By WFY Bureau | Health & Wellness | The WFY Magazine, December, 2025 edition
How apps, pressure and fraying social safeguards are creating a new public-health emergency, and what communities can do about it
There is a particular quiet to this crisis: it does not always scream for attention on prime-time television. It begins in bedrooms, in PG rooms near coaching centres, on hostel bunks and under the thin light of phone screens. It begins with a ‘just one more game’ or ‘one small bet’ and sometimes ends, tragically, in debt, despair or death.
This article follows that arc. It examines why, in 2025, thousands of Indian teenagers, in India and across the diaspora, are slipping from ordinary adolescent life into an unhealthy swirl of gaming, gambling and mental breakdown. It lays out how technology, aggressive monetisation, intense academic and financial pressures, weakened family surveillance and grossly inadequate mental-health infrastructure together form a near-perfect storm. It also offers practical, evidence-based responses that families, schools, community organisations and policy makers can adopt immediately.
The material facts: the scale of the problem
There are several complicated threads here, behavioural addiction, online betting, self-harm and suicide, but they intersect in measurable ways.
A recent global synthesis of studies finds that gaming disorder among adolescents has pooled prevalence in the mid-single digits to low-double digits; a 2024 systematic review reported a pooled prevalence of roughly 8.6% of gaming disorder among adolescents.
Smaller, India-focused studies report wide ranges depending on methodology and age group; some field studies have found Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) rates in adolescent samples ranging from a few per cent to double digits. One cross-sectional study reported IGD prevalence among schoolchildren at about 10.6%, with notably higher rates in boys than girls.
At the same time, the gaming–gambling boundary is blurring fast. Sports-betting and money-game apps have exploded in reach; young people now face product designs that encourage repeated micro-transactions, reward unpredictability and link gameplay with instant credit and loan products. Studies of youth sports betting highlight this rising trend and the rapid escalation in harms when credit, peer pressure and celebrity advertising combine.
Finally, the broader mental-health and safety net is thin. India’s ratio of qualified mental-health professionals per population has been repeatedly flagged by health analysts as inadequate. Recent official and academic sources estimate psychiatrists in India are well below international recommendations; estimates range around 0.3–0.75 psychiatrists per 100,000 population, far lower than the WHO recommended threshold. This shortage means that many teenagers who need early help receive none at all.
These five figures ,pooled gaming disorder prevalence, India-specific IGD findings, youth betting trends, Kota’s coaching-town suicide pattern (below), and the mental-health workforce deficit ,are the backbone of this story and shape the policy and community response that follows.
A typical path into darkness
There is no single profile of an affected teen. But case patterns repeat:
• A high-performing student moves to a coaching city to prepare for a competitive exam, living away from family for the first time. Stress and loneliness are constant. Peer culture normalises late-night study breaks; the same breaks become long online sessions.
• A boy in a metro city downloads a multiplayer battle game to unwind; the game’s reward mechanics encourage repeat sessions and in-app purchases. A friend suggests small wagers; a celebrity ad links the sport and betting in a single click. Within months money flows from the credit card to the app, then to loan apps that top up bets.
• A child in a diaspora city experiences parental absence because both parents work long hours. Without family oversight, the teen uses gaming as company, then begins gambling to feel the rush of wins and social status.
In each case the path is the same:
Accessible device + 24/7 internet + product design that compounds attention and spending + stressors outside the screen (academic, financial, social) = vulnerability.
When something goes wrong, a debt, a social shame, an exam setback, the adolescent has little support and few safe exits.
Why modern apps are engineered for harm
Digital games and betting platforms are built on two commercial truths: attention is the commodity, and monetisation strategies convert attention into revenue.
Games increasingly use variable-reward systems, unpredictable wins, loot boxes and staged progression, to stimulate the brain’s dopamine pathways. When money is added to the equation, the risk profile changes. Betting-adjacent products, like daily fantasy sports, live betting and in-play microbets, let users place tiny wagers at high frequency. Where regulatory oversight is weak or unclear, apps encourage continued play by offering instant credits, cashback and VIP perks, features that disguise financial risk as game progress.
Research and clinical experience show that the fusion of these mechanics with instant lending facilities is particularly toxic for teenagers: when an adolescent can borrow funds instantly through a paired loan provider, the usual brakes, parental oversight, bank declines, or time lags, vanish. The result is rapid debt accumulation and often, shame so intense that disclosure to family is avoided.
