I was up all night sending pictures. Secret sexting. With your mom and dad upstairs, thinking youre safe. Now, revealing the secrets in video diaries. Its hard not to resent chris, enjoying himself while im pulling my hair out. What can get them to stop . And what are the warning signs for your family . Your mother is afraid. Tonight, while our 20 20 cameras are rolling, an intervention. Where is my stuff . And signs of withdrawal. When i have the phone, at least i feel like im fitting in. From heartbreak to hope. Logged in to unplugged. Can they make it . Love you. Good evening. Im elizabeth vargas. And im david muir. We all want to stay connected, but tonight, the jawdropping video of people who cant put their devices down. Tonight, youll also see the mris, what this could be doing to your brain. We spent a year on the road meeting people who were held hostage to their devices. Getting them to open up. Were not using their last names, because they could be any of us. But the good news is, they got unhooked, and you can, too. Reporter walk down any street, any mall, any hallway, everyone is bowing to their screen. Our devices are beeping, buzzing, begging us to swipe, like, love, tweet, retweet, send, reply, forward. Facetime, snapchat, instagram. Twitter, tumbler, kik. Reporter this is brooke, a california teenager. Shes 15 now and a selfprofessed recovering cell phone and social media addict. How long was she on her phone each day . When she got home from school, at like 3 00, until she went to bed at 9 00. It was more. Reporter it was more. Brooke says she would be up until 4 00 in the morning and later. The second a text went off, the second someone snapchats me or facetimes me, i always answered and i always waited and waited and waited for someone to reply. It was like my heart. I couldnt put it down. Reporter teenagers have always had this fear of missing out, but its just mushroomed. Its nuclear. Reporter and brookes selfies reveal a troubling progression, imitating bad behavior she was exposed to online with her phone. The more she started to change and act out, the more we started to really clamp down. Clamp down. Then that created anger. Reporter brooke was always two clicks ahead of her parents, jim and stephanie. I was constantly making different accounts. I had like six accounts on instagram. I had multiple snapchats. I changed the usernames, the passwords. I would block them. We took her phone. Shed go and buy someone elses phone. Reporter how were you so smart about all this . Honestly, i dont know. It was like they took my phone and i just panicked. Reporter anytime her parents took away the phone, brooke would go ballistic. It was like a knock down, dragout fight practically to get that phone out of her hand. She would say that, without my phone, i have nothing. There was no relationship. We were just a means to provide her with food and shelter and money. Reporter and a phone. And a phone. Reporter a winter night in michigan. An ordinary house on an ordinary street. People just trying to get some sleep. But somebodys up late, trigger happy with that ratatat keyboard on the computer playing firstperson shooter video games. The boy in the bedroom is josh. Hes 14 years old and his parents, al and christina, say he wont stop, cant stop, playing. Whats a typical day in joshs life . Sleeping in until 11 00, 12 00. Then he would be on until 1 00, 2 00 in the morning. Reporter 12 hours. Easily, he could. Reporter they say joshs obsession began in 8th grade, when he built himself a gaming computer and installed it in his room. Get out reporter you think that was the turning point . Oh, definitely, yeah. That was much more exciting to be on and much more addictive. Reporter josh says hes playing up to 60 hours a week. Josh has been in his room since 4 00, nearly five hours gaming. Reporter why didnt you just take the computer away . I dont understand. Because when we did take it away, there was a lot of problems in our house with his behavior. Reporter they confiscate the computer, shut down the wifi, even remove the router and lock it in their car. Josh responds by throwing things and punching the walls. There was like a shutdown in communication. Reporter was it just the constant fighting with him about this . It was very emotional. Reporter al is not only afraid of what josh might do, hes afraid of what he might do. If it got further, it could have been a problem. It could have been physical and i didnt want that. Reporter so he was trying to physically stop you . Yeah. Reporter he throws up his hands and leaves christina to handle the conflict on her own. And, sometimes, it does get physical. They exaggerate. Like, my mom thinks that i hit her because she takes away my games. I dont do that. She calls it hitting because i, like, swat her hand away. It was just a lot of anger. Lots of anger. Emotional outbursts. Reporter that sounds completely out of control. Yeah, it was. Josh, you need to get off. Hey. Stop. Reporter midnight, 1 00 a. M, 2 00 in the morning. Why are you stalking me . Reporter all these late night fights leave christina exhausted. You know, its after 3 00 and i told you to get off at 1 00. Stop if you want to make changes, its hard work. Reporter they turn to kevin roberts. He works with kids having trouble with too much screen time. It doesnt have to be just gaming. It could be texting. It could be the smartphone. Reporter roberts is the author of cyber junkie, and get off that game, now. Your mother is afraid to get rid of the video game system and the computer because shes afraid of how youll react. Its not