Fun & Fantasy, Fear & Futility   Mention “gaming” and a flurry of fast and furious flickering images sweeps across your mind. Is gaming always a bad thing? Ask avid gamers or newbies and you may elicit mixed responses. While they enjoy the fun and fantasy, the violence characteristic of most games may evoke a fear that lingers even after showdown time. Recognising the confusion teens often feel in and out of these alternative worlds, TOUCH Cyber Wellness & Sports has developed a CRuSH Gaming Awareness Package to enable concerned adults understand the nature of gaming and its impact. The addiction is real and so is the appeal. The variety is mind boggling as well but the popular types of computer games CRuSH discovered along with their differences and implications, include role-playing, strategy and simulation etc. Through these games, teens derive a great sense of satisfaction from becoming more powerful, relishing the sense of belonging, respect and camaraderie from being part of this virtual community. While some may deem the fantasy world frivolous, it offers to meet the real needs underlying the addiction, which motivates the gamer to play for hours. It becomes worrying when gaming becomes a quick fix for feelings of inadequacy and loneliness, alienating teens from the real world and people. Or just simply distracting them from their studies. In order to delve into their psyche, it is thus necessary to examine the psychology of gaming, a key aspect of the package. There can be pros to certain games, such as, the business version of Sim City that imparts useful real-world knowledge. However, at the end of the day, it is about learning how to cultivate concrete skills and lead a balanced life offline. While gaming can be exciting, one should not miss out on developing other strengths and abilities in the fleeting growing up years. The package will address these issues, dispensing practical advice on controlling habitual gaming and how to make time for meaningful activities. On top of that, we’ll also do a quick survey of LAN gaming and amusement centres. Unless we seek to identify with the teens, we can only watch baffled from the outside, unable to intercept when the line between fantasy and reality becomes dangerously blurred. Let’s help them realise their fullest potential even as they find comfort in what’s real in their lives, filling up the emptiness today.