Academic pressure and the coaching-city factor
India’s high-stakes exam culture is another major accelerant. Cities such as Kota, long known as coaching hubs, have documented clusters of student suicides. Media and academic reporting indicate an alarming pattern of deaths among students preparing for entrance exams; recent tallies from reputable press outlets show multiple student suicides each year in Kota alone, a reminder that pressure in coaching ecosystems is real and persistent.
Why does this matter for gaming and betting? Students who live away from families, under intense time pressures and in peer groups where sleep deprivation and performance anxiety are the norm, are both especially exposed to mental health problems and more likely to seek escape in screens. When that escape is soldered to addictive mechanics or to betting culture, what begins as relief can become ruin.
The financial and existential harms are intertwined
There are two striking differences between the ‘Western’ adolescent crises we read about and the one unfolding in India and among many Indian Diasporas.
First, the economic consequences are heavier. Where Western teens may lose time and social well-being to social media, young Indians can lose real money and accumulate debt that shapes their future choices, loan defaults, ruined credit histories and family financial strain. Reports and field studies show young people losing life-changing amounts to betting apps and money games, sometimes facilitated by instant loans. This shifts the crisis from psychological to existential.
Second, the protective social wall that once buffered adolescents, extended families, close-knit neighbourhoods, multi-generational households, has thinned rapidly in urbanising India and in diaspora communities where nuclear families are the norm. That change removes daily informal monitoring, communal support and early intervention possibilities.
Put together, these trends create a high-risk environment: the adolescent who is stressed, alone and monetarily exposed is far more likely to fast-slide from casual game to problematic gambling to crisis.
The healthcare and policy gap
Early intervention matters in all behavioural addictions, but the infrastructure to deliver early help in India is weak. Recent health analyses and government summaries indicate an acute shortage of mental-health professionals; psychiatrists, psychologists and trained counsellors are concentrated in cities and still far fewer than needed to serve adolescent populations at scale. Even where help exists, services for behavioural addictions are limited and often under-resourced.
Policy responses have begun to emerge. In 2025 the Indian Parliament passed legislation aimed at regulating online gaming, signalling recognition at the highest level that unregulated money games pose social harm. Regulatory moves are now trying to separate harmless entertainment games from those that essentially function as betting platforms. Yet legislation alone will not cure the crisis; enforcement, platform accountability, financial safeguards and community education must follow.
A human-scale view: consequences and breakdown
The downstream effects are harrowing and tangible.
• Debt and family breakdown. Young people borrowing via instant credit to fund gambling can collapse family finances, generate shame and trigger violence or forced marriage in severe cases. Parents who feel betrayed by sudden financial losses sometimes respond with punishment rather than therapeutic help, worsening isolation.
• Academic derailment. Gaming binges and betting cycles interrupt study schedules. Missed classes, failed subjects and lost scholarships appear within months. The adolescent’s trajectory, particularly in competitive contexts where one gatekeepers future careers, is altered forever.
• Mental illness and self-harm. Clinical services report increasing admissions for behavioural addictions accompanied by depression, anxiety and in some tragic instances, suicide. Once adolescents face both financial ruin and academic failure, the lethality of the situation rises sharply.
What works: evidence-based prevention and response
The good news is there are proven, practical steps that families, schools, community leaders and regulators can adopt now. Below are measures that mix immediate practicality with longer-term structural change.
1. School and coaching-centre interventions
• Mandatory mental-health education in coaching centres and schools, with routine screening for sleep disruption, anxiety and risky online behaviour.
• Onsite counsellors: even a part-time, trained counsellor available for drop-in sessions reduces crisis escalation. Peer-support groups help destigmatise help-seeking.
These interventions are low-cost relative to the human cost of inaction.
2. Parental and family strategies
• Practical supervision: simple routines, daily check-ins, shared charging stations at night, and app usage plans, reduce unsupervised late-night sessions.
• Financial safeguards: parents can link bank and card usage to multi-step approvals and place spending limits. For diaspora parents, automated alerts and delegated trusted contacts can serve as proxies when relatives live far away.
• Open conversations: normalise discussions about gaming and betting like any other health risk.
3. Platform accountability and financial controls
• Require platforms offering money games to implement strict identity verification, spending caps for new users, mandatory breaks after intense sessions, prominent risk disclosures and restrictions on integrated instant loans.
