1.
Out of nervousness, Marta looks at the monitor, which displays various slogans designed to reassure the client that everything will be fine. “We are with you!” – and a drawing of a happy family on a couch. “We will help you find your strength!” – and smiling therapists from a family psychotherapy clinic for parents and children with problems. And with thick wallets, but that’s a separate story.
– Everything will be fine – the therapist tells the mother, who is just leaving the office with her daughter. The mother looks like she wants to apologize to the whole world for all her mistakes. My daughter – as if she wasn’t even here. “What am I doing here?” Marta laments in her thoughts. “What is my 12-year-old son doing here?”
Szymek is growing into a classic geek. Glasses, head in the computer, what he loves most in the world is playing games. Not only video games, but also old-school paper RPGs. And board games. When Marta picks him up from meetings with her friends, they always look like they were taken from the first season of “Stranger Things”.
– These hooks are the worst – says the therapist. – These loot boxes, for example. In which there are prizes. And these messages that the counter is ticking and the chance of winning a prize or winning the game will soon pass.
Marta remembers a vending machine salon in London that her emigrant friend told her about. He worked there at the beginning of his London adventure. “The poor come. They sit in front of the vending machines and they shine with lights and buzz. These people have a frenzy on their faces. They lose entire weeks’ wages, sometimes they have to be carried out of the salon.” Szymek looks like that sometimes too.
– Because basically it works like an ordinary casino – explains the therapist.
– Gambling? – Marta interrupts her. – Wait, this is an addiction.
A gambler is a guy who sells his apartment to pay off debts and continue gambling – he adds in his thoughts.
– We are very careful when using such phrases with children.
Until the age of six, Szymon had little contact with technology. He didn’t get a smartphone, and the laptop was once in a while, for a while, under Marta’s control. His eyes lit up at electronic gadgets, but what child doesn’t?
– Krzysiek and I are finally saying: he can no longer be isolated from the digital world. It was in the first grade of primary school. All the kids in his class were already very digitally savvy. Their conversations, their spending time – everything revolved around it. Szymek was sad, he didn’t understand what the children were laughing at, he felt rejected. So we started to accustom him to this world a bit. Of course he would love to play. They even arranged to play board games with their friends on the Internet. I tell Krzysiek: it’s a bit strange. Terrifying. That he supposedly has some relationships, but more and more often, when you stand aside, it looks as if he was completely alone.
Marta says that from today’s perspective (the therapist said that it is almost always noticed only after some time) the last year was a rollercoaster. Szymon was asking more and more often for some money, to pay for some small transaction. Because a new skin, because in-app payment, because whatever. Because some YouTuber talked him into doing something. And with him thousands of other kids. Usually it was no money. Szymon was getting nervous, distracted, nervous for no reason. He hated it when his access to his phone and laptop was restricted.
– Towards the end he started having bouts of rage, quite spectacular ones – says Marta. – He clenched his fists, screamed, cried. I thought: maybe it’s ADHD? Autism spectrum? Or maybe some mental illness? Because he could look like a child from a horror movie. One that ends in exorcism. I saw him happy about something less and less.
Therapy is neither easy nor cheap. Every week, Szymon has an individual meeting with a therapist. Plus one for Marta and Krzysiek. And one for all three.
– The most difficult thing is that you have to open your eyes and look at the mistakes you have made – says Krzysiek. – Maybe you worked too much. Maybe you were emotionally unavailable because you were supposedly spending time with your child, but your main focus was work or paying bills. Or anywhere. Elsewhere anyway. He must have felt it. So he felt lonely.
– We allowed too much – adds Marta. – Meanwhile, the creators of these applications, these games and half of these fucking YouTubers – they act like a mafia that destroys the brains of our children. And we are too busy or too blind to notice it.
Many video games are enhanced with gambling elements. Kids want to play more and more, they are looking for rewards. The brain of someone addicted to a chemical substance works the same way
2.
– This process starts from an early age – explains psychotherapist Dorota Jabłońska. A familiar image: a cafe, a restaurant and a two- or three-year-old with his face in the phone. – Recently I saw a one-and-a-half-year-old child sitting in a baby seat and watching cartoons on the phone. Indeed, thanks to this, the family has the opportunity to eat a meal in peace, take care of themselves and have a pleasant evening. However, this child is completely excluded from being together. We are talking about a bond disorder and its incorrect formation. This communal table is a good example, but this extends to all elements of life: there is no interaction of adults, grandparents, parents with this child. A child is like any other child: he is troublesome, he whines, he cries, he needs to be taken care of.
– You can go crazy.
– But thanks to this, there is some interaction, even something that seems troublesome or tiring, has a positive impact on building relationships. However, if a child has a screen in front of their face, this is not the case.
Then, when the child gets a little older, you can see it at home – everyone is busy with themselves. The child sits in the room, studies officially, has an open laptop, and the parents do not necessarily know what he is doing there. Some of it is probably some school material, some of it is games, videos, social media. All this is so interesting and engaging that young people are no longer interested in going to their parents and talking to them. In turn, parents who come back from work tired also prefer to rest and do something rather than have a child to worry about. This can be seen even in the clinic. A child and its mother or father are waiting for a visit. Everyone in their own chair, everyone with their face in their phone. Separate worlds.
