U.S. teachers complain that e-cigarette addiction has become the latest headache after gaming addict

According to a new survey, online gaming and e-cigarette addiction have become so widespread that most high school counselors now regularly encounter these behaviors among today’s teenagers.

Four out of five counselors said they had helped at least one student in the past year deal with excessive gaming or e-cigarette use. However, few said they had received enough training to help their young students effectively, the researchers found.
“School counselors recognize that this is a problem, but it appears that as a profession we have not provided the training needed to equip them to address it,” said lead researcher Amanda Giordano, an associate professor at the University of Georgia’s Mary Frances Early College of Education. “They are seeking out continuing education and self-study on their own to understand how to meet these needs.”

About 41% of teenagers said they had used nicotine e-cigarettes at some point in their lives, while 26% said they had used marijuana e-cigarettes, the researchers said in background materials.

“These numbers are very concerning,” Giordano said. “As a society, we have worked hard to curb youth use of combustible tobacco products. Now, with the emergence of e-cigarettes, we are seeing these numbers rise again.”

Gaming addiction is also a growing problem, characterized by compulsive behavior, loss of control, and cravings, the researchers said. It was officially recognized as a disorder by the World Health Organization in 2019.

For this study, researchers collected data from 221 high school counselors in New York, Georgia, and Washington.

About 81% of counselors said they had worked in the previous year with at least one student who had gaming or smoking-related problems, the results showed.

About 70% said gaming problems increased during the pandemic, when children were stuck at home with little to do.

“These figures are striking because they confirm that most high school counselors will address e-cigarette and gaming issues in their work,” Giordano said.

But when asked whether they felt prepared to help these children, counselors expressed uncertainty.

Only 24% believed they were at least moderately competent in addressing gaming problems, while only 37% felt prepared to counsel teenagers about smoking.

In addition, counselors ranked other issues as even more concerning, including mental illness, poor academic performance, suicidal thoughts, cyberbullying, and self-harm.

The study was published earlier this year in the International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling.

The range of these issues highlights the importance of school counselors and the critical role they play in helping adolescents, Giordano said.

Even so, training programs need to add the identification of and response to addictive behaviors to their curriculum, Giordano said.

“I firmly believe that all counselors are addiction counselors—school counselors are uniquely positioned to intervene in adolescent addictive behaviors,” Giordano said.

To address gaming addiction, counselors should consider classroom lessons that educate students on the topic and teach them the warning signs of addictive behavior.

“Right now, many people are talking about advocacy around digital media use among children and adolescents. I believe the risk of gaming addiction is an important part of that discussion,” Giordano said.