I'm mostly skeptical because there's often an element of misunderstanding.. my own parents repeatedly accused me of being addicted to video games, but really I

I'm mostly skeptical because there's often an element of misunderstanding.. my own parents repeatedly accused me of being addicted to video games, but really I just wanted to finish the match and they have a habit of updating me with whatever plan very shortly ahead of the event, so I couldn't plan for it effectively (and of course, I was also young enough that even if I tried to plan ahead, I'd do so incorrectly). Or I wouldn't sleep on time because I was enjoying the game... Which I would have done with anything -- games, books, movies, etc. It just happened to be games. And I'm looking now at my younger cousins being accused of addiction as well, yet it's clearly not. They're see switching games repeatedly, but their parents can't differentiate so it looks like they're stuck on one thing indefinitely. But reality is much simpler -- they aren't well socialized, and their friend circles are also not very well socialized, so they spend most of their time on games. Sometimes together, on multiplayer games, or solo, and then talk about it together later. But it's clear they're not addicted -- they just don't know how to do anything else. eg they can't successfully gather a group to go to the beach, and neither can their friends, and thus they only know of the beach as somewhere to go with as family (which is never that much fun), and thus the whole circle has no real concept of going to the beach as a group of friends, and so no one in that circle even attempts it, so the concept is never learned. And then the fix, taking away the games, manages to accomplish nothing.. they still don't know what to do. Their friend circle is naturally not going to switch to some sport, or whatever movie, or whatever else, because it's not in their culture. But their culture isn't developed/exposed enough to do anything else. So they're stuck, bored, and just waiting to get back to the one thing they know how to do. In my case, I'm pretty sure my parents could have fixed the "problem" with something like paintball, if they really wanted to get me out of the house, or DnD if they wanted me to socialize more in-person. But my parents were too far removed from the problem to think of anything other than what they would do (my father was social, and would have done the standard set of social activities, and my mother only knew to study). Paintball/DnD were however culturally close to be inherently interesting to my friend circle. The alternative is parents trying things at random until the kid accidentally finds a new friend circle or interest (eg send them to Mongolia, whatever kids camp, whatever classes). Claiming addiction is IME the easy way out of actually understanding the problem at hand (in my cousin's case, not properly socialized)