There is nothing strange about the fact that teenagers prefer to stay locked in their rooms, explains Jabłońska. But it’s good when parents know what they are doing, what they are watching, what they are playing.
– Many video games are enhanced with gambling elements. The most dangerous are the so-called lootboxes, i.e. boxes with game prizes. When the player finds and opens them, he or she receives additional visual and audio stimuli. Just like in slot machines. Like in a casino. What is in the loot box is unpredictable, it is not known what the prize is. You can find them, but you can also buy them, says Dorota Jabłońska. – An extremely high level of dopamine is released, much higher than in games, although its level is also very high here. Young people want to play as often as possible, they are looking for prizes. The brain of a person addicted to a chemical that causes a release of dopamine works on exactly the same principle. This young brain is becoming addicted to it.
– Can’t it be redirected somehow? For real life?
– It’s very difficult to get such awards in normal life. And even if they happen, they happen very rarely, you have to work hard. And here – you just need to play a little, because these games are designed in such a way as to encourage you to play more and more. This is dangerous. That’s why it’s so hard to distract them from it and offer them something else. Football, bike, walking the dog, going out with the family, meeting with peers? Boredom.
– What if you try to cut them off from it?
– The first reactions are usually anger and aggression. Parents take away young people’s computers, turn off the Internet, and they start to become aggressive. The next stage is apathy. When it comes to chemical addictions, a person can be cut off from the substance. And we will not cut off a young person from technology, because it is everywhere and an important element of the world. Psychotherapy is needed, as well as slow learning to function with a limited amount of time spent in front of a screen. Without the help of his parents, this young man will not be able to cope. Especially since it’s not a problem for him. An adult addicted to substances has a chance to see the losses he suffers: his health deteriorates, his relationships fall apart, he has problems at work, he eventually loses his job, he loses money, he falls out of his social world. Young people don’t have the chance to see the costs of screen abuse or addiction. And it’s convenient for parents too. The child is doing something – it’s nice. You can see it everywhere, in the subway, at the bus stop – adults, children, everyone on screens.
– Does that say something about all of us?
– A lot of things. For example, the fact that we cannot be alone with ourselves today. When we’re riding the subway or waiting for someone in a cafe, we immediately reach for the phone. We can’t get bored. And boredom supports creativity, then we have new thoughts and ideas. This is particularly important developmentally for children and adolescents.
3.
A small revolution begins at Kamil’s house.
– I read about this whole Buddha, I clicked only because I recognized him from the story of the young man. When they sit with their faces in their laptops and phones and listen to these guys, it always makes me feel a little crazy that what kind of idiots are these people telling my children nonsense? But then I think: my old man was also pissed off that I was playing “Mortal Kombat” and listening to rappers slurring every other word.
Recently, Kamil watched the film “Gambling Mafia of the Polish Internet” by the famous YouTuber Konopsky.
– Incredible! – he writes furiously. – Not only do these bastards brainwash kids, but they also scam them out of money. Because young people buy things on the Internet all the time. It all seems so innocent: small amounts, most of it for games.
Now Kamil has a slight overbite. All kids do it, it’s fashionable.
“My old man was always against everything I liked,” he sighs. – When I was into metal, he said it was stupid. As in hip-hop – for bums. Like games – they make you stupid. So I promised myself that I would never be such a jerk to my own children. Well, now I limit them to laptops, smartphones and consoles.
It’s only been a few days. Things are going well with the almost 12-year-old Sonia, but she still has her nose in those fashionable young adult books about the love adventures of teenage enchanted elves and so on. Kamil doesn’t understand it either, but he’s happy. At least no one will cheat her out of money.
So Sonia lies on the couch with her face glued to a book. Meanwhile, thirteen-year-old Adam makes a fuss. How can he live with a phone call limited to two hours a day? With a laptop between 8 and 10 p.m.?
– We wanted to be modern parents, so we set up an account for him to which we transfer our pocket money every week. He was always quite resolute, he didn’t spend on nonsense, he sometimes saved money. And now a day or two and nothing. It turned out that everything goes to microtransactions in games and online.
“You don’t understand me”, “you don’t understand my life”, “you are destroying my life” – this is Adam’s current litany. Kamil would like to tell him: “Son, can’t you just take Adela from the same class you liked her so much to the cinema? I’ll give you money for tickets. And for popcorn too.” But currently Adam doesn’t feel like listening. Well, unless they give him back his phone and laptop and unblock the card.
4.
– I recently had a substitute in the sixth grade – says Aneta, an English teacher from a Warsaw primary school. Last lesson, it’s gray outside, the kids are tired, so I say they can just study for the next day. I still haven’t gotten used to it. Kids are usually noisy, arguing, laughing and cackling. Standard. But more and more often it happens that the classroom becomes quiet.
Aneta takes out her phone and disconnects for a moment. A few moments later, he looks up and most of the class is sitting with their phones in their faces. No emotions, just this strange, nervous concentration. Like in some grim sci-fi or horror movie. Welcome to zombieland, he thinks, hiding his phone.
