Posted: 24 Jan 2011 04:06 AM PST

By Beth J. Harpaz

Associated Press

NEW YORK -- Susan Maushart lived out every parent's fantasy: She unplugged her teenagers.

For six months, she took away the Internet, TV, iPods, cell phones and video games. The eerie glow of screens stopped lighting up the family room. Electronic devices no longer chirped through the night like "evil crickets." And she stopped carrying her iPhone into the bathroom.

The result of what she grandly calls "The Experiment" was more OMG than LOL -- and nothing less than an immersion in RL (real life).

As Maushart explains in a book released in the U.S. this week called The Winter of Our Disconnect (Penguin, $16.95), she and her kids rediscovered small pleasures -- like board games, books, lazy Sundays, old photos, family meals and listening to music together instead of everyone plugging into their own iPods.

Her son Bill, a video-game and TV addict, filled his newfound spare time playing saxophone. "He swapped Grand Theft Auto for the Charlie Parker songbook," Maushart wrote. Bill says The Experiment was merely a "trigger" and he would have found his way back to music eventually. Either way, he got so serious playing sax that when the gadget ban ended, he sold his game console and is now studying music in college.

Maushart's eldest, Anni, was less wired and more bookish than the others, so her transition in and out of The Experiment was the least dramatic. Her friends thought the ban was "cool." If

she needed computers for schoolwork, she went to the library. Even now, she swears off Facebook from time to time, just for the heck of it.

Maushart's youngest daughter, Sussy, had the hardest time going off the grid. Maushart had decided to allow use of the Internet, TV and other electronics outside the home, and Sussy immediately took that option, taking her laptop and moving in with her dad -- Maushart's ex-husband -- for six weeks. Even after she returned to Maushart's home, she spent hours on a landline phone as a substitute for texts and Facebook.

But the electronic deprivation had an impact anyway: Sussy's grades improved substantially. Maushart wrote that her kids "awoke slowly from the state of cognitus interruptus that had characterized many of their waking hours to become more focused logical thinkers."

Maushart decided to unplug the family because the kids -- ages 14, 15 and 18 when she started The Experiment -- didn't just "use media," as she put it. They "inhabited" media. "They don't remember a time before e-mail, or instant messaging, or Google," she wrote.

Maushart admits to being as addicted as the kids. A native New Yorker, she was living in Perth, Australia, near her ex-husband, while medicating her homesickness with podcasts from National Public Radio and The New York Times online. Her biggest challenge during The Experiment was "relinquishing the ostrichlike delusion that burying my head in information and entertainment from home was just as good as actually being there."

Maushart is now back in the United States, living on Long Island with Sussy. Her older children stayed Down Under to attend university.

She realizes that living off the grid for six months is unrealistic for most people.

But she encourages families to unplug periodically. "One way to do it is just to have that one screen-free day a week. Not as a punishment -- not by saying, 'I've had enough!' -- but by instituting it as a special thing," she said. "There isn't a kid on the planet who wouldn't really rather be playing a board game than sitting at the computer."

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Kids around the world becoming addicted to video games

Posted: 23 Jan 2011 01:33 PM PST

Game addicts all over

"A new study demonstrates that parents may have good reason to be concerned about how much time their kids play video games," Psychcentral.com reports. "Investigators found evidence that video-game 'addiction' exists globally and that greater amounts of gaming, lower social competence and greater impulsivity were risk factors for becoming pathological gamers. … Dr. Douglas Gentile, an Iowa State associate professor of psychology, and five researchers from Singapore and Hong Kong collaborated on the study, which will be published in the February issue of Pediatrics. … 'We're starting to see a number of studies from different cultures – in Europe, the U.S. and Asia – and they're all showing that somewhere around 7 to 11 per cent of gamers seem to be having real problems to the point that they're considered pathological gamers,' said Gentile."

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Get rid of that guilt

"While it may strike many as medieval, ritual self-punishment continues to be practised by certain groups of both Christians and Muslims," Miller-McCune.com reports. "Newly published research from Australia suggests why this pain-inducing practice has survived through the centuries: It provides psychological benefits to the self-flagellating faithful. Agony, it seems, alleviates guilt. 'Experiencing pain as a penalty can cause people to feel that their guilt is resolved and their soul cleansed,' a research team led by psychologist Brock Bastian of the University of Queensland reports in the journal Psychological Science. 'Our results suggest that the experience of pain has psychological currency in rebalancing the scales of justice.' "

No more TV rooms

"It was not long ago that an essential component for selling a house was a 'TV room,' a place that could accommodate some couches and a few comfy chairs angled for multiple-person viewing," The Philadelphia Inquirer reports. "Now, between the explosion of available channels, the burgeoning number of devices for multimedia viewing and the shrinking size of homes, the TV room is going the way of the land line. In some cases, solo viewing is the only chance for 'me time.' 'If I advertised a TV room in a house today, people would be asking me, 'What is that?'' said Deborah Grassi, a long-time [real estate] agent. … And for her summer Shore rentals, forget it. 'You have to have a TV in every room. You never know who wants to be where.' "

The new milestones?

