Berita Otomotif - In the year since Dr. Bruce Ballon has been running a program for Internet addicts, he's seen about 50 young people pass through the doors and another 50 or so receive help over the phone. And while he wouldn't label the situation a crisis, he says demand for help is way up and parents are part of the solution, just as they are part of the problem.
"I often ask parents, "Have you got BlackBerrys, smartphones, iPhones?" says Ballon.
"Are you answering emails at three in the morning, are you role modelling things for your kids, are you angry at them playing the game when you're answering emails at 3 a.m. on Sunday? It's a society issue too."
Ballon heads the Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health program catering to the burgeoning field of gambling, video game and Internet-related addictions.
"It's not like we're seeing tons and tons of this, like it's a huge epidemic, but what we are noticing is, because of the 21st century, people need to start developing some healthy guidelines and relationships with multimedia and technology."
Dr. Brent Conrad, a clinical psychologist who studies video game and Internet addiction, says it's difficult to quantify the extent of the problem because the condition is not defined in the profession's handbook - the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" - published by the American Psychiatric Association.
"Unfortunately, it is common for different studies to use different criteria - which of course, lead to different conclusions - but in general, most studies suggest that from five to 10 per cent of users demonstrate behaviours suggestive of addiction," he says.
Discussion about "Internet addiction" - a term Ballon hates - has been going on for at least a decade, but it was within the last three to five years that his centre really started to note an increase in concern about kids becoming too obsessed with online profiles or building their rank in the latest video game.
Then the dangers of online obsession hit home for many parents with the sad story of 15-year-old Brandon Crisp. He ran away from his home in Barrie, Ont., in the fall of 2008 after his parents took away his video game system and his body was found three weeks later. An autopsy suggested he died after falling from a tree.
Ballon cautions against using Crisp's tale as a case study for what happens when kids become too engrossed in video games. Few know the whole story and the mitigating factors involved.
"Everyone's fear about technology and video games came running out and everyone started screaming about predators, the evils of the Xbox and all this sort of stuff," he says.
"But the question is, did he have depression? If he had come home and not fallen out of the tree and died tragically, would they have just talked about it and gone for help?
"None of us will ever know. But what was illustrated to me in that story was people are really afraid and uncertain about all this technology flying at us. It is a bit overwhelming."
Ballon says he dislikes the term "Internet addiction" because, often, habitual gaming or web use is just a symptom of other issues.
"Clinically speaking, what we're noticing is there (are) so many concurrent issues with people coming in with these problems, like depression, anxiety, Asperger's disorder, family disruption and so on," he says.
"Although the technologies are often implicated as THE problem, it's usually just one issue that's attached to others and it might become a coping mechanism."
He says parents should be talking to their kids about their online habits and stay engaged in what their kids are doing.
"You might talk about the birds and the bees, booze and bongs, but are you going to talk to your kids about the safety issues of dealing with the net?"
Donni Jamieson had a talk with her three boys, aged 10, 14 and 16, after the Crisp story made the news and knows first hand about the addictive nature of games.
"The biggest eye opener for me was when I found a game on my new laptop and I lost three hours one evening, just completely lost myself in this game," she recalls.
"It's just another thing you have to be on top of. They're kids and when they get wrapped up in something they like they want to play it, and play it, and play it. It's no different than my husband and online poker, or myself with Solitaire. I can lose myself in Solitaire."
While the Crisp story left her concerned about the impact of addictive games, she felt comfortable enough that her kids' habits were in control.
"It was something we talked to the boys about and said, 'How would you feel if we took the system away,' because we have, it's a grounding-type thing, a form of discipline at times," she says.
"As a parent, face it: you are allowing your child to become that addicted to it if you're allowing your child to spend that much time on it. I think you have to set up the guidelines really clearly at the beginning."
At the Toronto addiction program Ballon runs, treatment starts with a consultation with the child and their family to determine what issues might be at play.
"My concept - and it fits with every other sort of addiction and mental health issue - is saying: do they need to go away or can we start to see where they're at and try to do it as an out-patient?
"If the out-patient stuff is not working and they really do need a break, sure, let's send them away for a little while with the whole intention that when they come back they still have followup treatment," he says.
"Sending kids away and hoping they'll be fixed is a bad concept because a lot of the problems that are underlying are not fixable, they're more treatable. I don't believe in the programs that believe they can just fix a problem by sending someone away for a few weeks or even a few months and then they can come back."
Other resources are emerging to help parents deal with the problem before it gets serious.
Microsoft recently launched the website Get Game Smart to provide parents and kids with discussion tools about how to set boundaries around game play. Ballon likes the idea, although he hopes the website is responsive to parents' questions and doesn't just preach its own message.
"Sometimes you throw content at people but it's not necessarily useful unless the parents really feel invested that it's going to help them," he says.
The Ontario government also recently announced it's integrating education about Internet issues into its elementary school curriculum. Ballon says that too is a good idea, although parents can't leave it to teachers to take care of the issue.
"Parents need to get more savvy with what's going on. A lot of the time parents are so busy too, because of the 21st century, that they're trying to offload some of their parenting onto the schools. But the schools can't do all of it."
