Binge watching on a regular basis can be an addiction.
Entertainment streaming addiction is so prevalent among
teens (and people across the United States for that matter) that it’s almost
hard to recognize. Most people are watching
hours of Youtube videos, Netflix, or Hulu each day. Because a great number of
people are doing it, it starts to seem acceptable. However, I challenge you to think about how
any “addiction” is defined. This will
help you decide if your adolescent might have streaming addiction.
Addiction means needing more and more of something to feel
satisfied, while feeling some form of withdrawal when it is taken away. Has your teenager spent increasing amounts of
time watching videos of some sort? If
you took all devices from them so they could not stream anything, would they be
irritable? Would it go beyond
irritability? Would they become
despondent?
Many people thinl addiction is only possible if drugs or
alcohol are involved. They assume you
need to go through physical withdrawals for something to qualify as
“addiction.” While the withdrawals from
substances add danger to the withdrawal process, my experience tells me people
get addicted to all kinds of things ranging from gambling to pornography to
entertainment streaming.
The other element of addiction is whether it is leading to
atrophy in other areas of life. Is your
teenager spending an inordinate amount of time sitting or lying down in order
to watch a screen? Is your teen
struggling to get enough sleep because of hours lost to binge watching? Has your teenager socialized less and less
frequently with friends, preferring the company of a series they are
watching? Is your teenager’s favorite
activity with you to watch a certain TV series together? If you answered yes to these questions, then
their life is out of balance because of entertainment streaming overload.
I encourage you to begin limiting your adolescent’s time in
front of a screen. According to Common
Sense Media, teenagers are in front of a screen an average of nine hours per
day. Think about that! Nine hours per day! I PROMISE you they don’t have nine hours of
homework per day, which means a lot of that screen time is unproductive. Try putting a monitor on their devices just
to make them aware of it at first. Most
people don’t want to be someone who does nothing but watch shows, they just
don’t realize how much they’re doing it.
If they are made aware of how much screen time they accumulate each day,
that might be enough for them to pare back.
If this doesn’t impact their screen use, then you will have
to consider cutting the cord. A lot of
parents are hesitant to end a Netflix subscription because they also enjoy streaming. But, being a parent has always meant doing
things you don’t feel like doing. When
your kids were little you probably didn’t want to watch The Little Mermaid for the 100th time, yet you did it
because it made them smile. You may not
want to give up Netflix in the house, but you can do it because it’s best for
your kids’ growth and development.
Once your teenager is through the initial withdrawal period
they will suddenly reappear around the house.
You will see your teen in the family room more often. They will reengage with other
activities. It’s hard to imagine
anything past their initial anger at first.
After a week or two though they usually start to enjoy things again.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Gaming creates psychological addiction in teenagers.
Credit: Idea Go/freedigitalphotos.net
There’s a growing concern that teenagers, and especially
male teens, are becoming increasingly dependent on online video games. Many teenagers play for hours every day. Parents have called with concerns that their
sons (and sometimes daughters) are disconnecting from life. Let’s look at a case my supervisor encountered
a few years back.
She had a 15-year-old male come into therapy for depression
and anxiety. During the intake she discovered
he was not going to bed until 2:00 or 3:00am most nights. When she explored the reason for this he
said, “I can’t get my homework done.”
Given that he finished sports at 4:00pm each afternoon, she found this
to be unusual. When she dug a little deeper,
she realized he was consistently violating the 1 hour of video games per day
rule his parents had set for him. She
found out he was actually playing 5-6 hours of video games per day, and 12-15
hours on weekend days. No matter what
his parents did he found a way around it.
They eventually shut down the internet.
He crawled under his covers in his bed and become utterly
despondent. He wouldn’t get out of bed
to eat, shower, or go to school. He held
out so long that his parents gave back in, “but just for 1 hour per day.” That worked well for about 2 weeks until he
started pushing the boundary again. This
cycle continued. Finally, his parents destroyed
all his devices. He became suicidal,
which terrified them to the point they gave him new devices. They allowed him to home-school thinking this
would help him complete everything so he could get to bed on time. It didn’t work. This boy had a severe online gaming
addiction.
I’m not sure your teenager is at such an extreme place, but
if that is sounding a little familiar then read on. Video gaming addiction is especially common
in role-playing games (RPGs). In these
games your child makes up a character and lives in a fantasy world. Imagine the allure for an adolescent who isn’t
especially popular in real life. The brain’s
reaction to feeling powerful, well-liked, and purposeful is intense. There is another side to the story though.
If your son or daughter is spending hours and hours in front
of a screen living in a false world, what skills are being developed? Is your teenager learning how to cope with
the nuances of real life? Is your
teenager learning to socialize, date, do physical activity, or have enough
self-control to go to bed at a good hour?
Yes, your teen is physically safe from harm because they are sitting at
home, but there is another, more subtle harm being done.
Video gaming addiction is an actual thing, and very hard on
a family. Your teenager must learn to
live without games but still use a computer.
Your teenager will experience REAL withdrawals when you pull the
plug. There isn’t a happy medium for a
child who has this addiction. Cutting
back is a short-term solution. It’s like
someone who has quit smoking cigarettes saying they plan to only have one when
they drink. That will work for a time,
but soon enough they will be smoking again.
I know this is heart-breaking for you and your family. I know you feel some level of guilt for buying
the games in the first place. No matter
what got you here, just accept the problem as it is and begin to walk forward. Acknowledging there is a problem is the first
step. The second step is equally as
important; you must reach out for help.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Most everyone has tried video games. For some it has become an addiction that prevents them from living their life in a truly productive manner. If you teenager cannot live without online games, please watch this short video. Here Cameron talks about how he approaches online gaming addiction with adolescents.
