by Amelia Love

Created on: February 15, 2009   Last Updated: February 21, 2009

"William, get off the computer now."

"Just one more minute. I promise."

"Very well; I'm counting down.... Minute is up. Get off the computer now, please."

"I'm almost finished typing in these codes. If I stop now, I'll lose everything I've been doing."

Sound familiar? This is a regular conversation I have with my little cousin every single time I have been asked to watch him. I have often joked that if there was a fire or another catastrophe while I was babysitting, I would have to grab the computer and tell him to follow in order to get him out of the house. Everyone who knows the child chuckles at the joke, and then nods in agreement.

Yes, children are becoming addicted to the internet. Gone are the days when you can entice a child to go outside and ride a bike or play for hours in the park. Gone are the days when a lively basketball game with a friend or a parent was the highlight of a teenager's day.

Instead, children, especially teenagers, are glued to a computer screen. The sedentary activities are endless. Children can chat with people they know or have never met, play a limitless number of games for hours on end, enter code after code after code in attempts to win prizes for different products, watch scores of videos and listen to one song after another after another.... the list continues. The only common factor - the child sits, watches a screen, and occassionally shifts an object around that computer technicians have cleverly termed, "the mouse."

Parents have cause to worry. Gone are the days when playing requires energy. Our computer addictions are raising children who are overweight and more accustomed to eating a snack while playing a game with a computer screen rather than going outside and playing a game with a jump rope.

Parents have cause to worry. Gone are the days when they could meet and know every acquaintance and friend of their children. Our computer addictions are raising children who type to people across the world, permitting a machine to be a middle-man for conversation, while struggling to carry out meaningful relationships with real people across the street. Even more frightening, many of these people our children our typing to are adults who do not have the correct intentions.

Parents have cause to worry. Gone are the days when children came together at campouts to tell scary stories or to laugh at one another's jokes. Our computer addictions are raising children who see truly monstrous acts played out on videos and hear horrid language in song after song, while unable to sit back and enjoy a truly good story or a fun, clean joke.

Yes, our children are addicted to computers. They know it, and they are unconcerned. As I was writing this story on the computer, my little cousin came and asked me if he could have the computer. I told him he would have to wait, and then I explained that I was writing a story about computer addiction, and I had included an anectode about him. When I read it to him, he was very proud and demanded I use his real name. I told him, "No, but tell me what name you want me to use, and I will use that instead." "William" is not unhappy that I am writing about his computer addiction. "William" is not concerned about the possible problems his computer addiction might create and has possibly already created.

All addictions can and have created significant problems for people in the past. Computer addictions are not excluded from this. And the scariest part - our children are the primary targets.

Parents have cause to worry. And hopefully they will. Because our children are not in the least bit worried.

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