have been referred to medical experts for online gaming addiction.
Crystal Leung Chui-yee is the officer-in-charge of the Sunshine Lutheran Centre. It is a counselling and treatment centre for people who gamble and game.
Gambling is agreeing to receive or give away something valuable, like money, depending on a random event’s outcome.
Leung revealed the alarming trend at a workshop organised by Young Post and SCMP Learn, the South China Morning Post’s student business. About 70 parents attended the event last month.
Leung is also a counselling psychologist. She mentioned a case of a seven-year-old Primary Two pupil who was referred to her centre. The child had a severe addiction to pay-to-win games.
“By the time he came to us, we discovered that he had taken nearly HK$8,000 in cash from his mother and used her credit card,” Leung said. “Eight thousand dollars is a massive sum for a seven-year-old. It signals an incredibly dangerous boundary cross.”
Leung said this type of gaming could lead to adult gambling addictions.
“When they can get whatever they want with just one click, it creates a [mind] short cut,” she said. “The human brain is very smart; it remembers the instant gratification and dopamine it gets from taking that short cut.”
