Internet addiction disorder affecting toddlers | 60 Minutes Australia

it's a familiar sight in households around the world children being entertained and placated by technology but this is also familiar monumental meltdowns when the devices are taken away their reactions that are in fact symptoms of one of the major medical challenges of our time what's being called Internet addiction disorder and it has mental health experts worried about children and their parents actions they give their children a device it may be three or four and all of a sudden that's all they want and they don't want to play with other toys they don't want to have any interest in other activities they just want to be in front of their screens okay so Esben mum Bianca peb rial knows exactly what the experts are saying over the years she's used the Xbox smartphones and tablets to give her a few moments of much-needed peace from two bright active boys sometimes you have an important phone call or you've got a parent-teacher interview or whatever though you just can't be interrupted in and it's so easy it's peace in a pocket but recently Bianca started noticing a dramatic change in nine-year-old Owen and seven-year-old Adams behavior as they became hooked on their handheld screens and the popular game Minecraft they would be playing every single day and they would be late for school and they wouldn't do homework and they would become sort of aggressive and throw tantrums and that sort of thing if they played for ages and ages what were the kids like if you tried to turn off the Xbox or take away the tablet oh yeah that's tantrum City then the bad moods and the Tantrums are almost like withdrawal symptoms correct do you agree with it I great totally yep it is there is something about it it changes their brain and Bianca's right there is something happening in young addicted brains in early studies Chinese researchers compared brain scans of average adolescent Internet users to Internet addicted adolescents in red you can see the affected areas of the addicts brain areas responsible for decision-making emotions and self-control screen addiction distorts the same brain function as alcohol drugs and gambling and it's exactly what was happening inside tam Neil's brain it's like a tunnel vision I feel like I lose my sense of peripheral vision my sense of light the day could change from day to night and I can't I don't notice I was a mess I didn't function like a normal human being I didn't cope with anything it could be the bottle or drugs or gambling but tans talking about her addiction to the Internet especially online gaming how bad is it the worst I was gaming for 16 hours a day seven days a week non-stop Tam was a prisoner of the online world married with a young son her daily life was completely consumed by surfing the internet and playing games like Tetris and solitaire so much so she chose her computer over her fen when you were at the worst how did your life collapse around you my son was at a friend's house on a playdate and I knew that if I didn't go and collect him and go home and make dinner and just get on with the evening that that was it it was gonna be over and I thought I can't handle that that's too big on going and I left and I went internet cafe hopping that night and I spent the night at an internet cafe and I that was the real rock bottom that was the day that I made the decision that I was going to turn my back on my life and my family and choose gaming and even though I had hit rock bottom already and I knew how bad things could get I still chose gaming Tam acknowledges she has internet addiction disorder and if you're skeptical about the diagnosis then watch this now you told me at any stage if you're not comfortable I'm very much guided by you to show how she's affected by this addiction and what she does to control it reality becomes like white noise all right so you sign out yeah I really sign out and it's like I can't hear anything and so I feel okay to go in into this place today because I'm here with you you're like my anger you're in the real world right a brave town takes us to an arcade full of computer games adult versions of what our children encounter on their screens and programmed like poking machines noise and sound and color and so it's very hard to explain to people that don't know they the physiological response but I think that it's really important to see it because but in just a few minutes she becomes a different person completely overwhelmed by this environment this is why I'm come on I can see you're even clutching at your chest and it's it's overwhelming isn't it yeah I find it hard to focus and I find it particularly no out there now let's do it that is like you know a gambler being in a room full of pokie machines or an alcoholic thing in a bar yeah I can see you a struggling the message that I'm that I'm hearing is what's my goal now where's the next gold coin where's the next bit that I need to pick up or the key or puts me right back into a gaming mentality internet addiction really is like any other addiction where you're talking about how do you diagnose it when it becomes problematic when there is consequences he was spending 40 dr. Kimberly Young is a psychologists and a professor at st. Bonaventure University in New York she's a pioneer in the field of technology and Internet addiction I think parents are trying to catch up we all think we've done the right thing by handing over all this technology but now we're realizing there's a problem yes and that's really where the key is is that we aren't giving any messages that there's a potential downside have we got to this stage that there is an addiction to the Internet what really happened I think to jettison this issue of Technology / Internet addiction is mobile and and in 2010 the first iPad was introduced and now everybody has a smartphone everybody has a you know some kind of tablet device and so it really brought home this issue of Internet addiction so it is an addiction that you can compare to alcohol addiction or gambling yes I think the diagnosis is fairly similar because addiction is addiction dr.

young has many patients exactly like Tam Neill she's also used to seeing plenty of teenagers addicted to technology but almost unbelievably it's now troubled toddlers and young children who are coming to the clinic you know if say a parent says okay you can't be on the internet for all afternoon a child starts throwing a tantrum or they become even violent because they're feeling this need to be back online [Music] is handing devices like smartphones and tablets to young toddlers a path to addiction I think it could become a potentially quite dangerous and now the age group has moved from teenagers to now really young toddlers and saying even at three or four or five years old I'm not able to control my child what does this place offer it's a chance to as I propose it is unplug in Seattle Washington 25 year-old tom is a patient at America's first residential treatment facility for Internet addiction it's called restart this peaceful homestead is off the grid no phones no devices and definitely no internet at one point in my life I handed my future my free will I handed myself over to a machine and let it dictate what I did so you were addicted to the internet addicted to your computer I was addicted to gaming browsing porn yeah I was addicted to the computer so to unhook himself Tom's checked in here for a 45 day digital detox it might seem an extreme measure but at its worst tom was spending 18 hours of every day online it was a way of numbing out not having to deal with real life so through the internet you were escaping real life mm-hmm through my games I was living out more exciting lives who were you online then whoever I wanted to be dr. Hillary cash is one of the founders of the restart program for many of these young people their interest in video gaming and their addiction to video gaming often started when they were quite young and so that is I think the most difficult challenge for these young people who have been gaming since they were very young that's where their self-esteem comes from and their identities are really built around it so asking them to find new ways to build self-esteem and identity is a big challenge Tamm Neil has had to rebuild her life she's had plenty of therapy and has learned to ration her computer use 20 minutes a day for emails only the treatments working but the best news of all is the husband and son Tam once abandoned are all back together as a family a simple life for me that's really it's so valuable to me and I'm achieving that today and and if that feels good you must feel like you're living again yeah yeah I'm starting to live I'm starting to live like a normal person you're back in the real world back in the real world not getting to Tam stage is the big challenge according to dr.