Are screens "digital heroin?" par Daniel Willingham

A piece appeared in the New York Post on August 27 with the headline "It's digital heroin: How screens turn kids into psychotic junkies."

Even allowing for the fact that authors don't write headlines, this article is hyperbolic and poorly argued. I said as much on Twitter and my Facebook page, and several people asked me to elaborate. So....

First, to say "Recent brain imaging research is showing that they [games] affect the brain’s frontal cortex — which controls executive functioning, including impulse control — in exactly the same way that cocaine does," is transparently false. Engaging in a behavior cannot affect your brain in exactly the same way a psychoactive drug does. Saying it does is a scare tactic.