my fault that shes scared of me. Reporter in ohio, we meet maria, 40 years old, attorney, mother of four. Good job reporter shes not a single mother. It just seems that way. She has a husband, chris, age 44. But you cant meet him right now because although chris and maria have built a life together, careers, a nice home, beautiful children on any given evening, chris is down in the basement past the pink castle and buckets of childrens toys. You may think hes too old for this, but the average video gamer is 35. Someone shot me in the face. Reporter and this one has been taken prisoner by a pastime. Youre done. Cheese. Chris was still playing video games, so we ended up coming to the park and having some fun here. Reporter how many hours a day does he spend playing games . Hell take a whole saturday and go into the evening when when he from the time he wakes up until reporter the time he goes to bed . The time he goes to bed, yeah. Reporter so, 18 hours . Possibly. Its 2 00 a. M. And i just checked in on chris, and hes still playing video games. Reporter ever since they got married, more than a decade ago, maria says chris is often a noshow for much of their life. Happy thanksgiving. Im headed up to our family football game. Chris opted not to play with us. He is going to be playing video games instead. Reporter why would you stay with i know. Reporter a partner who is that disengaged . I dont know. I think that i really felt like this was a in sickness and in health moment. And, yes, its hard, but i was committed to him. And i still am committed to him. So we have a house full of people, and he is in the basement playing video games. Oh, god. Come here, bro. Come here. Reporter missing lifes sweet moments. So zaleys trying blackberries for the first time. Reporter maria is there to see their toddlers first taste of a blackberry. And so are you. What do you think, zayley . Do you like them . Do you love them . Reporter the only one not there, is her father, chris. Part of your heart must break for what hes missing . It does. Reporter theyre living in a split screen. Chris gets online. Maria gets the kids in line. Playtime for him. Bath time for her. Downstairs, play. Upstairs, pray. I am going to go to bed because im super tired. This is how we function and this is how we do it. Reporter still ahead risky behavior, right under her parents roof. We were blown out of the water when the Police Showed up at our house. Reporter and inside the mind of an extreme gamer. Can the screen change your brain . Youve looked at this and thought, this was a kid in trouble. Stay with us. cause different sides of you struggle with which ones to make. Well, what if you kept making good ones . Then . You could love your numbers. Discover oncedaily invokana®, a pill used along with diet and exercise to significantly lower blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes. Its proven to lower a1c better than januvia®. Invokana® works around the clock by sending some sugar out of your body through the process of urination. Its not for lowering systolic Blood Pressure or weight loss, but it may help with both. 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Now look what you made me do you and me baby it takes two bringing new moves to the Old School Time for the whole world to enjoy the view we can go left they can go right save me a dance for the end of the night when im with you its a party dont care where were going 1, 2, 3 get loose no it takes two to make a thing go right it takes two to make it out of sight. It shouldnt be whateverfleas and ticks. Home. No, no no no no. Seresto® kills and repels fleas and ticks for 8 continuous months for effective protection in an easytouse, nongreasy collar. 8month seresto®. From bayer. A 10speed directshift 5. 0transmission. Ine. A meticulously crafted interior. All of these are feats of engineering. Combining them with nearperfect weight distribution. Is a feat of amazing. Experience the firstever 471horsepower lexus lc 500 or the multistage hybrid lc 500h. Experience amazing. Reporter in ohio, its time to meet the man in the basement marias husband chris. Dad. Hi. Reporter chris comes home from work. It may or may not surprise you to know his job is i. T. , servicing computers. When he walks in the door, it looks like any other normal family. Okay. Go ahead and work on your problem now, all right . Reporter but, his wife maria says, just watch. Doting dad is itching to disappear. I think im going to head down. I keep returning to this machine gun guy. Ive played just terribly, dude. Reporter chris shows us his collection of obsessions. No fewer than 158 carefully organized games. This is where you game, huh . Yeah, matter of fact. Reporter its a nice setup. He tries to show me what all the excitement is about. I put you down quickly. You can remove yourself for an hour. Reporter or more. Or more. Reporter do you think youre addicted to those games . Id say addiction is there. Reporter chris says hes considering cutting back. But quit for good . Never. I cant stop forever, that just seems like reporter even though you know that it hurts your wife and your children . Every next thing i say sounds more and more like the scared addict. Reporter in california, brookes parents say her phone and social media fixation opened a portal into a dark place. Her risky behavior escalated when she was just 11 and 12. Just hanging out with the wrong crowd, drugs, sex in middle school. Reporter with that phone always in her hand, her parents wondered whether anyplace was safe. Okay, shes home, shes safe. But it was a complete