The article hit a nerve. Six million views later, the term ‘digital heroin’ has entered the popular culture, nypost.com reported.
As someone who has worked on the front lines of treating the opioid epidemic, I wasn’t trying to make light of heroin and the scourge that kills 115 people a day. But I was trying to raise awareness that kids and adults hooked on their devices were suffering from a genuine addiction.
Then in May of last year I received a shocking e-mail that answered the question once and for all of whether or not screens can be as addicting as a drug.
The email was from Pamela Collins, the clinical director of the Air Force Family Program, and she was asking me to speak at the annual gathering of mental health providers who treat Air Force families. Why did they want a presentation on the clinical signs of screen addiction? I was shocked at the response: “We have seen increased issues with gaming addictions in the [military] parents of young children and we have seen five cases where infants died as a result of physical abuse or neglect related to parents’ constant gaming.”
I was speechless. I knew from my friend and colleague Navy Cmdr. Dr. Andrew Doan that young soldiers were gaming in record numbers. He told me that if I went to any barracks, I’d find many young soldiers escaping PTSD or the boredom of military life through their compulsive video-game playing. Apparently, gaming had become the new drug of choice for young soldiers.
But had it really become so bad that babies of military families were dying because of their parents’ gaming addiction? In fact, the problem was so significant that Collins told me the Department of Defense had created a new designation for the death certificates: Death due to ‘electronic distractions’, where the fathers had been up for days gaming as their babies died of neglect.
The e-mail went on to elaborate on the problem: “We identified airmen with personal hygiene issues are a red flag for gaming addictions as they don’t take care of the house, themselves, the kids when they are gaming. They don’t even stop to go to the bathroom, they drink power drinks then they urinate in the bottles and they are lined up under the TV they are gaming on.”
Going days without sleep. Not able to break long enough to go to the bathroom. Playing to the point where your neglected baby dies. If that’s not an addiction, I don’t know what is.
But video-gaming parents whose babies died of neglect aren’t just limited to the military. Several such civilian stories made headlines: In 2005, Gregg J. Kleinmark of Fostoria, Ohio, left his 10-month-old fraternal twins, Drew and Bryn Kleinmark, unattended in a bathtub for 30 minutes in order to play on his Game Boy as the boys drowned; Mary Christina Cordell and her husband in Springdale, Ark., were so obsessed with playing ‘EverQuest’, they left their 3-year-old daughter, Brianna, in an overheated car for several hours where she died in 2003.
Admittedly, these are all extreme cases — but they show just how powerful an addiction gaming can be. Indeed, the World Health Organization has finally come around and recently added ‘gaming disorder’ as an official diagnosis.
The CDC reports that nine people die and over a thousand are injured every day as a result of this phenomenon
But beyond the infant fatalities of gaming addicted parents, many of us are guilty, to some degree, of what’s become known as ‘distracted parent syndrome’ — parents who are so distracted by their electronics that they fail to give their children the attention that they so critically need: the father at the airport whose 3-year-old is pulling at his pant leg while he stares into his glowing palm; the mother pushing her stroller across the street with one hand while texting with the other; the couple binge-watching Netflix while their baby cries in the crib. The fact is that when we’re electronically distracted, we’re robbing our children of our undivided attention and the meaningful eye-to-eye contact that they so desperately need to be emotionally and psychologically healthy and well-adjusted.
According to research by Boston Medical Center, 73 percent of parents used a mobile device continuously while dining out; most of those families observed were found to be completely engrossed in their mobile devices, swiping, texting and ignoring their children altogether.
Ignoring kids can not only be emotionally and psychologically damaging but can also be physically dangerous. According to Dr. Ari Brown, a pediatrician and expert in ‘distracted parenting’, parents should limit screen time because the danger from distracted parenting is no different than that of distracted driving: “It only takes a minute with a caretaker’s eyes and attention elsewhere for a little kid to get into trouble — it’s a safety risk.”
And speaking of distracted driving, the CDC reports that nine people die and over a thousand are injured every day as a result of this phenomenon — which usually involves texting and very often involves child fatalities in the car.
It’s clear that bad things can happen both to us and to our children when our attention is hijacked by a screen device. Digital heroin can indeed be fatal. So kick the habit — at least around your kids.