Saturday June 26, 2004

Beware of online snare

I HAVE a teenage son who is addicted to online games. It gives me no pride to admit this. It is out of desperation I write this open letter to all parents with the hope that they will not have to go through what I have gone through.

About a year ago, a new online game company was set up in Malaysia. An aggressive marketing campaign was carried out – it dropped free CDs into our mailboxes, outside schools, and targeting teenagers at shopping complexes.

They told my son that it was a “cute game” and it was free. A few months later, my son’s school performance started to deteriorate.

He started sleeping or couldn’t concentrate in class and missed classes. He lost interest in his studies. I didn’t know how to handle this situation. A month before his SPM examination, I managed to disconnect his PC and forced him to study.

Luckily, he passed his SPM examination. I was naive to think that he was over those computer games. Subsequently, I enrolled him in a private college.

For a while, my son did well academically in the college; he even obtained a merit award for academic performance. However, temptations were all around him. Outside his college are probably 40 to 50 cyber cafés promoting online games.

He became hooked on those games again. He would play until the wee hours of the morning and skipped classes frequently, and developed a foul manner.

In the meantime, both my wife and I suffered in silence. Our son lost interest in everything except the online games.

He has become more rebellious because I think playing the games has given him a false sense of security in his fantasy world.

Finally, we made the painful decision to take our son out of college. We are now searching for a rehabilitation centre to help him kick his habit.

Of course, not all online games are bad; it is only fair to say that there are also some very good educational games in the market.

While parents have a role in keeping their children away from unhealthy computer games, the authorities must assist in the area of enforcement by introducing regulatory measures to ensure the game contents are appropriate.

I suggest the authorities:

RESTRICT the setting up of cyber cafés to ensure proper guidelines are adhered to so that cyber cafés are not progressively turned into video arcades;

RELOCATE existing cyber cafés close to schools and colleges to a “safer” distance perhaps beyond a 5km radius;

INTRODUCE legislative measures to block games access from midnight to 6am for cyber cafes and in the homes;

INTRODUCE legislative measures to ensure that the purchases of games subscription have prior parental consent; and

INTRODUCE legislative measures to restrict content of online games.

I hope schools and colleges can conduct talks to advise students on the risks of game addiction.

I also hope all parents will monitor their children more closely, and not make the mistake I made.

LOCENG CAT,

Subang Jaya.

(via e-mail)

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