Tech-addiction is real, and more and more kids are falling prey to “digital heroin”

Dr. Nicholas Kardaras shares the story of one of his patients, a woman named ‘Susan’ who bought her 6-year-old son John an iPad. At the time, she thought that it was a good idea, especially since one of John’s teachers shared that there were a lot of educational benefits to using an iPad.

One of the games that her son frequently played was Minecraft, a game where the player can place blocks in order to construct houses and other similar buildings. At first, everything seemed fine, until she noticed that her son slowly lost interest in things like baseball and reading, and also started refusing to do his chores just so he could play Minecraft. However, she just let this slide and kept telling herself that ‘it’s educational.’

This all changed when one night, she saw something very wrong with her son. She shares, “I walked into his room to check on him. He was supposed to be sleeping — and I was just so frightened…”

According to Susan, she found her son sitting up in his bed, his eyes bloodshot and staring into the distance, while the iPad was laying next to him. It seemed like he was in some sort of trance, and Susan had to shake her son repeatedly to get him to snap out of it.

Her son became addicted to technology, a sort of ‘digital heroin’ if you will.

Too much technology is not a good thing

You’ll be surprised to find that a lot of tech-savvy people are low-tech when it comes to parenting. Steve Jobs was known for being a low-tech parent, and a lot of professionals that work in Silicon Valley enroll their kids in low-tech private schools.

That’s because exposing a young child to so much technology at a very young age can have negative effects on their growing minds.

Dr. Peter Whybrow, director of neuroscience at UCLA, calls screens ‘electronic cocaine,’ and Chinese researchers dubbed the term ‘digital heroin’ for these gadgets. Studies have also shown that iPads, smartphones, computers, and game consoles affect the brain’s frontal cortex, in a very similar to what cocaine does. This means that technology can indeed cause addiction.

And the important thing to understand is that when it comes to these gadgets, the earlier you control your child’s usage, the better. There’s nothing wrong with an hour a day of supervised gadget use, as it does help improve your child’s brain development. But like most things, too much technology is not a good thing and leaving your child with an iPad to keep them busy for hours on end isn’t a good idea.

A right time and place for everything

Parents can control their child’s technology usage by assigning a specific place where their kids can use their gadgets. They can allow about an hour of supervised gadget use a day, and do it in the living room, or anywhere that’s comfortable. Make sure to never allow gadgets on the dining table, and use it instead as a time to talk and bond as a family.

Parents should also set an example for their kids. Sometimes, parents are just as guilty of tech addiction like their kids. It’s important to disconnect once in a while and create ‘no-gadget places’ or a ‘no-gadget time’ for your family.

Gadgets shouldn’t also be used to keep your kids occupied while you’re doing something else. Why not ask them to play with their toys, do some chores, study, or read a good book? There are a lot of better alternatives compared to using a smartphone or an iPad, and those alternatives are healthier for your kids.

At the end of the day, the most important thing is to have everything in moderation and know that there’s always a right time and place for everything.