Mental health reforms: Is banning PUBG enough?

We already avoided being left in the lurch by tech giants in the start of the year

This week, the Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) decided to temporarily suspend PUBG, a first-person shooter game that has become popular all over the world. Individuals of all ages and genders are playing the game every day, with at least 100,000 active users each hour.

According to PTA, the game was suspended because of concerns of not just addiction but also that it could lead to suicide. The claims came up after a teenager committed suicide when he failed to complete a mission on PUBG. The police report specifically highlighted this news report with an SP claiming without any evidence that,

“The PUBG has been under scrutiny for being a violent game and due to this, many countries are thinking of banning it.”

This is not the first initiative of the sort taken against the very serious problem of addiction. Last year, the Sindh Government banned chewing tobacco from being consumed and/or manufactured. It seemed like Pakistan was finally addressing long-awaited mental health reforms in some way at least. So now that there are certain initiatives that the authorities have started that are aimed at addiction and suicide prevention, what more can a Pakistani ask for, right?

Wrong, there is much to be desired when it comes to these initiatives. Not only will the moves already taken by the authorities make no progress in our fight to defeat addiction and suicide, they will make matters worse.

Doctor Gabor Mate, a Canadian specialist in addiction, describes addiction as follows,

“All addictions — alcohol or drugs, sex addiction or internet addiction, gambling or shopping — are attempts to regulate our internal emotional states because we’re not comfortable, and the discomfort originates in childhood.”

 

In other words, addiction is the externalisation of our inner discomfort, where the addiction becomes a symptom of our misery. Much of this misery, according to Mate, originates during the earliest years of our life.

 

Keeping this definition of addiction in mind, is PUBG the cause of this new normal of isolation, or merely the symptom of an already existing emotional constraint placed on individuals? After banning PUBG, will we remove those emotional constraints, or will we simply open the door for another instrument to replace PUBG?

 

To understand this better, we should ask some questions. By banning PUBG, are we ignoring the cause of addiction, and instead focusing on the manifestation of addiction? If that is the case, what are the consequences of such actions? And most importantly, what do such decisions tell us about those that we deem authorities in our society?

 

To start with, let’s suppose that manifestations of addictions are indeed at fault and that by not making them accessible, we will eradicate addiction once and for all. Does that not mean that we should ban all manifestations of addiction, then? Why did lawmakers overlook cigarettes, a source of pleasure for thousands of Pakistani children, starting as early as the age of six? What about TV and the internet? One can argue– as specialists like Mate do– that entertainment can be as addictive as substances. And if these manifestations were indeed the problem, why wouldn’t the whole world simply ban all such manifestations? Or better yet, why isn’t the whole world addicted?

 

Here’s what Mate had to say about this,

“On top of the childhood trauma and the profound social and economic dislocation so many people experience, most physicians are completely uninformed about trauma and don’t understand how to address chronic pain or treat addiction. Hence they have a propensity to prescribe opiates all too quickly without looking at root causes or alternatives. Most people introduced to opiates in recent years started on medical prescriptions. When these are stopped, they turn to illicit substances.”

 

To put it simply, it is far more convenient to focus on the manifestations than deal with the cause of the addiction itself. When a person is merely reacting to their past traumas, using for example PUBG as an aid to feel better, they will not stop just because a single game was banned. There are other similar games out there. How many games will authorities ban? And what if the next step is not a game and something more sinister?

So what are the consequences of such decisions? The consequences–if looked specifically at PUBG– will affect the following three, mental health, social relations, and economics.

By suddenly banning an app that is used by hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of Pakistanis, a dangerous economic precedent has been set. Next time a game developer considers creating something for the population, the possibility of it being banned will serve as one of the factors to be considered. They might ask themselves if investing capital in an app for Pakistan is worth it, considering the lack of transparency in the process employed by Pakistan Telecom Authority. We already narrowly avoided being left in the lurch by tech giants including the likes of Facebook, Google and Twitter in the start of the year, after the government revealed its internet censorship policy.

Furthermore, this decision seems to have been made without any expert discussion or opinion, and it seems that a lot of legitimate research has been ignored. Psychologists suggest that first person shooter games contribute directly to the personal development of young people, where they learn to plan, organise, negotiate, and understand implicit social rules when making friends. Instead of a sudden decision made by the authorities, why were there no expert committees set up to discuss the pros and cons of such apps before taking the decision to temporarily ban PUBG?

Finally, the most important and disturbing consequence of such actions will be on the awareness and discussion around mental health in the country. This decision also seems like an easy way out for the authorities when it comes to the population’s mental health as many may just deem this as a good way to curb mental health issues. In reality, however, the move of banning games and other manifestations of misery will only add to the already abysmal discussion around mental health in the country.