That is pretty inaccurate, are you forgetting about pacman and pong, there is no end to those games. As far as it being an addiction, it is true, and should be covered. It doesn’t affect just your overweight smart mouthed teens and preteens, there are adults who become obsessed and lose jobs, houses, marriages, and even on occassion their lives or someone else’s because of neglect caused by their addiction.

“However, if parents put limits on screen time at the beginning instead of just letting their kids have unlimited time in front of a computer or a game console, then how would a child become addicted?”

As far as that goes, how do people become addicted to drugs when they are illegal?? Its not about the amount of time, because when they do get older, they will over endulge, just like most Americans do when they get to finally drink.

The problem is deeper than what any of you are really trying to give credit for, you can’t always blame the parents, and deffinately can’t blame the games, it all comes down to the INDIVIDUAL, child or adult.

But today–many times a parent learns that things have changed the hard way–there is no end but rather a perpetual advancement to the next level and therein the addictive aspect begins. These games today just have no end to them, they go on and on with no last level in sight!

When we first bought a playstation for our son, we liked it because it taught him all about the rules of football, baseball and other sports along with a knowledge about the players. At a very young age he could hold an adult conversation about the NFL which impressed his father and other adults. But then the addiction came in along with some fights. And now that he is pre-teen, he is being exposed to violent video games at the homes of friends. You can be the most responsible parent in the world, but you cannot control what goes on in the homes of your children’s friends–this is very important to remember!

We parents can curb our children’s amount of video game usage, and responsibly refuse to buy the unsuitable violent games, but we are overcome by our lax parenting peers who do not do the same!

As for this string of “rants” that are supposedly the norm, look at the main page of the blog — only 2 out of a long series could even remotely qualify as a “rant” (The pit bull post you reference is from over a year ago). I generally try to pick topics that may be of interest and generate thought/debate. Whether I do it because of some level of passion or the desire to entertain/drive traffic (or maybe even a little of both) I’ll leave up to the readers to decide.

What irks me is the anger in these vents. The all-or-none mentality of them. Everyone who disagrees is an idiot or a bad person or whatever. I don’t know whether you really believe as passionately about these things as you come across, or if you do it just to get more hits on the site.

“There is nothing here to suggest that this is a complex physiological disease state akin to alcoholism or other substance abuse disorders, and it doesn’t have to have the word addiction attached to it,” Dr. Stuart Gitlow, of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, told the Reuters news service.”

Apparently, the AMA has rejected that it is a disease and said they will revisit it in 2012.

So, maybe we’re not so ignorant after all!

I have no doubt that if we allowed my older son carte blanche access to computers and video games, he probably would become “addicted”, but we have endured meltdowns, tantrums, negotiating tacts, nothing will break us. Now, he doesn’t even bother asking us. He knows better and chooses to read or ride his bike instead.

Plus, if your theory about what addict kids did before video games was correct (that their addiction was directed towards drugs and alcohol), then wouldn’t it stand to reason that addictions to illicit substances would be going DOWN because those kids were getting hooked on video games instead? I don’t know that drug and alcohol use in teens has going down all that much if at all since video games have been around.

I think it’s more realistic to say that before video games, kids just got hooked on TV instead. I’ve seen some kids have some major meltdowns when told they have to turn the TV off.

Like I said in a previous post, if there were limits set on screen time (computers, video games AND TV) when kids were young, then I don’t they would have the opportunity to become “addicted”. And as a parent, if you notice that your child has addictive tendencies towards anything, perhaps you should take them to doctor before it gets out of control. Maybe it really is something biological and something could be done about it early on before it gets out of hand.

What did video game addicts do before video games were invented? Their addiction landed in other areas–tobacco, alcohol, cocaine, prescription drugs.

Everyone can figure out how to pry video games out of kids’ hands, but what will they do then? Is getting your teenage kid to quit smoking as easy as throwing away his cigarettes? Dumping the vicodin down the toilet for someone addicted to pain killers? Your world is very idealistic, isn’t it?

What’s that?

They went outside? Say it ain’t so!

So, now tax dollars will be going to support bad parenting. I can see the IEP now: Johnny has severe video game addiction, OT will be needed to desensitize Johnny to mindless, flashing images and take Johnny to museums and the library to overcome his victimization. Speech therapy will be ordered so that he can learn how to socialize with other kids.

Who knew you needed experts for those things. Might as well just give your kids up for adoption and allow therapists to raise ‘em if you can’t figure out how to pry your kids away from video games.