Tech Addiction in Children & Adolescents

Brain-Based Interventions to Optimize Digital Health in

Today’s Screen Culture

Nicholas Kardaras, Ph.D., LCSW-R

Rehab Kids

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Rehab Kids

Tech Addiction in Children & Adolescents

Brain-Based Interventions to Optimize Digital Health in

Today’s Screen Culture

Nicholas Kardaras, Ph.D., LCSW-R

Copyright © 2020

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Nicholas Kardaras, Ph.D., LCSW-R, is an Ivy League educated psychologist, best-selling author, internationally renowned speaker and an expert on mental health, addiction, and the impacts of our digital age. He has developed clinical treatment programs all over the country and is the founder and chief clinical officer of Maui Recovery in Hawaii, Omega Recovery in Austin and the Launch House in New York.

Dr. Kardaras is a former clinical professor at Stony Brook Medicine where he specialized in teaching the neurophysiology and treatment of addiction. He has also taught neuropsychol-ogy at the doctoral-level and has worked closely in developing clinical protocols with Dr. Howard Shaffer, associate professor at Harvard Medical School and the director of their Division of Addiction.

Dr. Kardaras has written for TIME magazine, Scientific American, Psychology Today, Salon, the NY Daily News, and FOX News, and has appeared on ABC’s 20/20, Good Morning America, the CBS Evening News, FOX & Friends, NPR, Good Day New York and in Esquire, New York magazine and Vanity Fair. He was featured on the 2019 A&E TV series Digital Addiction and his 2016 NY Post Op Ed “Digital Heroin” went viral with over six million views and shares.

Dr. Kardaras is the author of the best-selling Glow Kids (St. Martin’s Press, 2016, now translated into 10 languages), the seminal book on the clinical, neurological and sociological aspects of technology addiction. He is the author of How Plato and Pythagoras Can Save Your Life (Conari, 2011) and often uses philosophy to help work with and treat young people who are struggling with an existential crisis.

Considered a leading expert on young people and digital addiction, he has clinically worked with over 2,000 teens and young adults over the last 18 years and has been active in advocating that screen addiction be recognized as a clinical disorder akin to substance addiction. As a result of his clinical training and expertise working with tech addiction, Dr. Kardaras has developed the most comprehensive treatment protocols to treat this emerging global problem. Dr. Kardaras is also a founding charter member of the not-for-profit National Institute for Digital Health and Wellness (NIDHW), which is an affiliate organization of the National Institute for Science, Law and Public Policy (NISLAPP) in Washington, D.C.

Speaker Disclosures: Financial: Nicholas Kardaras maintains a private practice. He is the CEO/Chief Clinical Officer for

Omega Healthcare Group. Dr. Kardaras receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc.Non-financial: Nicholas Kardaras sits as a board member for the National Institute of Digital

HealthMaterials that are included in this course may include interventions and modalities that are beyond the

authorized practice of mental health professionals. As a licensed professional, you are responsible for reviewing the scope of practice, including activities that are defined in law as beyond the boundaries of

practice in accordance with and in compliance with your professions standards.

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Comedian Paula Poundstone on Screen Time

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH3QFTZMFso

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Teenage Mental Health

Why Does the Brain Prefer Opium to Broccoli?•Steven E Hyman•Published in Harvard review of psychiatry 1994

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Chasing the Feel‐Good High

Dopamine is the “feel good” neurotransmitter that’s the most critical in the addiction process.

Addictive drugs (and habit‐forming behaviors) provide a shortcut to the brain's reward system by flooding the nucleus accumbens with dopamine. The hippocampus lays down memories of this rapid sense of satisfaction, and the amygdala creates a conditioned response to certain stimuli. 

How dopaminergic (how dopamine activating) a substance or behavior is correlates with the addictive potential of that substance or behavior

Dopaminergic substances or behaviors increase dopamine levels so that the dopamine‐reward pathway is activated, telling the individual to repeat what they just did in order to get that feel‐good dopamine reward again and again.

