My son attacked me after I intervened along with his 14-hour gaming binge – that is simply one of many penalties of an dependancy dad and mom like me know too effectively

Horrified at over-hearing a man’s voice booming from his 12-year-old son Ned’s PlayStation monitor, Simon Robertson pushed open his bedroom door and demanded to know who he was speaking to.

‘He’s just my friend Joseph,’ Ned told his dad, innocently.

‘Joseph’ was a 24-year-old man paying Ned ‘V-Bucks’ – in-game currency used to purchase items on Fortnite – to make creative maps for him.

Alarmed, and fearing his son was being groomed, lecturer Simon told ‘Joseph’ to stop communicating with his son and threatened to report him to the police if he continued.

Three months later, however, Simon and his wife Megan, both 40, have no idea if Ned is still in touch with Joseph, or indeed what else their son may be doing online.

They feel utterly unable to stop their son from gaming and fearful of his reaction if they try to.

Ned doesn’t hang out with school friends, but instead spends ten hours a day at weekends, and up to five on weekdays, gaming, alone, in his bedroom at their detached home in Telford, Shropshire.

Any attempts to entice him away from his screen are met with meltdowns and anger.

It’s an unnerving story, partly because it’s painfully familiar. In households up and down the country, boys are spending thousands of hours online in worlds of which their parents know nothing – with consequences that can potentially shatter lives, as chilling Netflix drama Adolescence illustrated so clearly.

In the four-part series, 13-year-old Jamie is accused of murder after being influenced online by the so-called incel (involuntary celibate) community. 

What resonates is the confusion and disbelief of his parents, played by Stephen Graham and Christine Tremarco, whose bubble of ignorance allowed it to happen. He couldn’t possibly be in trouble, or danger, they say, because ‘he is always in his room on his computer’.

This week, the Prime Minister hosted the creators of the show at Downing Street and welcomed a move by Netflix to make the series available to screen for free in secondary schools.

Keir Starmer also described how he found the show difficult to watch with his teenage children.

Adolescence has certainly rattled the Robertsons too. Megan says she is terrified by how addicted her son has become to his computer – yet again, like many, she has ‘no idea how to wean him off it’.

‘When we tell him to come off the PlayStation, to eat dinner or do homework, he gets angry and shouts, banging his desk and saying he’s “in the middle of a game and can’t just stop”,’ she says.

‘He directs a lot of his rage at his ten-year-old brother Lucas, who is now having counselling at school because these outbursts are so distressing for him.

‘Ned doesn’t do anything or see anyone in the real world because all he’s interested in is this virtual one and the so-called “friends” – people he’s never met in real life – that he talks to there.’

And the fact is, Ned’s behaviour is in no way unusual. Teenagers now spend an average of seven hours and 22 minutes a day in front of screens – boys longer than girls – according to a survey by UK communications regulator Ofcom.

And the reason children explode in rage when forced away from their screens is because pretty much everything online is designed to be addictive. 

Child psychologist Dr Michele McDowell warns that gaming produces exactly the same chemicals in the brain as taking drugs and gambling. 

‘Brain scans have shown that gaming, like other addictive behaviours, is associated with an increase in dopamine, the feel-good chemical,’ she says.

‘This explains why some children have such extreme reactions when they have to stop, either because their parents say it’s time or if the internet goes down.

‘The enforced withdrawal can lead to kids shouting, hitting and even smashing things in frustration.’

But it’s not just affecting boys emotionally. Exposure to very real dangers in these virtual worlds – from predatory paedophiles and extreme pornography, to the misogynistic incel culture – is even more damaging, says Dr McDowell.

‘Our brains, including emotional regulation, aren’t fully developed until our mid-20s,’ says Dr McDowell. 

‘Before then, boys are developing their own identity and looking towards role models with whom to identify and seek validation. Who a teen is listening to and interacting with online can be extremely impactful.’

Recent atrocities where adolescent perpetrators have turned out to have been exposed to horrific sites online in the run up to their killing sprees have also alarmed the Robertsons.

