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For more than 12 hours a day, 14-year-old Luca stares mesmerized at the computer screen.
The Brisbaneteenager is one of hundreds of thousands of Australian children facing technology, a scourge that experts say is only getting worse.
For Luca — whose mother, Tanya, says she was diagnosed with autism, anxiety and ADHD as an elementary school-aged child — his online life is where his friends are.
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“Well, my normal life is pretty boring, while my gaming life is a funny guy in gaming,” he tells 7NEWS Spotlight.
“The longest hours I’ve probably had were 14 hours in one sitting.”
Tanya says Luca struggles to maintain friendships in person and instead seeks them out online.
But it became an issue in the classroom.
“Even in class, he was always getting into trouble because instead of studying the lesson, he was playing a game,” she says.
Luca and his family are not alone when it comes to battling excessive screen time.
Giuseppe from South Australia has been using devices since he was three years old when he was given an iPad to entertain himself on family trips.
Now 11 years old, he has multiple devices and after an intense morning session, he is excited.
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“Yeah, probably,” he says when asked if he’s addicted to gaming and if that worries his parents.
“No. Not really,” he says when asked if he worries about it himself.
The boy is right when it comes to his parents’ concern.
Dad Frank and mum Louise say he is “100 per cent addicted” and are worried it will affect his development.
“It’s his life and it’s all he wants to do,” says Louise.
“He finds no joy in anything else. He gets frustrated if you ask him to do something else. He is crazy. He swears now, he’s never done that before.
Professor Wayne Warburton, Professor of Developmental Psychology, is a world leader in the field of gaming addiction.
He says excessive screen time is only getting worse as more devices hit the market.
“So we’re seeing it younger and younger as the devices come out earlier and earlier,” he says.
Along with his colleague, psychologist Brad Marshall, the two work on the front lines of this growing problem.
“The latest study found that about 3.05 percent of teenagers had a clinical-level disorder,” says Warburton.
“We think in most countries and in Australia about 10 per cent of people have a problem.”
Marshall says between 400,000 and 500,000 Australian children may fall into the addiction category.
“It’s not your child’s fault,” he says.
“They are victims of persuasive design.
“There are certain aspects of compelling design that every game developer will use, and that is to make games what they call sticky, which is effectively addictive.
“So the way they do it is through algorithms, AI algorithms. If an 8-, 12-, 15-year-old starts to slow down their stroke speed, mousepad, keystrokes, or anything like that, the game in the algorithm warns, wait, we’re losing them.
“So what they usually do is deliver some sort of reward to the system.”
He likened it to a poker machine.
“Now we’re finding that in this recent study that we did, up to 5 percent of elementary school kids had smartphone addiction.”
There is hope on the horizon, says Warburton.
He believes there may be a cure based on cognitive therapy for anyone struggling with this problem.
A group of four families from across Australia desperate for help are ready to try.
Meanwhile, a different military-style effort to wean kids off their devices is underway, and there’s a famous face behind it.
Tasmanian Senator Jackie Lambie has some experience of dealing with addictions in the family. Her son Dylan struggled with substance abuse as a younger man, and she believes tough love may be the solution for families struggling with the addition of technology.
“Everyone has a cell phone. We’re all running from 2010 on all these social media sites,” she says.
“But looking at those kids out there now, their lack of resilience, I’m going to call it today. Their lack of resilience.
She maintains a nine-day intensive military-style program under the discipline Mentors of Army Veterans.
In lush Kangaroo Valley, New South Wales, mentors have 70 recruits to break through.
In a special 7NEWS Spotlight Sunday night, we look at both programs and how effective they are at reducing children’s phone addiction. You can watch it all on 7Plus.
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