New Delhi: You won’t see this on the evening news. Not because it isn’t happening, but because it’s happening behind bedroom doors, in hostel rooms in Kota, in PG accommodations across metropolitan cities. While American teenagers struggle with Instagram filters and college stress, Indian youth are trapped in something far darker, and we’re barely talking about it.
A 19-year-old cleared NEET with a 1475th rank. AIIMS Gorakhpur was waiting. His entire family celebrated. Then he was found hanging from the ceiling. His suicide note read: “I don’t want to be a doctor. I want to do business.”
He didn’t fail. He succeeded. And success killed him.
This isn’t an outlier. This is the new normal.
The Numbers Nobody’s Talking About
Kota in 2025: 10 student suicides so far. Last year, 19 cases. The year before, 29. These are reported numbers.
In Lucknow, a 13-year-old boy died while playing Free Fire. In Madurai, a 17-year-old gaming addict broke his phone, jumped from a building, and texted a friend: “Take care of my parents.”
Here’s what terrifies psychiatrists most: the thousands of teenagers right now, at this moment, sitting in dark rooms, playing games until 3 AM, their eyes bloodshot, their minds slowly breaking, and nobody’s stopping them.
Internet Gaming Disorder affects 3.5 per cent of Indian school children. Among late adolescents aged 18-21, it’s 8 per cent for boys, 3 per cent for girls. But the prevalence is climbing.
The Addiction That Makes Drugs Look Soft
A 19-year-old in Hyderabad lost 40 lakh rupees on cricket betting apps. His family borrowed money. His friends loaned cash. Within six months, he was buried in debt. He spent months in rehabilitation. Within weeks of leaving, he relapsed. That’s not recovery. That’s a trap.
In Hyderabad right now, behavioural addictions have shifted from “mild, outpatient issues” to severe psychiatric emergencies requiring hospitalisation.
A 15-year-old porn addict locked himself in his room. When his phone was confiscated, he started hallucinating the same content. He eventually lost partial vision from obsessive behaviour and stress.
A 15-year-old. Lost his eyesight from screens.
De-addiction centres report: “By the time these kids come to us, they’re anxious, isolated, sometimes hallucinating. Parents think it’s ‘just a phase.’ It’s a psychiatric emergency they’re ignoring at home.”
USA’s Crisis vs India’s Crisis
American teenagers are drowning in social media comparison, parental pressure, Ivy League expectations, and epidemic loneliness. The stats are grim: 17 per cent experience major depression annually. 31.9 per cent have anxiety disorders. 12 per cent have seriously considered suicide.
That’s a crisis.
But here’s the difference: America’s crisis is primarily psychological and social. India’s crisis is psychological, financial, and existential simultaneously.
When an American teen spends 8 hours on Instagram, their family worries. When an Indian teen spends 8 hours on gaming and betting apps, they’re losing money through apps that integrate instant loans. They’re accumulating debt that will haunt them for decades.
America’s crisis targets the mind. India’s crisis targets the mind, wallet, and future.
The Protective Wall That’s Crumbling
Your grandmothers lived in joint families. Three generations under one roof. When one kid struggled, grandparents noticed. Uncles and aunts intervened. There was a social safety net woven into the home itself.
That’s not nostalgia. That’s a documented protective factor.
Research proves: Indian adolescents from joint families have significantly better mental health outcomes than nuclear family kids. Better emotional stability. Better social development. Better resilience.
But we’re dismantling it exactly when we need it most.
Both parents work now. Grandparents live in smaller cities. Kids live in Kota hostels at the age of 15 with strangers. Their only family contact is a weekly WhatsApp call.
The protective wall is gone. And we’ve replaced it with an iPhone.
American kids lost physical community connection decades ago. Indian kids are losing it right now, in real time, while being exposed to the same digital traps that destroyed American teens, plus Indian-specific ones.
We’re getting the worst of both worlds.
The Threats We’re Missing
Most articles mention gaming, mobile phones, and betting apps. True. But there’s a layer beneath that.
