Tinfoil Hat

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) reports that “psychiatrists are concerned about the wellbeing of children who spend so much time with video games that they fail to develop friendships, get appropriate outdoor exercise or suffer in their schoolwork.” ¹

“‘Internet-use disorder’ is set to be added to the list of mental illnesses in the worldwide psychiatric manual,” reports the Russia Today website. “Kids are identified as being especially at risk.”

The international mental health encyclopedia known as the ‘Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders’ (DSM-IV) will include Internet-use disorder as a condition “recommended for further study” in its forthcoming May 2013 edition.… Psychologists are pushing to broaden the diagnoses of Internet-use disorder to include more than just gaming addictions,ⁱ which could expand the age group of those affected by the illness.…

“With kids, gaming is an obvious issue. But overall, technology use could be a potential problem,” Director of the Brain and Psychological Sciences Research Centre Mike Kyrios told the Sydney Morning Herald. Australia was one of the first countries to recognize the problem and offer public treatment, and established clinics to treat video game addiction.…

[Although a number of facilities have video game addiction programs in place, not too many parents are actually getting their children that kind of treatment.]

Parents have noted their children becoming angry and violent when their electronic gadgets are taken away from them, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.²

The APA has also reported that “players of violent video games have significantly higher feelings of aggression and differences in brain activity during both cognitive motor activity and resting periods.… Researchers led by Gregor R. Szycik, Ph.D., with Hannover Medical School in Hannover, Germany, investigated intensive use of first-person shooter games on the brain function of young male adults, particularly looking at both the possible impact of such games on morphological and functional structure of the brain and its relation to processing cognitive tasks.” ³

“Baroness Greenfield, the former director of the Royal Institution, said spending too much time staring at computer screens can cause physical changes in the brain that lead to attention and behaviour problems,” reports the Telegraph:

“Screen technologiesⁱⁱ cause high arousal, which in turn activates the brain system