The hours spent on gaming reached new heights in the pandemic, as teenagers remained indoors and grew restless. “The very lack of anything else to do for our teenagers left us as parents with no other choice but to give in to these unhealthy demands,” says Ranita Bafna, mother of Zahan who is studying in grade 11 and Reyaan, a grade 8 student.  “I felt extreme frustration at the amount of screen time my sons had in the initial stages of the lockdown but I took solace in the fact that I wasn’t alone in this battle and almost every other family was struggling with these exact same issues.”

On the one hand, gaming acted as a balm for young ones. “Most students used gaming as a way to manage the disruptions, loneliness, and feelings of isolation caused by the lockdown,” explains Aachal Jain, Pastoral Care Coordinator and counsellor at the Aditya Birla World Academy. On the flip side, it became almost addictive. Following the shocking incident of a boy living in Dadar taking his own life after imitating the mobile action game Free Fire, there has been renewed concern over teenagers getting dangerously absorbed in playing online games. A similar incident was reported by India Today from Madhya Pradesh, where a 13-year-old boy died by suicide after losing Rs 40,000 playing the same game.