Cathy Stanworth: The times they are a’changing

I learned that with no treatment being available through the NHS, young sufferers were having to travel to the Netherlands to attend Europe’s only rehabilitation centre for child gamers, called ‘Yes We Can’.

Centre bosses blame the complexity of modern games for the rise in addicts, with nobody being ‘dependent’ on Tetris or Super Mario 20 years ago.

To be diagnosed, a person must play video games so much it ‘takes precedence over other life interests’. They can game 18-19 hours a day, sometimes going weeks without showers and not eating properly.

“Phew, mine aren’t that bad,” I thought.

They do spend most of their spare time in their room, they don’t seem to have any interest in going outdoors anymore (their bikes being left to rust in the shed), don’t read books or do any form of exercise. They can be playing into the early hours of the morning during the holidays. I hear their mouse clicks and keyboard taps as I pass their rooms during the night, in despair.

Over the summer holidays I got into the habit of coming home from work to just knock on their bedroom doors and say “Are you still alive and have you gotten yourself something to eat today?”

After my one son actually left the house to walk to school to collect his GCSE results, I asked him “Were you ok? Did you burn out there in the sun?” receiving a sarcastic sneer in reply. Our relationship is based on sarcastic humour, peppered with my moans about how they do not wash up, wipe round, appear to be incapable of closing a kitchen cupboard door, re-fill a glass, turn off a light or re-fold a wet towel correctly.

However they did come outside the other week when I was looking after my brother’s dog while he was away, and we actually had some proper conversations. I tried not to faint when they kept appearing. (So perhaps getting our own pet might help?)

After tiring of traditional childhood toys, my sons have always had the latest technology to entertain them, which has led to increasing lengths of time spent in their rooms. I did enrol them in twice-weekly karate lessons in a bid to encourage some exercise, only to have my eldest snarl at me “I hate you” each time he passed me, while running warm up laps round the hall.

This is all a far cry from how I spent my childhood and teenage years. Living in a beautiful village I had lessons in ballet and tap, horse riding and elocution (and yes that involved talking with marbles in my mouth). I sporadically attempted the Brownies and Guides (sadly not flourishing in that area – as I never wanted to conform), and made the school hockey team.

For many years I was the classic tomboy, with a love of being outside. I hated dresses. I’ll always remember a particularly hideous one that my mother would make me wear. It was brown and gold tartan with a velvet bow round the neck. That memory still makes me shudder now.

Myself and my friends were out of the house 90 per cent of the time. We would be down at the adventure playground, climbing trees, fishing for tiddlers, pulling a home made go-kart around, or scrumping for apples. Or we would be riding our bikes, hurtling down the edge of a farmer’s field down to the Bluebell wood and stream, with our bikes’ back wheels juddering against the furrows alongside the field’s edge.

The nearest thing to a computer game to first come into our lives was an Atari Pong – the most basic ping pong game ever, which you plugged into your TV.

Then, as teenagers, we would meander round the village in groups, looking moody, being posy, full of attitude, thinking we knew everything, and buying cigarettes from the shop owner who knew only too well we were under age, and didn’t care. We got part time jobs and enrolled at the local fitness class or took up tennis. It was just what you did.

So back to my boys. I suppose I can ‘console’ myself with the fact that PCs are destined to be a big part of their future careers. They will both be at college starting/continuing studying a high level IT course next week. My eldest can build a computer from scratch, while the other writes computer games and has invested in all the latest kit, including a green screen so he can do vlogs, and various microphones and sound systems etc.

On recently getting the latest virtual reality headset, he kept inviting me to have a go. “Yes, yes, but not now. I’m too busy, maybe later,” I said. “This house doesn’t run itself you know (Oh no, I have finally turned into my mother!).” Then I had a go. “Where do you want to go Mum? What do you want to do?” I had no hesitation in saying “A shooting range. And pass me an Uzi 9MM. That’s too small, give me a bigger one!” Once a tomboy always a tomboy. I was very impressed. Ok, so I might just be starting to see what all the fuss is about.