First published in Teach Primary Magazine in May 2012.
Computer games, like fast food, smart phones, TV, Facebook and Twitter are designed to be addictive. So it goes. Lets not waste time arguing about it. You see the effects of children who are drowning in media, children for whom the lid of censorship has been well and truly lifted. You see the effects on their behaviour in classrooms every day.
In the 21st Century emotional neglect is hidden in children's bedrooms in a million pixels. Guinea pigs to the influence of high speed, high definition sound and image on an epic scale. The links to ADHD, childhood obesity and conduct problems in the classroom are already well drawn. The childhood experience is programmed. The National Trust have used reused the emotive term NDD (Nature Deficit Disorder) fist introduced by author Richard Louv in 2005 when he argued that:
"diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses" were the result of "alienation from nature". Dr Aric Sigman in his excellent book ‘Remotely Controlled' shows the link between attention deficit and addiction to screens. One read of it is enough to make you throw your tv away and dig out the Monopoly board.
With computer games there are grades of addictiveness. As a parent you sense it immediately. Previously chatty and social play with the computer is replaced with blinkered single focus attention on the screen. The family around the TV games are exchanged for solo pursuit of a faster paced experience. It is the Mario Kart Moment. The moment you realise that the immersive and addictive nature of the game means the child is lost in it.
Mastery is a strong motivation. Pulling some children away from hyper attention games is like waking them from a deep sleep. It takes time for the real world speed to restore normal communication. Why would you allow your child unlimited access to such a powerful drug? I see 5-year-old addicts submerged in their handheld games missing the world and parents who tell me that they ‘gave in' to their 4 year olds request for a Nintendo DS. Then I see the adults who cannot put their smart phones down, those who sit at dinner with their families texting their friends, submerged in their laptops resisting the analogue world.
Children see, children do
The problem is not that there are games/computers/24 hour TV/ mp3 players/smart phones but that there are parents who have stopped censoring.
I think we need to be straight with parents. Show them the evidence from the research, show them how giving children open access leaves the door ajar to those who want to influence their children. We need to show some tough love to parents. To try and educate them into the long term social, academic and emotional problems that can emerge. To be frank with them about the direct affect their habit at home affect their behaviour at school. To question the educational benefit of TVs, Computers, games consoles in bedrooms of primary age children. Perhaps some don't realise the damage they are doing. Some parents can't see it. Hidden behind an innocuous game/app/programme are ideas, references and images that are too early for Primary age children. Virtual cultures teach their own form of morality that many parents choose to ignore. Some parents have lowered the top shelf, left the keys to the sweet cupboard in the lock, turned their backs and walked away.
Of course none of this would matter if the parents who choose to lift all restrictions from their children at home, educated them at home. They don't. They send them to the same classroom as those whose parents are doing everything they can to hold the lid down. Parents who will do everything they can to stop their children developing dangerous addictions before they leave Primary School, before the children are even legally responsible for their own actions.
The trouble is that our argument against overuse of screens at home is undermined as we fill our schools with screens. Class sets of ipads (addictive?), smart boards in every room, banks of screens lined up against the wall. The prevalence of screens in schools rather undermines any warning messages that we might want parents to take head of. Children who have no limits on their use of screens at home walk into some classrooms where they interact with screens all day.
Parents who naively bought their 6 year old a laptop to keep in his bedroom genuinely think that it will help him keep up at school. Did we help send that message?
A recent ATL conference heard from reception teachers who said their four- and five-year-old pupils spend their breaks pretending to "throw themselves out of the window of the play car in slow motion" and act out blood "spurting from their bodies". If this had come from their own imaginations, cowboys and indians, slaying the dragon, AlienDeath! we might feel more comfortable with it. (After all there is nothing better than an over enthusiastic competitive slow motion death). But it has been inserted by the repetitive, addictive, layered learning of computer games. Not a child's game but an 18+ Tour of Death Camp War Assassin Sniper Special Game, ‘Darling, nearly time for bed", " Coming mum, just a few Nazi's to disembowel and I will be ready for a good night's rest!'. Why would you allow it to get that far?
Of course it is not just one game, one consol or even one screen. Children are playing online games while they are chatting while they are watching TV. Multiscreening takes the addiction up a level. The flip side is that joint attention is considered a pivotal behaviour in the developmental of children's language and social skills. The flip side is that children are not being born into an ISpy books, cowboys and Indians, ‘out all day back when you are hungry' world. They need to be able to deal with ever present screens and a range of new addictions that hang like forbidden fruit ever closer to their grasp.
There is still a beauty in the analogue world. There is still manageable risk in the analogue world. Swamping children with digital media at home and at school and then complaining that their behaviour is changing is an ever decreasing circle. Perhaps behaviour is not getting worse but its influences are getting more aggressive. Perhaps it is time that we tighten the lid on childhood in primary schools and question ourselves about the amount of screen time at home and at school.
Most Addictive Games? How many of these, mainly adult games, have your children played?
About 1,231 British gamers took part in the study designed to discover more about their playing habits. Just under two thirds of those surveyed claimed to feel "addicted" to playing video games. When asked to elaborate on how video games fit into their everyday life, 42 percent admitted they often miss out on social occasions in order to play video games, while 82 percent admitted they regularly missed out on sleep as a direct result of their gaming.
According to the study, the top 10 "most addictive console video games" are:
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - 73 percent of gamers who said they'd played said they felt "addicted" to it
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - 70 percent
- Halo 3 - 68 percent
- Final Fantasy VII - 63 percent
- Grand Theft Auto IV - 58 percent
- The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - 56 percent
- The Sims - 55 percent
- Red Dead Redemption - 46 percent
- FIFA 2012 - 42 percent
- Tetris - 39 percent