Video Games Raise Dopamine

• Food: 50% Dopaminergic

• Sex: 100% Dopaminergic

• Video games: 100% Dopaminergic

• Cocaine: 350% Dopaminergic

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Digital Drugs

Dr. Peter Whybrow, Director of Neuroscience at UCLA, calls electronic screens and video games “electronic cocaine”

Commander Dr. Andrew Doan, MD and Ph.D. in neuroscience and the head of Addiction research for the U.S. Navy/Pentagon calls interactive screens digital “pharmakeia” (Greek for drug).

Chinese researchers call video games “electronic heroin”

Digital Drugs?

• Are Teenagers Replacing Drugs With Smartphones?

• By MATT RICHTEL MARCH 13, 2017

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“People are carrying around a portable dopamine pump, and kids have basically been carrying it round for the last 10 years.”

Dr. David Greenfield, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of Connecticut School of Medicine

“Teens can get literally high when playing these games…Interactive Media act as an alternative reinforcer to drugs.”

Dr. Nora Volkow, Director of NIDA (National Institute of Drug Abuse)

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Digital Morphine and The Military

At the University of Washington, researchers found that burn victims who played a video game called Snow World required NO morphine. 

Subsequent MRI research showed that brain centers related to pain were more activated by the game than by actual morphine. 

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Screens and the H‐P‐A Axis

Research has shown screens to be hyper‐arousing and effect the “H‐P‐A Axis” (Hypothalmus‐Pituatary‐Adrenal Axis) which leads to “fight or flight response”. Blood pressure goes up; pupils dilate; palms get sweaty. 

Hour after hour of hyper‐aroused time can lead to a “dysregulation effect” where children can’t calm down and re “wired and tired”. Dr. Dunckley has called this “Electronic Screen Syndrome” and can look like ADHD, moodiness and aggressive behavior.

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DIGITAL HEROIN: The Science of Screen Addiction: Denham Hitchcock: Sunday Night• https://vimeo.com/260855006

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Facebook’s Sean Parker:

“We’ve created a Monster” NY POST 11/9/17

• “Facebook literally changes your relationship with society, with each other. God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.”

• Facebook is designed to exploit “a vulnerability in human psychology” to get its users addicted.

• “The inventors, creators — it’s me, it’s Mark [Zuckerberg], it’s Kevin Systrom on Instagram, it’s all of these people — understood this consciously,” he said. “And we did it anyway.”

Facebook’s Sean Parker on “Facebook Addiction”

Parker: “Facebook uses likes and shares to create a ‘social‐validation feedback loop’ that keeps users coming back.

“We need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever,” Parker said. “And that’s going to get you to contribute more content, and that’s going to get you … more likes and comments.”

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Schools that ban mobile phones see better academic results

• “Ill Communication: The Impact of Mobile Phones on Student Performance” a study by the London School of Economics found that after schools banned mobile phones, the test scores of students aged 16 Improved by 6.4%.

• Banning mobile phones improves outcomes for the low‐achieving students saw an increase of 14.23% in test scores. 

• “The results suggest that low‐achieving students are more likely to be distracted by the presence of mobile phones, while high achievers can focus in the classroom regardless of whether phones are present. Banning mobile phones could be a low‐cost way for schools to reduce educational inequality.”

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The Solution

Prevention: Delay portable electronic Devices until at least age 10.

Parents: Practice what you preach. Watch and moderate your own tech habits. 

No screens at the dinner table (and, yes, have the whole family eat—and talk—together).

One day a week: Digital Fast. Smell the roses.

Talk to your children early and often about tech concerns.

Foster balanced, resilient, empathic and emotionally strong children.

Nurture healthy hobbies: Sports, art, music…nature activities…the Scouts! But also let your children be BORED! 

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NOTES

NOTES