Nicholas Prosper, 19, who was jailed for 49 years for murdering his mother, sister and brother, having been arrested while on his way to shoot pupils at a local primary school last September, spent so much time online that neighbours in his council block in Luton had never even seen him.

Prosper would stay up all night, poring over images of mass murder and school shootings, and was able to purchase the gun he used to massacre his family, as well as a fake licence, online.

Axel Rudakubana, 18, who stabbed to death three little girls in Southport last summer, was also immersed in a world of violent online content, watching graphic footage of a knife attack on Australian bishop Mari Emmanuel directly before committing carnage at the Taylor Swift-themed dance class.

He also attempted to kill eight others in the class and was sentenced to 52 years in prison in January.

While the Robertsons don’t believe Ned is in any way capable of murder, they are aware that they don’t know who may be influencing him. 

Last year they tried to remove his PlayStation from his room but gave up after his shouting and screaming caused such distress in their home. 

Now they say it feels like an ‘incessant struggle’ and admit to often conceding defeat to avoid a ‘constant battleground’.

At least when Ned’s gaming in his bedroom, the rest of them – their younger children Lucas and Anna, seven, are happy playing with toys, or in the garden – there is peace, of sorts.

‘Simon is tech-savvy so he put a block on the internet after 8pm but, somehow, Ned is able to over-ride it and we’ve woken to find him gaming at 2am and even 4am,’ says Megan, a nurse. ‘We’ve tried pleading – and shouting – to get him to limit his access but nothing seems to work.

‘His obsession is so great he’s even soiled himself, on occasion, because he’s too engrossed to break off to go to the toilet.

‘Inevitably the middle of the night gaming has a knock-on effect the next day when he’s too tired to get out of bed for school.

‘I have to leave before Ned in the mornings, to take his siblings to their primary school, then head to work, which means he frequently goes in late.

‘His attendance record is now so low, the attendance officer has been round, warning us we could face a fine.

‘It’s affecting his school work and we’ve explained it could impact his exam results and long-term job prospects.’

Never could the Robertsons have predicted, when they bought Ned a PlayStation two Christmases ago, that it would occupy his every waking thought in this way. 

Nor did they anticipate that they would lose their little boy to this online world where complete strangers, with potentially nefarious motives, would have direct access to his bedroom.

He is currently awaiting assessment for autism and ADHD – they believe he is neurodivergent and that this is why his meltdowns are so extreme – via Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).

Ongoing battles to moderate online access is a common theme among parents of neurodiverse sons and one that Dr Chloe Bedford, a psychologist who works with children and teenagers, says may be rooted in their struggles with social and communication skills.

‘Kids with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often have special interests in games, and can become hyper-focused, making it harder to move away from them,’ she says. 

‘They struggle more with social skills and so being online is often an easier way for them to connect with others.

‘Those spreading misogynistic content, as well as radical beliefs, will often use online games as a way of enticing others into their group, where boys are then subjected to increasingly aggressive messaging, which can lead to desensitisation to these egregious views.

‘Additionally, the algorithms on social media work in such a way that the more we engage with a certain type of content, the more we see it, so boys can end up in an echo chamber where they start to believe that these opinions, however extreme, are correct.’

Sophie Wright and her husband, Dave admit they have ‘completely lost’ their 17-year-old son, Toby, who was diagnosed with ASD aged five, to an online world.

He spends 14 hours on his desktop computer in the back room of their home in Newcastle on weekend days, and seven on weekdays when he’s not at college, studying computer science.

Like many who thought they were doing the right thing, the couple never allowed Toby to have devices in his bedroom, believing – wrongly as it turns out – that this would limit their use.

‘I don’t think he’s plotting to bring down the Government, or anything sinister, but it’s always at the back of my mind that I’ve got no real idea what he is doing and who he’s talking to,’ says Sophie, a teacher. 

‘When I ask him he says “stuff” or “things” and, whenever I walk into the room, there’s a boring train driver game on his screen, which I suspect he clicks onto when he hears me come in.

‘I worry he’s getting exposed to people like Andrew Tate, who has incredibly misogynistic views which I’m scared he might end up adopting.

