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As cellphones, MP3 players and portable gaming systems become staples in the lives of youth, teachers are witnessing a shift in the schoolyard: technology has become the new playground.

Parents confirm the trend continues at home — in the living room, if they're lucky, but more frequently behind the closed doors of their child's bedroom.

At its onset, preoccupation with modern technology seemed reasonable. It was viewed as the way of the 21st century.

Yet in some households, devotion has grown to excess and alarm has been rising as some families watch teens retreat deeper and deeper into a cyber dungeon.

At the extreme end of the spectrum, parents in Barrie, Ont., met the ultimate tragic outcome last week in a case of gaming gone too far. Three weeks after their son ran away from home following a fight over what they viewed as his obsessive Xbox gaming habit, 15-year-old Brandon Crisp's body was discovered in a rural area only kilometres from home.

An autopsy revealed he had likely fallen from a tree. His diminutive body was found by hunters and it is still unclear when he succumbed to chest injuries.

The boy's parents had feared the boy might have been snatched by other players of his favourite online game.

And although foul play has been ruled out, the nevertheless grim outcome has prompted educators, parents and researchers to urge policy-makers to start taking so-called Internet and gaming addictions among youth more seriously.

"We no longer have the luxury of saying, ‘No, we don't have the resources,'" said Emily Noble, president of the Canadian Teachers' Federation. "We have to determine some of these things are priorities."

Cathy Wing, co-executive director of the Media Awareness Network, is appealing for new funding and public debate.

"Explaining these things, it's not sexy," she said. "But media literacy is the only answer."

While many school boards ban cellphone use and block students from accessing social networking, gaming or other websites deemed inappropriate for the classroom, there are few places schools can turn for strategies on safe and healthy use of technology.

Parents feel just as stuck, said Simon Fraser University's Stephen Kline, who began studying youth gaming in the late 1990s and has become accustomed to fielding calls from anguished mothers.

"Are there strategies for families that do have these experiences, who do begin to see their kids disappear into the maw of gamerdom? We don't know anything about what you can do," he said. "That's what's so complex about (the Crisp) story. What can anyone advise those parents?"

Kline said there's no solid data to show how many teens are compulsive gamers, though he estimates it can grip 15 to 20 per cent of boys who play.