In short:
A doctor says children are being taken to emergency departments after having angry meltdowns when their devices are taken away.
Gaming disorder is a problem recognised by the World Health Organization and a psychologist says it can also lead to anxiety and depression.
What’s next?
Parents have been urged to tackle the problem by bringing more of the pleasure kids get from devices — like socialising and fun — into their offline worlds.
Emergency departments are treating distraught children who are “off their minds” after having their digital devices removed with doctors urging parents to beware of the risk of addiction.
Corne Esterhuysen, a senior medical officer in Rockhampton for 16 years and now working at Rockhampton Hospital, said digital addiction was causing serious anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, and ADHD traits in children.
“The effect is compared to cocaine and heroin — that’s the effect that it has on the brain,” Dr Esterhuysen said.
“We see ambulance officers go out to houses and bring kids in where parents just took their chargers off their iPad, and they come in off their minds.”
It is a problem recognised by the World Health Organization in its most recent International Classification of Diseases (ICD), released in 2022.
Gaming disorder is defined as “impaired control over gaming” where the prioritisation of gaming over other activities is to the extent it takes precedence over daily activities, and continues to escalate.
Dr Esterhuysen said the frequency of these incidents in the emergency room had dramatically increased in the past few years.
“We are beyond asking the parents. We are pleading with them — get them off the device,” he said.
Family tries digital detox
Central Queensland mother Erin Alcorn said her 13-year-old son’s behaviour became extremely concerning after he was issued a school laptop.
“He was getting up at three or four [in the morning] and using the school laptop to watch YouTube,” Ms Alcorn said.
“There’s nothing worse than having your child fail at school, failing socially, completely withdrawn, and talking about not wanting to live anymore.”
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The Alcorn family committed to a month-long digital detox aiming to curb their teenager’s poor behaviour.
“We pulled the plug on the TV [and] put it in the garage. We disconnected the home internet, we removed all devices,” Ms Alcorn said.
“At first [the kids] rebelled, they were angry, and we got told we were the worst parents in the world.
“Once they realised it wasn’t coming back they got enjoyment from quality time, board games at night, and down the track we saw improvements in their schoolwork.”
Parents can take action
Rockhampton-based clinical psychologist Helen Madell said while children often appeared addicted to games and technology this was not necessarily the case.
“It can look like addiction behaviour, but the difference is often they are doing it for pleasure,” Ms Madell said.
“Kids are using technology for socialising, music, exploring of interests, and shopping.
“If parents want to get their children off devices they need to bring more of that pleasure into the offline sphere.”
It is a message echoed by American author Brad Huddleston who has been studying the impacts of screen time on behaviours and the brain and is touring Queensland schools warning about the dangers of digital addiction.
“Back in my day we were saying, ‘You’ve got to get kids on devices at the earliest age possible, everything is going to go digital’, and there’s truth in that,” Mr Huddleston said.
“But then, sort of like smoking, the unintended consequences of cancer came about after a few decades and that’s exactly where we are at with technology. In this case, it’s mental health issues.”
Ms Madell said she had seen more and more children with increased levels of anxiety and depression, and more aggression when devices were taken away.
“For young people that is where their peer group is now,” she said.
“Parents need to understand why their kids are going online and talk to their children about why they’re online so they can be less intimidated by it.”
She agreed there was merit in digital detox for children, but also for parents.
“I think a detox is not a bad thing because we do know people are very distracted by devices,” she said.
The principal at Heights College in Rockhampton, Karen Bredenhann, said she had seen students as young as year 1 acting aggressively as a result of devices being taken away from them.
She backed calls for parents to try a digital detox.
“There’s definitely an increase in anxiety that could be possibly linked to the overuse of technology or unsupervised use of technology late at night,” Ms Bredenhann said.
“We’ve seen some real aggressive students, even as low as year 2 and year 1 because the phone was taken off them when they had to come to school.”
Dr Esterhuysen urged parents to act.
“If you love your kids, I plead with you to get them outside, get them off the devices, and you’ll see the difference,” he said.
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