Is My Child
Addicted to the Internet?
Tracy Markle, MA, LPC
Internet Addiction Expert
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In This Article
Studies show that college students are at highest risk for becoming addicted to the internet with children ages 8 to 18 being the next most vulnerable group. (Gentile, 2009; Young, 2011)
The majority of clients who seek us out are the parents of children, teenagers and young adults. One of the most common questions we hear from them is, “Is my kid addicted to the internet?”
Their child is spending an increasing amount of time on their smartphone or playing video games. Their grades are plummeting. They are disrespectful or even violent at home. They don’t socialize or spend much time outside.
While these situations are certainly cause for concern, what we have found is that these young people are often not addicted to the internet.
Digital media use occurs on a spectrum, with healthy use on one end and addiction on the other. In the middle, lies digital media overuse. As you can see from the chart below, the overwhelming number of young people who use the internet fall in the digital media overuse category.
Why Kids and Young Adults are At-Risk for Becoming Addicted to the Internet
Although most societies consider adulthood to begin at age 18, research now proves that the brain is not fully mature until age twenty-five. (Something rental car companies figured out decades ago.)
As a consequence, most digital media users under the age of 25 lack the impulse control to limit their use.
You know how you finish watching one YouTube video and another is already cued up for you? That’s an example of persuasive design. Digital media companies use persuasive design to keep people on their platforms as long as possible so that they can sell more ads.
Someone whose prefrontal cortex is not yet fully developed, such as a person under the age of 25, is especially vulnerable to exploitation through the use of persuasive design.
Persuasive design zeros in on the emotional brain through the use of random and variable rewards.
The reward might be something like a new video game weapon, or skin (being able to change appearance in game), a like on Facebook, or an emoji on Snapchat.
Every time a person receives one of these rewards, their brain releases a drip of dopamine—what we refer to as the “gimme more” neurotransmitter— and the motivation to engage in the behavior increases.
Teenagers have more dopamine receptors in their brain than at any other time in their lives. This makes their reward-seeking drive especially high.
As a child becomes immersed in digital media activity, dopamine is released at a regular pace and it overrides the logical part of their brain located in the prefrontal cortex. Which, as we’ve already established, is not yet fully developed.
As a result, the child may begin to miss sleep because they are staying up late online. (Often the first sign of digital media overuse.)
Their grades may begin to suffer, and they may be more emotionally reactive and impulsive.
This isn’t because they are willful. It’s simply a natural result of their need for a caring adult to step in and set limits they aren’t able to set for themselves.
Why We Don’t Typically Diagnose Children as Addicts
When we work with kids it’s not often that we diagnose them as being addicted to the internet. This is because, more often than not, the behavior is an impulse control problem.
Children are less able to control their digital media use without a parent stepping in to control it for them.
Once parents set limits around use and the problematic applications are removed we see the behavior and overall health improve at a rapid rate.
There are also many clients for whom their digital media overuse is just a symptom of a co-existing issue. Parents are often unaware that
their child suffers from one or more of these underlying issues and diagnosing and treating them can result in a resolution of both problems.
The Benefit of Identifying Co-Existing Conditions
Internet Addiction Co-Existing Conditions
Depression: Depression is consistently found to be predictive of problematic video game, internet, and smartphone use. In one study that used Young’s Internet Addiction Test to compare multiple predictors of internet addiction, level of depression had the strongest association even when considering demographics, personality traits, and the ability to envision and pursue future goals.
Anxiety: Given that it’s extremely common for people with depression to also have anxiety, it’s hardly surprising that anxiety is also consistently found to be predictive of internet addiction and digital media overuse. Specifically, social anxiety is a strong predictor. People with social anxiety perceive greater control and decreased threat when communicating online. Many of the young people we treat have trouble forging relationships outside of the home and will retreat to the perceived safety of the internet.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): Virtually all of the kids we see with gaming problems have a variation of ADHD. For these kids, gaming is a self-soothing behavior. While real life is endlessly variable, a video game has very clear rules that kids with ADHD can become skilled at following. People with ADHD are also naturally lower in dopamine. When they use highly rewarding applications like video games, their dopamine is triggered to release at a higher rate which leads to them wanting more and more time gaming.
Autism: Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have higher levels of compulsive internet use and video game play compared to peers without ASD. Studies have shown that children with ASD prefer screen-based activities, especially video games, and are at greater risk for developing online addictions and for showing problematic symptoms at a lesser rate of exposure. Youth with ASD may find online communication platforms less threatening than in-person interactions. Especially those within multiplayer games that come with a well-defined set of rules.
A Word About Depression, Anxiety and Increased Screen Time
While supportive online communities are a wonderful benefit of the internet age, there is strong proof of correlation between the amount of screen time and increases in depression and anxiety. A young person may be drawn to screens as a way to escape some depression, but that increased screen time could now be exacerbating it, or it may have created the depression in the first place. It’s also important to know where your child is spending so much time online and who they are talking to. Be careful that they are not engaging with other depressives who are reinforcing negative thinking and behaviors. Depressed children are also vulnerable to online predators.
Conclusion
In many of our clients’ cases, the co-existing conditions that led them to digital media overuse were sub-clinical, or not obvious enough to disrupt their lives. That is, until they entered the digital media environment with its interactive capabilities and persuasive design.
This is why we prefer not to name the individual device or format when describing this issue. Descriptors such as “gaming disorder” or “pornography addiction” limit the scope of the real problem. It’s not the format, but the interactivity and variable reward systems that are built into all digital media platforms that trigger the problematic overuse and addiction to the internet.
