Is video game addiction a mental health disorder? South Korea looks in the mirror
SEOUL, South Korea - His video game habit started in middle school.
His bedroom door was always locked, and when his grandmother stood on the veranda and peered through his window, he was invariably engrossed in an on-screen gunfight.
He eventually began disappearing to play at internet cafes. Night after night, she would search for him, and he would try to evade her.
Now he is 21 and unemployed. In June at his grandfather's funeral, he played games on his phone.
"There wasn't a day he'd go without playing," said his grandmother, who raised him and felt so ashamed by his situation that she would speak only on condition that her family not be named. "Games ruined the child."
That's a controversial opinion in South Korea these days.
