Screen time advice with 11 year old son

The problem isn't the screen time, exactly but managing anxiety. I'll expand more on this... 

The problem isn't the screen time, exactly but managing anxiety. I'll expand more on this... 

I had thought I replied, but it seems to have disappeared. 

The first is this:

If you haven't already, it's good to understand Monotropism. Interruptions are like waking a sleepwalker. It isn't just difficult to be snapped out of a hyper-flow / hyper-focus state, it's physically painful. But you do sound reasonable, giving him warnings. I would just then allow time and room for the frustration to ease. This is a good age to help him learn to externally navigate this - it Won't Ever go away. Interruptions will always, till death do us part, destroy us. It's just part of how we're wired. So, here's an opportunity to help him get into a habit of going for a walk or doing an empty space of nothing to allow appropriate time to transition.

World-building like Minecraft isn't much different than playing with Lego bricks. While games which are too easy with big rewards can be addictive, anything which engages creative production: building, making, crafting, wiring, coding, baking, and so on, actually helps all humans feel a Sense of Purpose. All advances in Technology and Civilisation move us forward because it creates an internal Reward: a Sense of Purpose. A good question to ask is what other ways can we use the computer for systems building and would he be interested in becoming proficient at it? OR should we allow these games to help alleviate anxiety, which is what happens when external forces causing stress are left unresolved.

There are a few theories here, but keep in mind Autistic and ADHD anxiety are never imagined, but situational. Unnatural elements from clothing made from polyester (a by-product of petroleum, basically plastic) to Volatile Compounds which are worse than cigarettes, to LEDs, to unprecedented and harmful levels of sound are everywhere. The modern world IS torture for us and this due to not being able to Dull our Senses the same. In the wild, in an anthropological setting our skills were crucial for discerning between toxic and healing. But a second part of this is the massive difference in communication which marginalises and dis-ables us from connecting with others, we don't just "feel" marginalised, we ARE marginalised. Our inability to pick up seemingly invisible signals and signs and what's being implied with Typical language, cause most of society to question not just our motives, but our morals! And this is the age when this divide begins to come into focus. 

Today, we use video games to teach military operations. We're using imaging in science. There's a video game structure to observing the universe and observing the human body. On a personal note, all the males in my family play video games, though easy levels didn't really exist when I was young (edit: easy levels can cause addiction). My father builds computers and is working on a robot to collect uranium. I have a brother who's a neurologist, one working at a lab like CERN and so on. 

What might be good is finding other things like Little Bits or coding programmes, maybe music programmes (I work in sound and it feels like playing Tetris all day). Perhaps you can spark his interest in computer-based building, exploring, or anything else which feels similar, perhaps you'll unlock potential AND relieve anxiety.

We need ADHD and dyslexic friends who have similar brain types. We are all stuck in a society we are a mismatch for. My son is now 25 and I let him play games through hard periods in his life and now he's on a course to become a therapist. It's pointless to leave them without tools or ways to fix a gigantic structure that many of us from 40 on are advocating to try and fix. 

But more so, perhaps schedule a family puzzle. Schedule time to engage in problem-solving / analytic games together at least once a week. This can help keep him balanced. He needs real connexion. And I didn't learn the art of investing in and growing friendships until my late 20s. We just won't connect with the Typical Majority. We're on a completely different wavelength - as different as AM and FM frequencies. It doesn't mean we cannot learn the art of building relationships and manners and ethics. It simply means humans have an ability to Sense-Perceive if they can trust someone, and this is where the Double Empathy problem becomes an issue, where, we might not relate and where the Social anxiety due to Real - not imagined - rejection begins.