When A Video Game Becomes An Addiction | Khurram Sadiq | TEDxAngliaRuskinUniversity

“It took a lot of strength for me to pack my obsession and addiction in a box and give it away. I’m glad I did though, or I may not have finished my degree!” This is the true story of Dr Khurram Sadiq who got obsessed with a game during his psychiatric training and quickly realised it was taking over his life.

But how many can say they had the same strength?

Until recent years psychiatrists didn’t have enough data to analyse video gaming behaviour. Especially the effect from games with violence, mimicking wars and fights. But now doctors are beginning to see the impact of the Modern Gaming world. This is Dr. Khurram’s fourth TEDx talk, and he shares with us the three biggest impacts of modern gaming: game thrombosis, gaming freak-outs and the rise of cult cultures.

Dr Khurram Sadiq is a Clinical Lead Acute Care in Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust and a Consultant Psychiatrist in Crisis Team Basingstoke. He is a Public Speaker, Blogger, Vlogger, a Leadership coach and a former gamer who understands the bias, the excitement, the pain and everything that each gamer goes through in life. He appeals to all gamers to

Keep the fantasy and reality in balance

Connect with Dr. Khurram Sadiq on LinkedIn and YouTube @Dr Khurram Sadiq, Instagram @Fomosapien666 and Facebook @ Khurram Saadiq

#MentalHealth #VideoGameAddiction #InternetGamingDisorder

This talk was given at TEDxAngliaRuskinUniversity using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.
Credit:
Video editor: David Rincon Jimenez

About TEDx: In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized

[bizbily]

Yep!! Gaming easily turns into addiction and soon into an obsession .. your lesson about keeping both worlds of reality and fantasy into balance is so important.

[ammarsadiq]

There is an immense need of discussing the topic at this point in time as there are alot of people who are experiencing these challenges and can really benefit from listening to this

[bggeorgieva]

‘Keeping the fantasy and the reality in balance’ - brilliant wisdom!

[san-xmuh]

A topic less talked about yet so prevalent. Had the previlage of attending the talk in person and as always a pleasure to see Dr Khurram's passion in his topics. Well done..

[perrinefarque]

Amazing talk Khurram! It was a privilege to meet you in person at the event!

[zeequreshi]

Such an important topic especially in this day, I have so many friends who would benefit from this talk. Amazing!

[borislavakostova]

It’s true, it’s a big escapism problem in our society

[codewithsherry]

A very important issue to talk about, very relevant to the current situation of the youth.
Your presentation drew the audience in and held their attention up to the very end. There was never a dull moment.

[eddyperez]

In my opinion balancing reality and fantasy can be really challenging, because fantasy (gaming, anime, etc.) is design by default to be better, easier and cooler than reality. While in real life you have to work hard to achieve the things you want (career, job, money, recognition, etc.) and it is a painful process, in fantasy it is relatively easy to level up to a powerful character and you enjoy all the ride.

The key to a balance is do "quests" for both of them. Meaning that you need to have dreams and expectations for real life as well. Find something that keeps you hook up to reality, in my case is the dream to a better life, to travel, to know the world, to have a family of my own. It can be anything that you want, but it must be powerful enough to make you wanna wake up in the morning.

If you find yourself in a spot where fantasy is the best part of your life and real life is meaningless, you are in trouble.


If you don't know what to do to improve your real life, if you think you are not good in nothing but gamming and you can't find a productive activity in real life. Let me recommend you learning a foreign language. You need cero background, talent or education and can be done online. It is really an enriching experience. Right now the most thing I am proud of is: to be fluent in English, and I will never forget the first time I communicated with English native speakers, how great did that feel.

When you're bilingual a whole world opens up for you and even if you are introverted loving a language makes you wanna speak it and in doing so you create new and powerful connections with the real world.

Forgive me for this huge block of text but this topic brings me memories of darker days and I just wanted to share a little of my experience and how I deal with it.

[NoevNemesis]

I lose everything on playing game....
Emptied my savings on playings toxic game....
Gotta move on...
Lessons learned

[sashkapalauzova]

Thanks for the engrossing way to tell us about video gaming!

[carolinet]

Thank you very much for this video. I will circulate this in the hope that it will reach the people who are in great need of this message. Thank you again.

[ZOrinaOE]

Very profound speach. Thank you for perform it so wisely and crearly! Balance between reality and fantasy is a must !!!

[Samreenrizvi]

I wish, we start another life without all these chaos

[zennedy]

I am a psychologist. And a gamer. Games are art and can tell incredible stories. They can enhance and enrich the human experience just like great literature, poetry, and visual art. Are all games art? No, but the cherry picked examples and quotes used in this video are nothing but fear mongering and a demonstration of misunderstanding.

[shavkat_bek]

They say this is a worldwide problem, yet they don’t tackle the problem at the root - game producing companies

[Jaylenoschin]

The deliberately shocking examples in this video are absolute outliers, these are not common experiences. Gaming addicts are more than aware of reality, hence why there is (like all addictions) a shame around their addiction. Gaming addiction is real but his portrayal is dramatic and unhelpful.

I seriously question whether Dr khurram Sadiq motives are positive as the examples are alarmist. And if he is well intentioned, then please leave it to the real experts who assist and treat the addiction instead of spreading a harmful impression of gaming addicts.