Gaming addiction is a mental health condition which affect lots of people all over the world. There are several people who play video games, and a good number of them do not have an addiction. However, there is a thin line between having healthy fun by playing games and addiction. This addiction is the adverse effect which it has on your life.

Basically, games are designed to ensure that you are hooked to your screen. They are drowning experiences which provides an extremely ample amount of dopamine, and when you get too exposed to this type of stimulation, structural changes occur in your brain.

Below are five common signs to spot gaming addiction in teenagers:

1.      Preoccupation: To start with, a teenager who is addicted to video games will always be preoccupied about the thoughts of video games. Hence, this teenager will always anticipate the next time when he would get to play these games. As a matter of fact, it can be said that, video games becomes the major activity in his daily line of activities.

2.      Withdrawal symptoms: When the teenager does not get to play games, there are some unpleasant symptoms which he goes through. Such symptoms are anxiety, sadness, cravings and irritability. However, once he has access to his video games, all these symptoms disappear.

3.      Inability to control: Teenagers who are addicted to games find it hard to control themselves. If they lose in the game, they keep playing till they win. Hence, some of them have few hours of sleep because they spend most of their nights playing games.

4.      Lie about their addiction: Addicted gaming teenagers would often deny to their family and friends that they are not addicted. This makes some of them hide the reality that they play games.

5.      Use of games to enhance their mood: One characteristic of video games addicts is, whenever they are in a bad mood, they do not speak with anyone. Rather, they play video games, spending lots of hours till they feel better. Playing video games becomes their safe haven.