There you are, sitting in your room. You check the clock and tell yourself that you have time for one more game before bed. Before you know it, that one game turns to two, then three, and then four. Then you realize, that one game turned to 10! You check the clock frantically once more and it is now 3:00 a.m. You start to panic because you know you have school tomorrow, and you can’t function on three hours of sleep! No amount of coffee can fix this mistake! You try to think of a better solution, but you can’t think of anything. Reluctantly, you head to bed, fearing for tomorrow.

“Fortnite Syndrome” is a condition that people over the internet refer to when a person gets addicted to Fortnite, an online video game created by Epic Games. Fortnite, like many other addictive video games, has become a health issue, for kids have been spending too much time on these video games. “Fortnite Syndrome” falls under video game addiction, which the World Health Organization (WHO) has classified as a mental health disorder. Video game addiction is when you have impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences, as stated by the World Health Organization website .  

WHO isn’t the only one to classify video game disorder as a mental health problem; so does the United Nations agency, who added video game addiction to the draft to the 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases. This is a problem because  it affects kids around the middle school and high school age. About 8.5% of kids suffer from video game addiction. While that may not seem to be a lot, it is roughly 3 million kids who are affected! With kids’ lack of control and Fortnite’s addictive gameplay,  it creates a recipe for disaster. When some kids spend a lot of time trying to get to the next tier, they often forget to put the game down and take on their responsibilities.

This is proven by a Freedom Middle School eighth grade student who said, “My mom used to yell at me cause it would be 4 a.m. and I’d be playing Fortnite…” This was back when he did play Fortnite, showing that it is possible to break the addictive grasp Fortnite has on teens.

Fortnite has an addictive grip on the young minds of the future, but not all hope is lost. If kids with Fortnite Syndrome take time out of their day and do something more productive, the world could be more advanced in the future. Who knows, maybe you will be the next Albert Einstein.