LUCKNOW: A bright student, six-year-old Vansh gradually became disinterested in studies and started making excuses to skip school a few months ago.His behaviour even turned violent. He would hit people in the family and break things if stopped from watching cartoons or playing games on the phone. One day, when he broke three smartphones in a fit of rage, his parents realised that something was wrong and took him to the psychiatry department of King George’s Medical University ( KGMU ) to seek help.Vansh’s case is not isolated. The department receives around 10 such cases daily. To cater better to children’s health, KGMU has decided to open a separate clinic to treat disorders among children and teenagers caused by addiction to online gaming, social media and pornography.A panel of doctors will run the clinic from April 4 every Thursday in the out-patient department (OPD) from 8.30am to 12.30 pm with the clinic being inaugurated at the department on March 29. The psychological condition of children and adolescents will be assessed along with the causes responsible before providing counselling and medical treatment, if needed.Head of the psychiatry department Prof PK Dalal said that there was a steady increase in the number of couples with kids aged 6-14 years who had psychological problems due to excessive use of online platforms for games and social media over the years.“We have decided to open a clinic and later plan to conduct counselling sessions against online addiction in schools,” he said.International studies have shown that online addiction and lack of outdoor activities may cause disruptive and violent behaviour, depression, anxiety, eyesight problem, weak memory and health issues due to sleep deprivation among adolescents. A research by Dr Vivek Agarwal of the department of psychiatry at KGMU on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) conducted on 70 patients found that 60% of them were suffering from digital addiction of some kind. “Parents generally ignore these problems unless school teachers or others complain or till conditions worsen. We have observed that more boys suffer than girls,” said Dr Agarwal.In Vansh’s case, it was about addiction to online gaming and cartoons. He would refuse food or studies and turn violent if not allowed access to a phone. Diagnosed with ADHD, it took a month’s counselling and medication to make him overcome the problem.Dr Adarsh Tripathi, from the psychiatry department, also added, “Thursday is the 48th foundation day of the department, where we inaugurated the clinic and also organised an oration by PGIMER Chandigarh’s Prof Debashish Basu. The topic being—Technology addiction:Addiction to technology or technology addiction?”

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