"Children under 5 are more comfortable playing computer games than tying their own shoelaces, according to new research," The Daily Telegraph reports. "Practical skills in children are increasingly underdeveloped with traditional milestones being replaced by digital ones. Seven out of 10 two- to five-year-olds are happy playing online games, compared to just 11 per cent who were capable of tying their shoelaces. … Less than half knew their own home address and only a third were able to write their first and last names."

Walter and the wolves

"A 13-year-old Norwegian boy scared off a pack of wolves – by playing them heavy-metal group Megadeth on his mobile phone," Orange.co.uk reports. "Walter Acre was walking home from school in Rakkestad when he found himself encircled by the four snarling beasts, reports website Zvuki.ru. Just as they seemed set to attack, the petrified youngster pulled out his phone and cranked out a song by Megadeth. Walter had previously been told not to run away from wolves but to face them and attempt to scare them away. And sure enough, the tactic worked as the sound of heavy-metal music sent the animals scattering in confusion. The website reports that Walter made it home safely, using one final blast of music to see off a stray wolf that was prowling close to his front porch."

Fans remember Paul

"Fans of Paul the Octopus can admire a memorial to the mollusk at the aquarium where he became the World Cup prognosticator," Associated Press reports. "The Sea Life aquarium in Oberhausen [Germany] unveiled the six-foot plastic replica of Paul clutching a soccer ball in his eight arms [last week]. Aquarium spokeswoman Tanja Munzig says Paul's cremated ashes were placed in a gold-leafed urn inside the ball. Paul died three months ago. Munzig said fans around the world had asked for a memorial."

Thought du jour

"Travel makes a wise man better but a fool worse."

Thomas Fuller (1608-61), English scholar and preacher

Study suggests video games can affect depression and anxiety in kids

Posted: 23 Jan 2011 08:00 PM PST

A new study bolsters the argument that video games can be addictive for children, and even suggests that the addiction can affect their depression and anxiety levels.

The study, which was based on a two-year survey of 3,034 children in Singapore, found that 9 percent of players were addicted, as defined by how much their playing interfered with their grades, emotions and relationships.

The researchers weren't entirely surprised by that result, because of similar studies in the United States and other countries. What shocked them was how the reduction of troublesome gaming habits corresponded with fewer depressive symptoms.

"When they dropped below the pathological line (for gaming addiction) their depression decreased, their anxiety decreased, their social phobia decreased," said Douglas Gentile, the lead author. "That's kind of the opposite of what we expected to find. We expected that maybe the gaming followed those other issues."

Gentile previously directed research at the Minneapolis-based National Institute for Media and the Family.

The authors of the study, which was published in the American journal Pediatrics, say the finding requires more research. They doubt a cause-effect relationship between gaming addiction and depression. More likely the disorders are related in some unknown way, they wrote.

Regardless, Gentile said the study upholds the concept of gaming addiction: "It's not just a symptom of other problems," he said. "It looks like a problem in its own right."

There is broad agreement that some children and even adults play video games for excessive periods of time. Minnesota Student Survey data for 2010 showed about one in 10 boys playing more than 21 hours of video games per week. (Interestingly, the data showed an overall decline since 2007 in children who play any video games, though the decline was eclipsed by an increase in texting and online activities.)

Whether excessive gaming equals addictive gaming is a matter of much dispute.

The Entertainment Software Association criticized the study and Gentile, an Iowa State University researcher who has published other papers on video game addiction. The trade group argued that Gentile used an unproven definition of pathological gaming and made negative interpretations of "trivial" differences between the behaviors of problem gamers and other children in the survey.

"This research is just more of the same questionable findings by the same author in his campaign against video games," said Richard Taylor, a senior vice president for the association.

The American Psychiatric Association has considered whether to add video game addictions to the fifth edition of its diagnostic manual. So far, its leaders haven't seen enough evidence to support inclusion, though that could change before publication in May 2013. The association also could make a statement in the new manual's appendix calling for more research on the subject.

A broader question is how much addictions can be caused by mere behaviors, such as gaming, rather than by substances such as alcohol or cocaine that alter brain chemistry. The psychiatric association is proposing to add only one behavioral addiction, pathological gambling, to its diagnostic manual, due to the depth of research on that topic. However, studies have suggested everything from shoplifting to pulling hair can be addictive.

Gentile's study said there are likely parallels between video gaming and gambling, both of which might cause addictions by stimulating the pleasure centers of the brain.

Gentile said his study was among the first to address a key question about video gaming: whether a childhood addiction would be temporary. Of the children deemed video game addicts at the start of the survey, 84 percent still met that threshold two years later. (The threshold was whether children reported five of 10 negative consequences related to gaming.)

One area of agreement for Gentile and the gaming industry is the need for parents to monitor their children's gaming activities and to step in if they become problematic. Gentile said his study found no evidence that any particular type of game presented more risk than another. It did find that children meeting the study's threshold for addiction trended toward more violent games over time.

"It's not that one game is more addictive, the way crack is more addictive than cocaine. It's more about impulse control," he said. "It's that you know you should do your homework but you can't stop playing."

Kids Games

Monday, January 24, 2011

“Kids wake up when mom cuts off cell phones, Internet and video games” plus 2 more

“Kids wake up when mom cuts off cell phones, Internet and video games” plus 2 more

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