Cyberbullying in a caste-conscious context. A girl gets trolled not just for her opinions but for her caste status. A boy gets mocked for his family background, his reservation, and his weight by people from his own school. Around 15 per cent of youth depression cases in India are directly linked to online trolling. That’s documented mental trauma.
Academic humiliation as existential failure. When your JEE rank is announced, you’re not failing a test. You’re failing your destiny. In 2024, after intermediate exam results in Telangana, seven students died by suicide in a single night.
FOMO-driven betting disguised as IPL entertainment. Every IPL season, Google search trends spike for “gambling addiction.” Your brother bets on a match. His friend does too. Suddenly, it’s peer pressure wrapped in cricket nationalism. By the time kids realise they’re financially destroyed, they’re too ashamed to tell parents.
Gaming death as a silent killer. Globally, 24 documented deaths from gaming marathons. Most in Southeast Asia. India’s first cases are appearing now: sudden cardiac events, pulmonary embolism, cerebral haemorrhage in kids who played PUBG or Free Fire for 12-16 hours straight.
The Infrastructure Gap
Here’s what keeps psychiatrists awake: How do you intervene when a child has unlimited money access (via loan apps), unlimited content (via internet), unlimited pseudo-connection (that’s actually isolation), and zero family oversight?
America has triggered a response: digital literacy programs, parent education, and mental health awareness. It’s imperfect, but it exists.
India’s response: Parents confiscate phones for a week, then return them. They tell kids to “study harder” when the real problem is dopamine addiction rewiring the brain faster than any motivational speech.
A rehabilitation centre in Hyderabad shared: 14 young people in behavioural addiction treatment. All 14 came after significant financial and emotional damage. None came early.
Why? Because Indian parents still don’t talk about mental health until it’s a crisis. By then, it’s often too late.
What Makes This Different
America has the infrastructure to address a crisis: 16 psychiatrists per 100,000 people. Mental health awareness campaigns. School counsellors. Insurance coverage for therapy. Slow destigmatization.
India has 0.3 psychiatrists per 100,000 people. That’s 50 times fewer. In rural areas, practically none.
When an American teen is depressed, they can eventually access help. When an Indian teen is addicted to betting or gaming, they’re stuck. No counsellor in their town. No psychiatrist understands gaming addiction. No family structure to catch them. No infrastructure supporting them.
They’re just stuck. Spiraling. In darkness.
The Uncomfortable Truth
India’s traditional family protection actually masked the problem. Because families kept you safe externally, we never built a societal mental health infrastructure. We relied on joint families, community support, and spiritual guidance.
The moment family structure weakened, especially in cities like Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Mumbai, you expose a massive gap. A chasm where mental health infrastructure should be but isn’t.
Meanwhile, the same technological forces that damaged American society are sweeping into India, but without America’s infrastructure and without India’s family structures.
We’re facing a uniquely Indian mental health crisis: the worst of Western technology combined with the worst of transitional family systems.
So What Now?
This isn’t a doom article. It’s a wake-up article.
Because the real story isn’t that our kids are in crisis. The story is that we know exactly what’s happening and we’re doing almost nothing about it.
We know gaming addiction is real, yet we don’t regulate predatory games. We know betting apps destroy lives, yet they’re advertised with celebrity endorsements during IPL. We know kids in Kota are dying by suicide at rates that would warrant national emergency status, yet the machine grinds on.
We know. We just don’t want to accept it.
Because accepting means admitting failure. Those protective structures are gone. That regulatory systems are absent. That we’re exposing kids to predatory technology with no defense.
But crises are also opportunities. Moments when change becomes possible.
Your job isn’t solving this alone. But it’s to see it. Really see it. Not as “those kids in Kota” or “those addicted teenagers.” See it as your responsibility.
Every kid without a parent closely monitoring screen time, checking mental health, and asking hard questions about happiness is at risk.
Not maybe. Definitely.
The silent crisis isn’t that our kids are struggling. It’s that we’re pretending they’re not.
If you or someone you know is struggling with gaming addiction, betting addiction, or suicidal thoughts, reach out:
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 9152987821