So i finished Adam Alter's "Irresistible The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked" and found one small section that was relevant to our discussions on PPD

Doan told me that children reared on the Internet suffer a kind of emotional amblyopia. Children develop different mental skills at different ages, during so-called critical periods. They pick up new languages with ease until ages four or five, after which they only pick up new languages with considerable effort. A similar idea holds for developing social skills—and for learning how to navigate the complex world of teenage sexuality. If kids miss out on the chance to interact face-to-face, there’s a fair chance they’ll never acquire those skills.

Cash has seen dozens of adolescents, mainly boys but also girls, who have no problem interacting with peers online, but can’t carry a conversation with someone sitting across from them. The problem worsens when you encourage adolescent males and females to interact. “How do you learn to talk and flirt and date and end up in bed if you’ve only mixed with other people online?” Cash asked. “Our guys get sidetracked, and they develop intimacy disorders. They don’t have the skills to bring sexuality and intimacy together. Many of them turn to pornography instead of forming real relationships, and they never seem to understand true intimacy.” Cash referred to “our guys” because the center no longer admits women. “For four years we admitted women, but we had to revise our policy after a number of patients ignored the ‘no physical intimacy’ rule. We had many more male applicants in those days, so we decided to stop taking women. Now, with the rise of non-violent casual and social gaming, there are almost as many female applicants. We may have to reconsider our policy.”

Even addicts who, like Isaac Vaisberg, somehow win the charisma lottery are susceptible to a range of psychological and social disorders. One study found that gamers aged between ten and fifteen years who played more than three hours per day were less satisfied with their lives, less likely to feel empathy toward other people, and less likely to know how to deal with their emotions appropriately. Three hours may sound like a lot, but recent surveys have shown that kids spend an average of five to seven hours in front of screens each day. When today’s Millennials become adults, there’s a fair chance their social cucumber brains will be pickled.

If you can't tell from limited excerpt, the boys and girls they are talking about are video game addicts. More broadly internet addicts. Cash and Doan work for reSTART an internet addiction rehabilitation center in Seattle.

Internet/Technology addiction is becoming a growing problem as companies make their products more and more ....addicting. Time spent on site/game is the metric these companies use to measure success and the employ brilliant minds to help increase said time.

How fucked are people who spent their entire childhood socializing on the internet instead of face to face?

Is it possible for young adults to catch up on all the missed hours of socialization ...specifically in regards to dating?

In regards to dating, does this impact boys more than girls?

Will parents ever go back to kicking their kids out the house to socialize?

How will the next generation of kids cope with the immersive VR worlds to come?

so many points to talk about from this small excerpt ....begin!

and as always please reply to comments after leaving your owm