Cases of internet addiction have been on the rise in the contemporary society owing to the improved technology. This paper focuses on a 16-year-old Korean boy who is given the initials HC. He has lived in the US where he was undertaking his studies (Lee, 2011). He resulted in playing internet games from the age of seven as he was unable to communicate with people in English. Consequently, this developed into a process addiction as the hours he spent on the games increased at a high rate. In addition to this, he was not able to adopt the culture and mannerism of the Koreans as he assimilated the American culture. This made him have a poor relationship with his brother and father. In general, HC was suffering from an overuse of internet, depression and negative attitudes.
Assessment
Essentially, HC’s addiction was playing the internet games whereby he spent approximately 13 hours during the weekend and three to five hours during the weekday playing (Lee, 2011). Notably, his mother persuaded him to come to the US against his wish as all the other family members such as his father and relatives were still living in Korea. On arriving in the US, he had difficulties communicating effectively with others, and as such he withdrew from all of his friends. He stated that he was often bored as his mother and brother spent a lot of time outside till late in the evening and they left him alone on weekends. As such, his environment hardly offered any support for him that he could recover with ease from the addiction.
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Notably, his mother took the initial step of referring him or counselling and walking with him through the entire period to ensure that he overcame his addiction (Lee, 2011). During the first counselling sessions, he was not as cooperative and failed to attend some sessions as he felt that they were a bother. He also lacked the motivation of going through the counselling process because he thought that he was not addicted to internet games and he would leave them as soon as he desired to do so. However, after being made to understand the effects the addiction would have on his health and studies, he became interested in the sessions and made remarkable progress during the follow-ups.
History of Internet Addiction
Internet game addiction was only recently defined by Young in 1996 as the process of “centralizing the use of internet at the expense of other activities,” (Lee, 2011). He stated that such individual maintains a relationship with the electronics. Internet addiction is also incorporated into the DSM V whereby it is defined as the excessive use of internet which is often linked to a loss of sense of time and also basic drives, withdraw, depression and feelings of anger every time the computer is inaccessible. Over the years, the prevalence of his addiction has rapidly increased and is more common among adolescents. According to a survey, over 1527 adolescents are at a risk of developing internet addiction. Notably, the survey noted that individuals who were associated with internet addiction, 75.3% of theme were addicted to online games. As such, there were various interventions which were developed to help people deal with their internet addiction which included a value therapies, self-growth programs, game desire control programs and value facilitation programs and self-control training.
Physiological and Psychology effects of the addiction
Without his realization, the addiction had had adverse physiological effects on him as he adopted unhealthy lifestyle. He found himself unable to sleep and as such this affected his concentration resulting in poor performance in his study. In addition to this, he developed psychological problems which affected his behaviours and mental well-being. He usually felt lonely which caused him to develop depression. His self-control was also low as he often found himself playing the internet games irrespective of setting a goal to reduce the time sent on the internet. Furthermore, he was impulsive and had a low self-esteem; thus he preferred connecting with people on the internet rather than in real life (Lee, 2011).
Result of the Case
The client was ma undertake five counselling sessions and was usually given homework to gauge the success rate. The first session was primarily to get a general assessment and second was to develop a contract that would guide his behaviour. However, as the session progressed, he had a hard time changing his behaviour. During this period he skipped counselling sessions and went back to spending more time on internet games.
The counsellor used a cognitive behavioural therapy approach to enable him to understand the effects of internet games and methods of reducing the time spent on the game as well as understanding the satisfaction of the goals (Lee, 2011). By exploring his emotions, thoughts, and behaviours, he was able to realize his strengths, and weaknesses and how to overcome them. Although he did not make any improvements during the five sessions, the therapies enabled him to adapt to a more healthy behaviour, which is playing golf. As a result, he reduced the hours he spent on internet games and was able to make to achieve goals set during the therapy sessions.
Conclusion
HC suffered from internet game addiction which made him develop physiological and psychological problems such as poor health, depression, and impulsivity. Through counselling, he was able to identify ways through which he would recover from the addiction through modifying his behaviours and thoughts. Over time, he was able to overcome the addiction and spent more time golfing with his mother.
Reference
Lee, E. (2011). A case study of Internet Game Addiction: Journal of Addictions Nursing , 22 (4), 208-213. http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/10884602.2011.616609
