Children addicted to video games ran away from home in the middle of the night to find WiFi when parents turned their internet connection off, says expert

• Children addicted to video games run away from home in search of WiFi and turn violence, per a doctor.
• Henrietta Bowden-Jones heads up the UK's National Centre for Gaming Disorders.

Some young gamers are so addicted they resort to running away from home in the middle of the night in search of an internet connection after theirs was cut off by a parent, according to an expert.

A UK clinic designed for treating video game addiction, originally expected to help just 50 people a year, has had more than 850 referrals since its inception in 2020.

"I have met parents whose young children ran away from home in the middle of the night to find WiFi on the steps of random homes when their own internet connection was switched off by parents," Henrietta Bowden-Jones, director of the National Centre for Gaming Disorders, wrote in a first-person piece for the Guardian.

"I have met children who felt they would rather be dead than not game and said so to their parents. Things get broken in fits of rage. Sometimes people get hurt," she wrote.

Internet Gaming Disorder is defined by nine characteristics, including loss of interest in other activities and using gaming to escape negative emotions, five of which must be experienced with12 months.

Bowden-Jones previously headed up the National Problem Gambling Clinic and became increasingly aware of the "compulsive and destructive manner" children were spending money on games, she wrote.

Many games involve loot boxes, typically unknown items unlocked through additional gameplay or paid for with real-world or in-game money. Video game companies EA and Respawn have faced criticism for expensive loot boxes in Apex Legends, with one axe totaling $178 in microtransactions when it was released.

"To spend money, these children need to borrow money from parents or use monetary gifts received for birthdays and Christmas. The need for money is at the root of some of the domestic violence we see," Bowden-Jones said.

"When no money is available, the most impulsive patients have stolen it by spending on their parents' bank cards."

Whether loot boxes count as gambling is a well-debated topic. In 2019, the UK digital and media committee joined the Gambling Commission in calling games companies to do more to prevent in-game items from being traded for real-world money.

Last year, then-Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries opted not to regulate loot boxes as gambling. An Austrian court recently did the opposite, joining Belgium and Australia by imposing restrictions.

"Almost no one" treated by the clinic has displayed both a gaming and gambling disorder, Bowden-Jones added. Still, research is needed on whether gamers develop gambling disorders laves.

Competition and the ability to master a game are more important to younger patients, she wrote. Today, the doctor and a consultant psychiatrist treats everyone, from children to a woman in her 70s.