A fight between a 16-year-old boy and his mother surrounding his attachment to online gaming took a turn for the worse when the woman reportedly threw herself in the river out of anger, followed by the teen. The mother and son are now presumed to have drowned during the dramatic altercation. A 16-year-old student named Mingming in Guangyuan, Sichuan province was particularly fond of the online game League of Legends.
How serious is video game addiction? The American Psychiatric Association is considering officially recognizing the disorder, and the U.S. wouldn’t be the first country to do. Whether you consider it a legitimate illness or just a symptom of “kids being kids,” one thing is clear—when gaming messes with personal health and safety, it should be taken seriously. Nowhere is this more evident than in China, where an argument over gaming addiction recently preceded a double suicide. China has a long history of clamping down on gaming and has evenpassed regulations aimed at limiting the amount of time young people play online games. But that didn’t stop a 16-year-old boy from Guangyuan in Sichuan province from heading straight to a local gaming cafe after school. The boy, who has not been named in Chinese news reports, was an avid League of Legends player.
