Parents worry that their children are spending too much time in front of screens. With teens using screens for an estimated average of 44 hours each week, it is not surprising that as many as 23 percent of teens already admit to an addiction to either video games or social media networks.
Parents, desperate to curb the behaviour, are quick to label significant or excessive screen time as an addiction. Some therapists are concerned, though, that doing so might be contributing to the problem by pathologizing normal teenage behaviour as an addiction.
Is screen addiction a real condition?
Screen addiction is viewed in the therapeutic community as a legitimate psychological condition, with some of these commonly listed symptoms:
- Inability to control or abstain from screen engagement
- Loss of interest in the world beyond screen engagement
- Decline in academic performance due to screen use
- Interference with family and lifestyle activities
It is not, however, listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5), with Internet Gaming Disorder as the closest listed diagnosis.
Disruptive sleep cycles, anxiety, depression, and attentional disorders
Healthcare professionals agree that excessive screen time behaves like substance abuse addiction, with all the related negative side effects such as obesity, disruptive sleep cycles, anxiety, depression, and attentional disorders. The comparison to substance abuse makes sense, because screens stimulate the same reward centres of the brain. There are also some important differences. Addictions are generally caused by a chemical that alters emotions and behaviour and leads to a dependency and higher tolerance levels. Screens, in contrast, are not substances, and people do not need an increasing amount of screen time to manage their behaviour. Nevertheless, we are seeing addict-like behaviours, mostly driven by social networks, apps, and games that are intentionally designed to keep the user’s attention.
Teaching our children to set limits and understand their usage
Treating this ‘addictive-like’ behaviour as a substance abuse addiction could lead to the confusing demonization of the everyday technology that parents themselves use and provide to their children, or to fruitless attempts to censor content. Both often lead to worse outcomes. Abstinence, which is generally seen as a treatment for the pathology of addiction, is not an applicable treatment for excessive screen time. Instead, we should be teaching our children to set limits and better understand the context in which they are using the device. So what should we do?
We have found some of the following suggestions helpful:
- Up to 2 hours per day of entertainment-based applications.
- Limits of 45 minutes at a stretch to avoid binge use.
- Match online entertainment time with offline time (art, music, movement).
- Keep school laptop and entertainment devices separate.
- No smartphone or computer in the bedroom at bedtime. Put them in a central docking area.
- Technology is turned off at least one hour before bedtime.
- Technology stays off for at least one hour after waking in the morning.
- Prioritize face-to-face socialization whenever possible.
This year in the classroom, our teachers are working with parents and students to establish clear, positive parameters with daily usage guidelines. Our goal is to help our students develop greater self-regulation around their devices.
If you would like to talk about your teen, or about the therapeutic support built into a day at AVRO, we would love to hear from you.