RTE summary ofBoys at Risk: Online Gaming, Sports Betting, and Addiction, commentary, Institute for Family Studies,
Writing as a mother of two young boys, the author argues that while many factors are behind young men's struggles, online gaming and gambling are among the most significant. The essay describes gambling-style features built into popular games, such as virtual currencies and loot boxes that work much like slot machines, and notes that Roblox has more than 120 million daily active users, many of them under 12.
The essay draws on interviews and public comments from experts. Melanie Hempe, founder of ScreenStrong, describes today's struggling young men as a basement generation and urges parents to start learning about the risks while their children are still preschoolers. Michelle Dirst of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry says youth gaming and online gambling worry her, and that of all addictions, gambling is the most closely associated with suicide. The author notes that nearly all gambling research has focused on adults, and cites former Surgeon General Jerome Adams comparing sports betting to the opioid crisis.
Why it matters
Features like loot boxes and in-game currencies are design choices, and they are not always visible to parents or schools. When research on how these mechanics affect children is thin, it becomes even more important to look closely at how a product is built, not just at the content it shows.
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