What a lot of people fail to understand is that games like Fortnite are deliberately designed to be addictive. They're carefully tuned to give players regular little doses of happy-hormones so they keep coming back for more. Some people are more susceptible to this than others.
Given what you say about your cousin's family situation, I wouldn't be surprised if part of what's going on is that when he's in the world of Fortnite, he has escaped the turmoil in his family and the fact that he's not living in a place he can really consider his home.
If you want to know more about the psychology of video game obsession/addiction, you could start here:
What he's doing is "normal" in the sense that it's pretty common, but that doesn't mean it's positive. It's normal for people to walk around staring at their phones all the time, completely detached from the world and the people around them, but that's unhealthy in many ways.
I think the bottom line is that he's not your kid, and he's not your responsibility. If his mum is concerned about his behaviour - and as a parent, I would be - then it's her responsibility to try to figure out how to deal with the issue.
Is fortnite ruining his life?
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What a lot of people fail to understand is that games like Fortnite are deliberately designed to be addictive. They're carefully tuned to give players regular little doses of happy-hormones so they keep coming back for more. Some people are more susceptible to this than others.
Given what you say about your cousin's family situation, I wouldn't be surprised if part of what's going on is that when he's in the world of Fortnite, he has escaped the turmoil in his family and the fact that he's not living in a place he can really consider his home.
If you want to know more about the psychology of video game obsession/addiction, you could start here:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/media-spotlight/201308/are-video-games-addictive
What he's doing is "normal" in the sense that it's pretty common, but that doesn't mean it's positive. It's normal for people to walk around staring at their phones all the time, completely detached from the world and the people around them, but that's unhealthy in many ways.
I think the bottom line is that he's not your kid, and he's not your responsibility. If his mum is concerned about his behaviour - and as a parent, I would be - then it's her responsibility to try to figure out how to deal with the issue.