Online gaming is both 'opium' and Mahjong

Photo by Albert Hu on Unsplash

The Chinese are right. Online gaming is “opium for the mind”, as a state-owned newspaper recently fulminated.

Or, truth be told, online gaming is like Mahjong, a game that became so much of a craze-or a distraction from work-that it had to be banned after the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949.

My mother used to have Mahjong parties. I think, she rather liked the tiles and the many different variants on the scoring system, from which she picked the simplest. But even as she laid out the tables ahead of her guests’ arrival, she would tell us about the mania that Mahjong (or any game) can induce. “The Chinese weren’t working, they were playing all day,” she said gravely, “there was nothing to do but for the game to be banned”.

It was typical of my mother to deliver a life-lesson while engaged in the set-up for a fun party. The lesson stuck. I have always been suspicious of the charms of video games, online gaming, the lottery and suchlike.

In fact, I rat…