--- title: "Kids Are Flying Into Lunatic Rages When Their iPads Are Taken Away" description: "Parents say their children are throwing extreme tantrums when their iPads are taken away, and experts are divided on what these signify." date: "2026-05-29" modified: "2026-05-29" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/health-medicine/kids-rages-ipads-taken-away" categories: - "Brain" - "Health & Medicine" --- # Kids Are Flying Into Lunatic Rages When Their iPads Are Taken Away ![Close-up photograph of a young boy crying and screaming.]() *Getty / Futurism* Parents say their kids are going ballistic when they take their iPads away from them, leaving them unsure of what normal behavior might be — and whether there's something sinister going on with their child's connection to the devices. Rachel, a mother of two, tried limiting her son Jonah's screen time by warning him that he had put down his iPad to leave for a birthday party at 11 AM. Despite the repeated warnings the day before and several reminders before the hour mark, when it came time to leave, Jonah had a meltdown. "He just left his body," the mother [told *The Cut*]() of her son, who hurled the electronics and started screaming: "You said I had until 11! It's not 11 yet! You're always doing this!" Jonah followed her around the house, distraught, until finally collapsing on the kitchen floor and refusing to move. "I remember standing there thinking, *I don't know this person*," she recalled. "I genuinely did not recognize him." Thirty minutes later, he tied his shoes, got in the car, and acted like nothing had happened. "That's the part that really messes with you," Rachel says. "How fast they come back." Think that's bad? Hear what Nora had told *The Cut* about her 13-year-old son when she asked to check his phone settings: he accused Nora of ruining his life, before dropping a grenade in conversation. "You make me want to kill myself," he lashed out. And while getting dinner last month at an Italian restaurant, Rachel told the outlet that she allowed her daughter Maya to watch YouTube Kids on the phone. When it was time too leave, she took the phone back. Maya went rigid, screamed, and hid under the table. What's going on here? Are these the kind of extreme tantrums that kids are prone to throw no matter the toy they're being deprived of? Is everyone a bad parent, or at least not handling this the right way? Or are apps and the devices they run on uniquely addictive, somehow impacting a child's development in novel and frightening ways? The research into this area is still emerging, as are the generation of children raised on YouTube Shorts, Roblox, and other mobile games. That's to say that we're still a long way from grasping the long-term cognitive effects of being a so-called "iPad kid." And the latest Silicon Valley horror, AI chatbots, are an even bigger question mark. What evidence we do have, however, is alarming. *The Cut* cites a recent University of Washington study that found that 22 percent of parents' attempts to cut down screen time sparked a negative reaction from kids under five. And in another study from Brigham Young University, 93 percent of parents reported that their toddlers would sometimes whine or throw tantrums when "transitioning away from media." Experts are mixed on whether the devices are provoking some newly negative response. "We frequently hear from parents who say, 'When I ask my child to get off technology, they get very mad at me.' That is true of almost anything that children find reinforcing," Dave Anderson, a senior psychologist at the Child Mind Institute in New York City, told *The Cut*. Anderson was skeptical of using the word addiction to describe what's fueling iPad rages, noting that withdrawal symptoms of actual addiction don't disappear within minutes. Kid's minds just aren't developed enough to handle having their favorite toy taken away from them, she said. Stanford psychiatrist Anna Lembke, however, hasn't hesitated to invoke the specter of addiction, calling screen devices a "digital drug" in an interview with Oprah. And Sarah Coyne, a professor of human development at Brigham Young, seemed to consider equating post-iPad rages to tantrums related to other pleasures outrageous. "I'm not sure how many children are struggling to function because their parents tell them to be done with their ice cream," she told *The Cut,* adding that she's seen addiction-like behavior in kids using devices as young as two years old. If describing these patterns as signs of outright addictive behavior goes too far, there's certainly there is a lot of evidence painting screen time's cognitive effects. One study found that the more babies and toddlers looked at screens each day, [the more likely they were to miss key development goals](), including fine motor skills and social skills. The effects are no less worrying in older children. A study that followed tweens over four years found that increased screen time [was a reliable predictor of ADHD diagnoses](). Beyond iPad rages and worrying cognitive trends, there are other behaviors that illustrate the impact of device usage on children. In a survey of UK preschool school teachers, the teachers on average estimated that a third of their pupils didn't know how to correctly use books — as in they literally couldn't figure out that they had to turn the page. Instead, some [reportedly tried to swipe or tap them](). **More on mental health:** *[Influential Tech Founder Says His Peers Are Suffering From Mass AI Psychosis]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()