false sense of security because shes up there in her room with her phone on the internet. Reporter and as her parents later discover, sexting with strange men. I was up all night, sending pictures. Reporter of yourself . Mmhmm. Reporter to strangers . Yeah. When i did it and i got those compliments, i got that attention, and it just made me feel really good. Reporter its unnerving to listen to you tell me about how you fell into this world of secret sexting upstairs. Yeah. Reporter you werent safe. Not at all. Reporter its not just the phone and the internet. Brooke has a. D. D. And attachment issues. When you take a phone and social media and you put it in the hands of a teenager, and then throw in some mental illness, she just becomes very vulnerable. Reporter but her parents dont realize just how vulnerable, until they get a knock on the door. We were blown out of the water when the Police Showed up at our house. Oh, my gosh. Reporter officers revealed what their little girl had been doing online. The men, the nude photos, all of it. You know people watching this are going to say, where were you . Yeah. It was shocking. It was. I guess i thought of her just as a regular, everyday little girl growing up. Reporter word spread on social media about brookes mistakes. Bullied and shamed, she tried to numb the pain with drugs and alcohol. I think you used the word broken. Yeah. Reporter do you have any idea how you got that way . I think i just got to a point where i kept getting hurt, i kept doing things that i knew didnt make me happy. Reporter and then an act of desperation. Brooke wrote a note on her phone, and somehow, by the grace of god, her parents say, it accidentally popped up on their shared icloud account. I said, whats that . I opened it up and it was a suicide note. Reporter a suicide note . What did you think reading that . I couldnt believe it. It was scary. I just got to a point where i just didnt even know why i was here and why i was still trying. Reporter you mean why you were on earth . Yeah, it just didnt make sense to me anymore. Reporter they had brooke committed to a hospital that night. That was it. Thats when we knew that was it. We got to do something drastic. Reporter the first thing the attendants took from her was her phone. Brookie wanted to like fight the nurse for it. I was like, dont touch me. I was pissed. The despise in her face for us. Betrayal. She was so but there was no other way. I just kept thinking, youre not going to die on my watch. Reporter in michigan, josh begins skipping school. He told me a couple times, im going to be a gamer, and i can make a lot of money, mom. Believe me, ive got it all figured out. I was like, this is not good. Reporter and then, no more school. Theres some things going on with his adhd and then there was some underlying depression. So it wasnt just all the gaming. Reporter al and christina are wondering whats going on inside joshs head. If only there were a way to peek inside that adolescent brain. Well, it turns out, there is. Josh is getting a functional mri as part of a new study by dr. David rosenberg. His theory, yet to be proven excessive gaming may change brain activity. These triplets are in the study too. Turn it off, now. Stop, mom. Youre still playing. I said im going to watch this, and then play outside with josh. Reporter thats noah. You can see why his mom says gaming has more of a hold on him than on his brother and sister. These are the triplets brain scans. Two are typical, but noah is not. Dr. Rosenberg highlighted areas in red he says represent brain activity involving memory, attention and decision making. Noahs is almost completely gray. But now look at noahs brain after three weeks unplugged at summer camp. Hes gone from being barely lit up to being highly. Hes highly lit up, yes. Reporter now for joshs results. There should be much nor more activity. Reporter you looked at this and thought, this is a kid in trouble . This is a kid in trouble. Reporter still ahead, whats it going to take to throw josh off his game . How about 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness with no temptation . Stay with us. At lincoln, were all about making things simpler for you. Like, imagine having your vehicle serviced. 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Reporter Early Morning in michigan, a scene right out of joshs video game. A couple of guy comes to the house and gently but firmly hustle him away in the darkness. He knew it was coming. Its just kind of stupid. I just play video games and i have to go to a rehab for it. Reporter but when the day came, he wasnt ready. Josh was really getting emotional. He goes, i dont want to go, im scared. I want to see my mom. Reporter josh is flown to salt lake city, and then driven hours away into the utah wilderness and a program called unplugged at outback therapeutic expeditions. He and a group of other boys will camp for weeks in this rugged terrain. There is no running water, no electricity, no screens. The only thing that glows in the dark, a campfire and the moon. In ohio, no one is getting on a plane, but chris and maria are hoping for a gamechanger. We arrange for a house call. Addiction specialist nick kardaras. So what are you going to say to him . Well, so my whole purpose is to try to find out where hes at on this whole ownership of his addiction. Does he acknowledge that theres a problem . Reporter inside, before chris decides if hes ready to unplug from his gaming habit, an emotional hug from his oldest children. A reminder of how much they need him. Dont be sad. Reporter and then a big