I have had a LOT of people who did not agree with my stance on tv, video and video games. My difficult child would get to a point where he would lie, cheat and steal to get his video 'fix'. This was usually with specific shows and with him it meant pokemon and then other manga type things. I have a huge problem with anything that got my kids to lie, cheat and steal. He wasn't stealing time to watch the tv or whatever, he would steal money or items to try to buy time to do these things. He was also much, MUCH more violent in every way with the family at this point.
I had a husband who tried the 'he won't know how to get along or have anything to talk about iwth the other kids" koi. It is pure BS and is not anything close to the cause of the social issues. Much of the time his peers did not do those things anyway, so they couldn't have talked about them with him anyway, and talking about these things only (which was his mindset for a long time, literally years at a time) was a real problem.
I would take away all electronic media from the kids. Not just my difficult child, because that isn't really possible. They would ALL go tv, computer game, and electronic anything free. The first few days were absolutely awful and hideous. Wiz was off the chart violent, sometimes distraught, and downright nasty all the time. The nasty wasn't a big change because that is how he was and part of the reason for going screen free for a while. The other kids didn't really fuss over the screen loss. They didn't have much problem changing to screen-free life. By the end of day 7-10, somewhere in there, Wiz was becoming calm, happy, cheerful, and fun to have around. It was a delight and he seemed to enjoy life a lot more. he didn't seem driven to secure more and more screen time, pokemon for his player in the game, etc... That was part of the problem that would eventually happen when he was allowed to have screens - he would get to a point where he wasn't really even enjoying the time doing these things, he was always focused on the fact that he would be without it for x min, hours, etc... while he had to do other things like go to school, play iwth others, eat dinner, etc.... We usually stayed screen free for about a month and it was almost always a delight once the initial withdrawal period was over. Often the other kids would ask to go screen free or to not have screens back yet. They realized that difficult child would play with them a lot more when he didn't have screens.
I think that screens are taking away the ability to interact from some of our kids. Esp the ones with pddnos/aspergers/whatever you call it. i hear about more and more kids with that diagnosis who refuse to interact with people instead of using the computer to communicate. A lot of peopel in my area are singing the praises of the ipad/tablet computer because their spectrum kids use ti to communicate. Then between eight mos and a year into that they realize that the child isn't responding to them unless they are on his ipad. Several moms in my area are upset because their child on the spectrum will only communicate with them via email, IM over the tablet, or skype. Even if they are in the same room, the kids are ignoring them unless they get on skype from another computer. It baffles me because they want to know how to stop it. Um, take the ipad away and all screens until you get to the point where he is communicating with the real world and not just the online world. It would take a bit of time, probably many tantrums/rages, but it is crippling these kids and their relationships with the entire world.
My difficult child is now a mostly easy child adult and he has told me that he is grateful that I did not follow the advice of the tdocs, psychiatrists, teachers, friends and let him slip away into the world of the electronic screen. He hated being pulled out of it, but it kept him in touch with reality and with people as things he needed to learn to get along with. He says that with-o those times when I took away all screens, he might have gotten lost in that world of electronic reality taht really is not anything like reality. It shocked the dickens out of me because I always figured he would hate me forever for it the way he promised me he would up until his mid teens.
That is my take on this, and my experience with it. If your instincts tell you that it needs to stop, then it NEEDS to stop. Period. Ignore other people's opinions and follow your own instincts. You have them for a reason, and survival of the species is one of the big reasons for instinct. I have found that it is a giant mistake to ignore them and almost universally a very good idea to follow them. Especially if my instincts are screaming and hollering over something.