Not a joke: Toddlers requiring treatment for iPad addiction

ipadThe Telegraph in the UK is reporting that children even as young as four are receiving treatment for addiction to touch-screen devices.

The youngest known patient being treated in the UK is a four-year-old girl from the South East. Her parents enrolled her for compulsive behaviour therapy after she became increasingly “distressed and inconsolable” when the iPad was taken away from her. Her use of the device had escalated over the course of a year and she had become addicted to using it up for to four hours a day.

Technology addiction has become so prevalent (the articles says “psychiatrists estimate that the number of people who have become digitally dependent has risen by 30 per cent over the past three years”), not only among children but also adults, that a technology addiction program has been running in the UK for the last three years. The doctor who runs it says people have withdrawal symptoms similar to hard drugs like heroin:

Dr Richard Graham, who launched the UK’s first technology addiction programme three years ago, said he believed there were many more addicts of her age. […] Dr Graham said that young technology addicts experienced the same withdrawal symptoms as alcoholics or heroin addicts, when the devices were taken away.

And it’s not cheap:

Parents who have found themselves unable to wean their children off computer games and mobile phones are paying up to £16,000 [$24,411] for a 28-day “digital detox” programme designed by Dr Graham at the Capio Nightingale clinic in London.

Anyone who has kids knows why kids play with smartphones and tablets: it’s an easy way to keep them distracted.

A survey last week revealed that more than half of parents allowed their babies to play with their phone or tablet device. One in seven of more than 1,000 parents questioned by babies.co.uk website admitted that they let them use the gadgets for four or more hours a day. […] “Although 81 per cent of our users felt that children today spend too much time on smart devices, it hasn’t put most of them off using them to entertain their baby.”

On a related note, here’s an interesting video that show has touchscreens have changed the expectations children’s have toward printed material: “A Magazine Is an iPad That Does Not Work”

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