Video Games Aren’t ‘Digital Heroin,’ But Still Require Moderation

A recent article in the New York Post is kicking up dust online about the negative effects of video games on children.

Psychotherapist Nicholas Kardaras, author of Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our Kids — and How to Break the Trance, says the use of devices like smartphones and tablets is as addictive as injecting heroin.

“Over 200 peer-reviewed studies correlate excessive screen usage with a whole host of clinical disorders, including addiction,” claims Kardaras, though he doesn’t cite any by name in either of his articles for the Post.

He relies instead on personal encounters with patients. (Kardaras is executive director of the Dunes East Hampton, a drug rehabilitation center, and a former assistant professor at Stony Brook University). He tells the story of Barbara McVeigh, who like any modern parent let her son use a tablet to play educational games.

A werewolf-like transformation ensued, with McVeigh’s son becoming violent, striking her when she tried to take away his computer. The Post article suggests that McVeigh’s son was never Kardaras’s patient, however.

“I think there’s no substitute for a thorough assessment,” said child psychologist Laura Paret in a telephone interview with Yahoo Beauty.

Paret has dealt with children and parents grappling with technology. “It’s a chicken-and-egg problem,” she says. “Kids that are more introverted are drawn to these things.”

It’s possible that McVeigh’s son might have had some underlying, undiagnosed condition, such as ADHD or depression, that triggered his violent behavior. “I think it depends a lot on the context in which [technology is] being used,” Paret said.

Any preexisting or mental or developmental disorder may also be at play. Children with autism, for instance, can be drawn into the repetitive, reward-based world of a video game and isolate themselves socially.

“I’d say there’s a reasonable concern about overindulging that urge,” says psychiatrist Alfred Robenzadeh, MD. “Very repetitive behavior, very narrow, repetitive experiences, are going to limit your child’s development.”

Researchers are meanwhile beginning to catch up with the plugged-in generation. Some studies weren’t possible before, simply because a sample size of people who had lived with screens since birth didn’t exist — until now.

“Electronic Gaming and Psychosocial Adjustment” is a paper by psychologist Andrew K. Przybylski published in Pediatrics: The Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. In it, Przybylski details the findings of a study of “2,436 male and 2,463 female young people, ranging in age from 10 to 15 years.”

The goal of the study was to examine levels of exposure to video games and how they affected early development.

Przybylski found that children who were low-level players (one hour a day) had better psychosocial adjustment: “Low engagement was associated with higher life satisfaction and prosocial behavior and lower externalizing and internalizing problems.”

This is not to say there isn’t a downside, particularly when it comes to too much exposure. The study found that children who play three hours a day were more negatively impacted. This goes beyond just the effect of overstimulus. It can spread to other areas of a child’s life.

According to stateofobesity.org, 31.3 percent of children ages 10 to 17 were obese in 2014 and 41.7 percent of U.S. high school students used a computer for three or more hours daily (not for school) in 2015. Sitting in front of a screen for hours on end, unfortunately, does not burn calories.

The risk is higher for young children when it comes to underdeveloping the social and coping skills needed to function in society. “Any time a child is taken away from socializing or peer engagement, an opportunity to social practice is lost,” says Paret.

“Everything in moderation — it depends on the age of the child and how many hours a day they’re using these devices,” says George Sachs, a child psychologist who specializes in ADHD and autism spectrum disorders.

“In the experience of my practice, if kids are allowed unfettered access to play, they will get addicted due to the games offering constant reward,” he says of video games, in particular. Sachs is also the author of “Glow Kids: 5 Ways to Help Kids Manage Screen Time,” an article published in the Huffington Post (and no relation to Kardaras’ book Glow Kids).

“My main recommendation is to limit the exposure to games and, using healthy rules and limits, the kids will be fine,” says Sachs.

In the article, he does cite a study published in the European Journal of Radiology that suggests excessive Internet use by adolescents could shrink gray matter. “Our findings suggested that brain structural changes were present in IA [Internet addiction] adolescents, and this finding may provide a new insight into the pathogenesis of IA,” the study concludes.

This observation raises the ethical question of performing a study on young children and testing the effect of long exposure to screens and video games. The available research and the consensus of the experts interviewed for this story point to controlling how much time developing children spend on devices, the Internet, and playing video games.

In fact, there’s research suggesting that video games and technology, when applied in limited doses, can aid in a child’s development.

“Make-believe play provides children opportunities to reproduce real-life conflicts, to work out ideal resolutions for their own pleasure, and to ameliorate negative feelings,” says a study from the Netherlands on the impact of video gaming on children.

Isabela Granic, Adam Lobel, and Rutger C. M. E. Engels at Radbound University Nijmegen, in the Netherlands, are the authors of “The Benefits of Playing Video Games.” They found that playing certain types of games helped children with problem solving as well as emotional development.

They concluded: “After pulling together the research findings on the benefits of video games, we have become particularly inspired by the potential that these games hold for interventions that promote well-being, including the prevention and treatment of mental health problems in youth.”

Paret is excited to see how future research will reshape the psychological landscape when it comes to technology and gaming. “The next 20 years will be fascinating,” she says.