ADD, Attention, Electronic Devices

 ” Arousal is the basic problem with ADD, but attention may play a major role in the person’s  dysfunction.  If a child cannot attend, boredom is a chief complaint.  Remember, boredom is always a result of inattention.  An individual with good attentional skills can spend a long time examining a leaf; someone with poor attentional skills might not even notice the leaf.     Parents are often perplexed to see their attention-deficit child spend hours engrossed in cartoons or video games.  Even uninformed professionals may say a child who can sit quietly for an hour watching TV or playing video games does not have ADD.  Unfortunately, that is not the case.  Children with ADD can spend hours playing a video game because the scene is changing, moving, bouncing, hopping, beeping, banging, hitting, and kicking.  There is a constant stream of changing stimulation.  Unlike the poor teacher who just has chalk and a blackboard, the video game or cartoon has kung fu, bombs, kicks, and blasts.  The stimulation-starved, thrill-seeking child with ADD must have that rapidly moving, ever-changing stimulation to stay in the world.     Teachers, parents, and society in general cannot compete with the chaotic movement of video games.  Yet, video games tend to drive the brain deeper into low arousal.  Once the brain learns how to accommodate or deal with the video game, learning stops and the brain relaxes into “coast” mode.  In a sense, it goes in neutral, requiring a very small part of the brain to be used on the game.  Manual skills and physical quickness may improve because of practice, but the brain is lulled into inactivity.”  pp.12-13.  From Getting Rid of Ritalin by Robert W. Hill, Ph.D. and Eduardo Castro, M.D.     As neurofeedback benefits progress, the games can be limited more and more.