A new report has revealed that medical experts are now saying that video games, such as Fortnite, can be as addictive as heroin. It also claims that health experts believe that it can negatively impact a child’s brain development, saying that “the thing about these games is it gets kids’ dopamine systems involved—and it releases addictive chemicals which are very similar to drug addiction.”

The report continued to explain how tests were performed on teenage boys, with one extreme example of a player who admitted to having kept playing Fortnite as a tornado devastated his neighborhood and was only forced to stop when power lines came down. Although the report comes from a news website, it did not specify who these “health/medical experts” are or which organizations they represent, so there is no way to research and verify these claims. However, this isn’t the first time that Epic’s Fortnite was cited for problems arising outside the game.

Two weeks ago, a divorce website based in the U.K claimed that hundreds of couples cited Fortnite as one of the reasons for the demise of their marriages. As of September 2018, there have been around 200 couples who have filed for divorce due to their significant other’s addiction to Fortnite and/or other video games.

These reports regarding the adverse effects of Fortnite and other video games came out a few months after the World Health Organization (WHO) officially listed video game addiction as a new mental health disorder. The WHO believes that no more than three percent of gamers are affected by the disorder, which can only be diagnosed by a healthcare professional. The WHO also made it clear that this does not mean that every person who spends hours playing video games are suffering from the disorder. Instead, consistent symptoms must be present, ruining several aspects of an individual’s life.

While video game addiction is a serious issue, it still warrants a great deal of research and people should understand that the majority of gamers are not affected by it. In reality, video games per se are not bad for someone’s health, the problem arises when it becomes too excessive and disrupts a person’s life.

Source: ABC News