Henan, China
The case of a 13-year-old girl in China who stole $64,000 from her mother and spent $449,500 on app games in just four months has generated a lot of buzz on social media. The girl was reportedly addicted to online gaming.
In the central Chinese province of Henan, the girl, whose identity has not been revealed, is a secondary school student. She stole money from her mother because of her addiction to mobile gaming apps, reported the South China Morning Post.
The girl's mother, Wang, found out about the theft when a teacher voiced concerns about her daughter's excessive phone use while in class and suggested that she might have a problem with online pay-to-play games. According to Elephant News, Wang decided to check the amount in her bank account and was astonished to discover that she had just 0.5 yuan (US$0.07) left.
A viral video accompanying the news report shows Wang flipping through bank statements that meticulously document every transaction made by her daughter for purchasing online games.
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Rage of online gaming
She confessed to using 120,000 yuan ($17,000) to purchase the games, 210,000 yuan for in-game purchases, and 100,000 yuan to purchase games for at least ten of her friends when the girl's father questioned her about her expenditures.
In the video, the girl explained that she reluctantly paid for her classmates’ games when they requested her to do so. She acknowledged that she knew little about where the money comes from.
She easily connected a debit card she found at home to her smartphone. She also remembered her mother telling her to use the card's password if she needed money when her parents weren't around.
The girl was scared, but she was too afraid to ask her teachers for help because of the overwhelming requests from classmates to buy games. She expressed worry that her parents would learn and be upset.
She deleted all the transaction records from her smartphone, which meant that Wang, her mother, was unaware of the situation. Wang was not made aware of the occurrence until the instructor spoke with her.
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On Chinese social media networks, the tale has amassed an extensive following. One person said that the 13-year-old was clearly aware of her behaviour but refused to acknowledge it. Yet another individual blamed the parents.
China has the highest percentage of addicts, followed by Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, according to a 2022 report from McGill University that looked at smartphone addiction among 34,000 people aged 15 to 35 in 24 countries, including the US and Japan.
After using her smartphone for 81 hours in February, a 14-year-old girl in northern China almost died. In another case, after a mother expressed concerns about her 13-year-old's smartphone addiction in 2021, the girl stabbed her with a knife in southern China.
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