‘Dave and I agonise about what to do, and he’s said he’s worried about Toby becoming an “incel”, not because of anything he’s done or said but because he’s such a loner, so might be vulnerable to those sorts of influences.

‘One time, I suggested he meet up with friends at the weekend and he looked at the computer and said: “Duh, I am.” He really believes he is.’

These online friends play such a big part in Toby’s life that, during one of his parents’ many attempts to get him to spend less time in front of a screen, he asked one of them to speak on his behalf.

‘A disembodied voice, with an American accent, told us, via the computer, to “listen to your son”,’ recalls Sophie. 

‘I was really cross that some stranger was telling us how to parent, but also incredibly sad that Toby was confiding in someone thousands of miles away, when he barely speaks to us at all.’

Toby refuses to drag himself away from his screen to join his parents on any outings, including visiting his grandparents, whom he hasn’t seen for more than a year.

He will finish college this summer and Sophie, 51, is ‘worried sick’ about what will happen then as he doesn’t want to go to university and, she fears, lacks the social skills to apply for an apprenticeship.

‘He leads a very limited life, sitting in front of a screen, with the lights off – that’s all he’d ever do, if he didn’t have to go to college,’ says Sophie, her frustration turning to tears. ‘What’s worse is he never seems happy. It’s very rare for him to smile.’

Policing their children’s online activities can feel overwhelming to most parents, who are rarely as computer-savvy as their kids, so it may come as a relief that Ofcom stepped up last month, urging technology giants to take action against ‘misogyny influencers’.

A report by the regulator said that those spouting sexist views are being ‘rewarded’ with ‘greater reach, particularly to boys and young men’ by algorithms, and asked social media sites to go ‘above and beyond’ legal duties to help curb their bile.

Judith Hirst, 53, from Birmingham, has no idea what her son, Oscar, 18, gets up to during the 14 hours a day he spends in front of a computer screen since completing his A-levels last summer. He decided not to go to university or look for a job.

Without the constraints of a timetable, Oscar has become nocturnal, getting up at 3pm, gaming and going back to bed at 5am, shortly before Judith, who runs a coffee shop, gets up for work.

Judith, a single mum, tries very hard to get her son to engage with the real world, even taking him on a trip to New York last month, where he refused to leave the hotel room.

‘He told me, afterwards, that the best bit about the holiday was returning home and getting back to gaming,’ says Judith, who is ‘in despair’ about her son’s obsession. ‘When I ask what he does online, he snaps back: “Why do you want to know?”

‘I often hear banging sounds coming from his bedroom when he’s stamping on the floor or hitting his bed in frustration, either because he’s lost a game or the WiFi has glitched.’

This, however, is better than it was.

Last year, Oscar began to direct his rage at her, having ‘volcanic eruptions’, screaming in her face and smashing crockery. It got so bad, she asked the police officer, affiliated with the school he then attended, to talk to him.

She says: ‘The officer told him: “You’re nearly an adult. If your mum calls the police, you can get arrested, and a police record can mess up your life.” It seemed to register because he now directs his anger at inanimate objects instead.’

When he was younger, she would simply confiscate his computer and deal with the subsequent meltdown, but now he’s older, feels she couldn’t cope with his reaction and thinks it’s no longer even a realistic option.

Judith is less concerned about the kind of material Oscar may be exposed to, as, she says, he has a ‘strong moral code and is not easily led’, but is concerned about the fact he rarely leaves home, never seeing friends and preferring the glare of his computer screen to real life experiences.

She has, however, told him either to find a job or enrol on a course this summer, when he turns 19.

While attempting to monitor teenagers’ online access may feel draconian especially when they’re 18, the consequences of not doing so can be devastating.

Parents may do well to heed the warning of Dr Sheila Redfern, consultant clinical child and adolescent psychologist, who says: ‘Adolescents inherently take risks and make bad decisions, because of their immature prefrontal cortexes.

‘It is, therefore, incumbent on all adults in their lives to become more informed, not just about how many hours they spend on devices, but what it is exactly that they are looking at.’

* Names have been changed to protect identities.