Social media is part of our teens’ everyday lives. Using it to connect with friends and see what other people are doing can be fun. There is a point where use and compulsion to check a social media feed become detrimental. For some teens this can even grow into an all-out addiction.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Social media is now part of adolescence. Photo credit: Stoonn and freedigitalphotos.net
In 2017 20/20 did a piece about a young California girl who became obsessively addicted to her social media accounts. At 12 years old this girl got her first smart phone. Within a year she had multiple hidden accounts, was often up until 4:00am keeping up with postings on her feed, and texting for hours on end. In the end this girl had to go to residential treatment because no amount of phone restriction would keep her from finding a way to access these accounts.
Whether it’s Snapchat, Instagram, or some other new app, if
your teen feels a compulsion to use it, it’s bordering on addiction. If the compulsion is so strong that they use
it despite negative consequences, it is an addiction.
Can your teenager get through a meal without checking their
phone? Does your teen insist on keeping
the phone in their room at night? Does
your teenager hardly ever seem to see friends in person, but is always
“talking” to someone using a device?
Have your teen’s grades started to slip because of the phone? Does your teenager struggle to get to bed at
a decent hour? If you answered yes to
all these questions, there might be a social media addiction issue.
Studies have begun to emerge detailing a surprising result;
people who use excessive social media are actually lonelier. A study out of the University of Pennsylvania
headed by Melissa G. Hunt, Ph.D., had college students in one group limit their
time on social media apps to 10 minutes per day per app, and another group
continue normal use. Assessments of
depression, anxiety and loneliness done before and after revealed a significant
improvement in the group that limited their social media exposure, but no
change in the group that used it normally.
There are probably several reasons the group who used less social media
ended up feeling better, one of which is getting out of the comparison trap.
If your adolescent is addicted to social media, there is a
good chance she (or he) is comparing to others constantly. There is a comparison of how good your teen’s
pictures look compared with friends, how many followers your teen has, and how
many likes your teen is getting. Your
teen is constantly exposed to what other kids are doing without her. Your teenager can end up obsessively checking
for responses to her posts in order to feel validated. It becomes an obsessive-compulsive need for
instant gratification and validation.
Social media addiction causes relational challenges, declining
grades, and a loss of interest in the real world. It also can cause physical problems. Your teen is focusing his eyes on a screen
most of the day instead of looking up and out.
Your teenager is also no longer exercising or engaging muscles the way
they are meant to be used at a young age.
Your teen is constantly cheating on the amount of sleep needed for
healthy development and immunity. Your
teenager is not developing necessary skills to succeed in the world from basic
things like doing laundry, to more complex things like dating face to face.
If you feel like your family’s life is run by your
teenager’s phone, it’s time to consider whether your teen has a social media
addiction. It’s time to get life back on
track. Your teenager needs help. Your teenager will honestly feel better after
the initial couple weeks of agitated withdrawal from the social media
platforms. Life is meant to be lived
through more than just a tiny screen.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Pornography addiction can lead to feelings of shame and loneliness.
Former
Attorney General John Ashcroft has estimated that nine in ten
adolescents have seen pornographic material (focusonthefamily.org),
and most of this is from the internet. The exact percentage of
teenagers who are truly addicted to online pornography is hard to pin
down. What’s certain though is that your teenager has probably
dealt with some form of sexually explicit content online.
It
has become normal for a girl and a boy to like each other and begin a
texting conversation. When he asks her to send nudes, she won’t
even be surprised. A lot of times this happens before they’ve even
held hands. Yes, things are that backwards in your teen’s world
right now. If you find that hard to believe, trust me, so did I.
You can learn a lot by simply asking your teen if these types of
things are actually happening around them.
Sadly,
you may be at a point where your son or daughter finds him or herself
viewing pornographic material a few times a week, or maybe even a few
times per day. Your teenager is likely feeling sucked into a vortex
of pleasure and shame that is way over your teen’s head. If this
is going on then it is definitely time to get help.
Study
after study shows that sex within a committed relationship at an age
when a committed relationship can actually be sustained (i.e. in
marriage) is the healthiest form of sex. Think about how opposite
pornography is to a committed relationship. There is no emotional
connection. There is no wooing, dating, growing, learning, boundary
setting, or selflessness. It is completely about instant
gratification with no effort involved. Some of my clients have also
told me it requires more and more extreme versions of sex over time
to create feelings of arousal. This means by time real intimacy
occurs, it’s often confusing and disappointing.
You
definitely don’t want your teenager to develop ideas about sex that
are unrealistic and damaging. You also don’t want your teenager to
live in a pretend world based around his or her phone or tablet.
This addiction can become so powerful that it leaves teens unwilling
to go out with friends, get a job, or do anything outside their
private time. My colleague once had a teen client who used to leave
class and sit in the bathroom in order to catch a few quick porn
videos because his addiction had become so dominating.
If
your teen is dealing with pornography addiction, getting help can be
key. There are steps to follow that are really difficult, but
rewarding on the other side. Let’s help your teenager get a real,
in-this-world, connected with actual people life back. Let’s fight
back against this insidious and evil addiction that is victimizing
your child.
Helping
teens grow and families improve connection,
Hello, I’m Lauren! If you notice your teen struggling, you might be feeling helpless, hopeless, frustrated or concerned as a parent. Try to remember, there is hope. I want to help your adolescent feel better. My hope is for them to enjoy their life again. I want them to feel confident they can handle whatever situations arise.
