Five more minutes, I just need to get to a save point.” That was what I used to say to my mother when she told me it was time to turn off my video game. It’s the classic gaming excuse for a kid: based on truth but impossible for an oldie parent, a non-player, to understand fully.
What I was really doing, of course, was pushing my luck. I was trying to stretch out my allocated gaming time (a measly half an hour per day) as much as possible because I didn’t want to stop playing. Of course I didn’t. A child would eat chocolate and sweets for every meal if allowed to — and they would play video games all day if that were an option too.
I’m approaching 30 and I still play them. This may seem frightfully childish to some readers, especially, if I might risk a cruel generalisation, to older readers. But games are fun. Very fun. They are immersive, escapist and creative. They can challenge, excite, relieve stress and bring players together in a community. The V&A’s video game exhibition at the end of last year was an excellent demonstration of the sheer spectacular scale of work that goes into building virtual worlds and the eye-watering speed at which the technology is evolving.
But like much that’s moreish, gaming can become a problem for some. This week the World Health Organisation (WHO) added “gaming disorder” as an official health condition to its International Classification of Diseases under the category of “addictive behaviour”, the same category as gambling.
One of the most horrifying examples I’ve read about is in Professor Adam Alter’s 2017 book on behavioural addiction, Irresistible: Why We Can’t Stop Checking, Scrolling, Clicking and Watching. Isaac Vaisberg, a DC college student, was so hooked on the fantasy game World of Warcraft that he didn’t leave his apartment for five weeks. He became sleep-deprived and had a full mental breakdown — at one point his situation was so bad he found he could no longer express himself to another human being.
I hope the WHO’s decision to recognise gaming addiction can help prevent extreme cases like this, but I also hope parents aren’t unduly worried that allowing their child to boot up Fortnite is equivalent to handing them a crack pipe.
Gamification is everywhere — and it’s possible for this to seem more alarming than it really is. Pokémon Company chief executive Tsunekazu Ishihara didn’t do himself any favours this week with the announcement of the new mobile game Pokémon Sleep, which will track players’ sleep and use the data for gameplay when they’re awake. “We want to turn sleep into entertainment,” he said. Gosh, that sounds creepy, doesn’t it? Keep that little yellow Pikachu rat out of my child’s dreams, if you don’t mind.
But the actual plans for the game involve rewarding good sleep habits. Parents who struggle to get their children to turn off their devices and go to bed might find that Pokémon Sleep could help: a game to get them away from their games.
Because total abstinence is no fun at all.
Keep your terrible tatts to yourself, Sergei
Oold tattoo taboos don’t hold the weight they once did. People feel less pressure to cover them in formal settings, and are no longer afraid of being seen as someone who lacks judgment. This is mostly a good thing, but there are limits. That limit is Sergei Polunin.
Anyone who goes to the Palladium this week for his new mixed programme will see his infamous Putin chest tattoo on proud display.
The “bad boy of ballet” has managed to enrage just about everyone in the dance world with homophobic posts on social media.
His ex-girlfriend, Royal Ballet superstar Natalia Osipova, said this week that he should be valued by how he dances and not by anything else. OK… but this becomes hard to do when the Vlad tat is up there, right before your eyes.
Polunin has admitted that he craves hostility: “The energy attacks your heart, your stomach … and it’s amazing to feel it.”
Perhaps an earlier tattoo gave the game away. On his left arm he has a picture of Heath Ledger as the Joker from The Dark Knight — the deranged clown is a favourite among wannabe edgy internet trolls. Polunin trolls IRL.
* What’s the naughtiest thing you’ve ever done?” PM hopeful Rory Stewart was asked yesterday. His answer: aged nine, he sat on a cactus, compelled to do so by a Tintin book.
So which character inspired this rather odd act? Was it Snowy, who hides in a cactus patch in Tintin in America? Or Captain Haddock whose tumble down a slope has a prickly end in Prisoners of the Sun?
Even though Tintin himself never gets an arseload of cactus, he has other similarities with Stewart: they’re both globetrotters, they’re both courteous and earnest, they both love dogs. But what of Stewart’s admission that he once smoked opium at a wedding in Iran? For someone who so often fought villainous opium smugglers, that’s too naughty for Tintin.
