madurai expressing concern over the younger generation getting addicted to violent online games leading to behavioural changes and causing health issues the madras high court on thursday initiated a suo motu public interest litigation to regulate such games the court sought responses from the centre the tamil nadu government and social media platformsa division bench of justice r mahadevan and justice j sathya narayana prasad observed that addiction to online games by school and college students and women had become a major public health issue and a great concern for the parents some students died by suicide due to the addiction to such online gamesschool children and college students are almost becoming addicted to such online role playing games like free fire subway surfers and others it has taken a heavy toll on their physical emotional psychological social and academic life by such addiction the younger generation become prey to ophthalmic issues musculoskeletal issues neck ailments obesity anxiety and depression observed the judgesin 2020 the central government banned certain online games and chinese applications due to security reasons despite the ban such games were very much available in the pirated websites that could be easily accessible by any person observed the judgesthus there is an emergent need to curb the menace of these types of online games we should sensitise the youth and more particularly the students the police and the social activists have a definite role to play in this matter the parents have a primary responsibility to watch as to what their children are doing with their smartphones and computers those who are playing online games must be given counselling and they should be made to uninstall the games observed the judgesthe judges further observed that the centre and the state government should come forward with a clear cut report on how these types of online games which damaged the life of the younger generation were permitted despite the ban imposed by the central governmenthence the judges initiated the suo motu plea seeking the central government to take steps for effective implementation of banning such types of online games and to conduct awareness programmes in all the schools and colleges on the impact of playing such online games the plea also sought to regulate the youtube channels that are publishing unethical practices of tutorial videos to install a pirated application and to install banned games the plea also sought to regulate the use of vpn applicationsthe court initiated the suo motu plea after recently coming across an hcp habeas corpus petition case where a girl eloped with a man whom she got acquainted while playing one such online game