• Enforce advertising rules: no celebrity endorsements that trivialise loss, and no targeted advertising at minors. This is a regulatory priority.
4. Expand mental-health capacity for adolescents
• Fast-track training for school counsellors and community mental-health workers, programmes that equip paraprofessionals to deliver screening and brief interventions in schools, coaching hubs and college hostels.
• Tele-mental health: scale evidence-based teletherapy options specifically for youth, with subsidised or free access for low-income families.
5. Early treatment models for behavioural addiction
• Combine cognitive behavioural therapy with family therapy and, where needed, financial counselling. Rehabilitation works best when debt is addressed alongside psycho-social care.
• Create short, intensive day-programme options for adolescents that avoid the stigma and disruption of long inpatient stays.
6. Community and diaspora action
• Diaspora associations can organise parent education evenings, mentor networks, and safe on-site study spaces that combine supervision with counselling.
• Cultural organisations can champion peer mentoring and recreational alternatives that replace late-night screen hours with community sport, arts or skill-building.
Rapid steps for policymakers
Policy must move beyond platitudes. Practical first steps include:
• Regulation of money games and betting interfaces, clear definition of money games, strict KYC, and spending caps for young accounts.
• Ban integrated instant loans for gaming accounts, a core harm driver is on-platform lending that removes cooling-off periods.
• Funding mental-health hubs in coaching towns and university clusters, targeted grants for counsellors, helplines and crisis units.
• National public-education drive, mass campaigns that treat behavioural addiction as health, not moral failure, to reduce stigma and speed help-seeking.
A short guide for parents and guardians (practical, immediate)
- Keep devices outside bedrooms overnight for study periods.
- Set clearly visible, agreed spending limits and link cards to parental approvals.
- Learn app basics, what games your child plays, who they play with, and which platforms they use.
- Watch for behavioural signals: sudden secrecy, loss of interest in friends, late-night screen use, unexplained withdrawals from bank accounts.
- If gambling is suspected, secure financial instruments immediately and seek a trained counsellor. Early action matters.
A note on privacy, stigma and help-seeking
In many Indian households, admitting to addiction or debt invites blame. That cultural dynamic itself is part of the problem. Normalising help-seeking, through school counsellors, community leaders, doctors and trusted mentors, is a social task as much as a medical one. For diaspora communities, where parental shame can be magnified by distance and immigration anxieties, community organisations and religious institutions can help normalise support.
A public-health problem that must be treated as such
The crisis of Indian adolescents vanishing into gaming, betting and darkness is not a moral panic. It is a public-health emergency stitched together by technology, social change and inadequate systems. The data we cited, the pooled prevalence of gaming disorder, India’s IGD studies, the rise of youth betting, the coaching-town suicides and the thin mental-health workforce, all point to the same conclusion: without concerted, evidence-based action, more young lives will be lost or irreparably damaged.
The solution is not single-pronged. It is community, school, platform, family and policy working in concert. It is simple, practical steps that can be implemented this year, and structural reforms that must follow. Most of all, it is honest acknowledgement: that the digital age has changed adolescence and that we must equip families and communities to keep pace.
If you are a parent, teacher or community reader, start the conversation today. If you are a policy maker, make regulation and mental-health funding a priority. If you are a platform, redesign to protect the young.
This is not an inevitable future. It is a challenge we can still meet, and meet well, if we choose to act.
Selected citations
• A 2024 pooled systematic review reporting gaming disorder prevalence among adolescents (pooled prevalence ~8.6%). (ScienceDirect)
• India-based studies reporting IGD prevalence among adolescents ranging up to double digits in some samples. (Lippincott Journals)
• Evidence of youth sports betting and problem gambling trends in global review literature. (PMC)
• Recent press and academic coverage documenting student suicides in coaching city Kota and the continued crisis in 2024–25. (Hindustan Times)
• Assessments of India’s mental-health workforce gaps and official figures indicating psychiatrists per 100,000 below WHO thresholds. (PMC)
Disclaimer: This article provides journalism and evidence-based commentary for awareness and public information. It is not a substitute for clinical mental-health advice. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger or experiencing suicidal thoughts, please contact local emergency services or crisis support networks immediately. For India: National Suicide Prevention resources and local mental-health services may be able to help.