London Hospital to Offer Tech Addiction Clinic For Adolescents
Parents who believe that their kids are addicted to online surfing, playing video games, or using their smartphones can now seek assistance from a clinic designed specifically to help children and teenagers unplug from their high-tech devices.
The London, England based Capio Nightingale Hospital and lead addiction consultant Dr. Richard Graham recently launched the "Young Person Technology Addiction" program. Graham told the Daily Mail that the idea stemmed from calls he received from parents which described children as young as 12 flying into a rage, and in some cases even forcing their parents to call the police, when asked to shut down computers and other electronic devices.
"Mental health services need to adapt quickly to the changing worlds that young people inhabit, and understand just how seriously their lives can be impaired by unregulated time online, on-screen or in-game," Dr. Graham told the Daily Mail on Thursday. "We have found that many of the existing services fail to recognize the complexity of these situations, borrowing from older models of addiction and substance misuse to very limited effect."
He added that he hopes the "Young Person Technology Addiction" service will "address the underlying causes of this addiction to transform screenagers back into teenagers" while covering topics such as helping participants get more involved in non-technology-related social activities, form face-to-face relationships, and develop improved nutritional and hygiene habits.
In a recent interview with the London Evening Standard, Dr. Graham compared technology addicts to compulsive gamblers, while stressing that the program did not require participants to completely cease technology use and calling for "official guidelines now on what counts as healthy or unhealthy use" of computers, video games, and related tech devices.
Capio Nightengale Hopsital’s Young Person Technology Addiction clinic, which also will cover topic such as cyber bullying and overuse of social networking websites, offers a variety of different participation options, including individual therapy and intensive in-patient care.
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