Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a mental health condition characterized by unwanted and recurring thoughts, impulses, or images that lead to repetitive behaviors or mental acts in an effort to reduce anxiety or distress.published in the, reveals that the use of screens during the holiday season may have negative effects on children’s mental health.
“Children who spend excessive time playing video games report feeling the need to play more and more and being unable to stop despite trying,” said Jason Nagata, MD, lead author of the study and assistant professor of pediatrics at UCSF. “Intrusive thoughts about video game content could develop into obsessions or compulsions.”
OCD is a mental health condition involving recurrent and unwanted thoughts as well as repetitive behaviors that a person feels driven to perform. These intrusive thoughts and behaviors can become severely disabling for the sufferers and those close to them. At the two-year mark, 4.4% of preteens had developed new-onset OCD. Video games and streaming videos were each connected to a higher risk of developing OCD. Texting, video chat, and social media didn’t link individually with OCD, but that may be because the preteens in the sample didn’t use them much, researchers said. Results may differ for older teens, they added.