Nintendo-Addicted '90s Kids Were Sent To Therapy, Vintage News Segment Reveals (VIDEO)

WATCH: '90s News Segment Shows Nintendo-Addicted Kids In Therapy

Parents in 2012 may feel as though they are the first generation of moms and dads to grapple with kids who are addicted to gaming. But just because teens weren't playing complicate multi-player alternate reality games doesn't mean '90s parents weren't concerned, too. Their kids had... Super Nintendo.

A video that Buzzfeed Rewind discovered on YouTube shows families in therapy because of Nintendo. The session appeared to be an open, safe place for "Nin-ten-pendent" kids to talk about their feelings and for parents to express their concerns.

Though the clip itself is hilarious (the reporter's head is placed within a video game), and the idea of Nintendo Lovers Anonymous is laughable too, in recent years, researchers have pin-pointed why gaming addiction is nothing to joke about. Lisa Belkin, HuffPost senior columnist, reports that "playing video games lowers sleep quality and memory in young teens, causes visible changes to the risk and reward processing centers of the brain, and has been shown to decrease attention span or increase it but definitely to alter it."

Since this news segment originally aired, parents still haven't found a perfect solution of how to handle gaming addiction. But the reporter is right about one thing -- "things have definitely come a long way since Pacman."

In the comments below, tell us how you deal with screen time in your house.

Before You Go

Techie Toddlers

Popular in the Community

Close

HuffPost Shopping’s Best Finds

MORE IN LIFE