PROVO — As the ease and comfort of the information age plays out in the developmental lives of American children, at least one local psychologist worries their drive to face challenges, make good choices and achieve great things is on the decline.

Dr. Lynn Scoresby told hundreds of people attending Education Week at Brigham Young University on Wednesday that one manifestation of a righteous life is the desire to create, achieve and build on the successes of the past.

Yet he sees a growing number of young people who have yet to face any serious challenges in life or learn to work hard. Many are so engrossed in video games, movies and entertainment that they have failed to develop the social skills and moral character necessary for successful marriage and family life, he said.

Scoresby said recent studies show that 87 percent of American children ages 8-12 have access to the Internet, and the average age of their first exposure to pornography online is age 11. While porn has serious negative effects on children, he said, what is more troublesome is the information overload many children are exposed to online and with other types of media.

When continually bombard- ed with high quantities of information, the human brain at some point "can't tell the difference between (gospel) knowledge and mere information, and from there, between information and what is true. At that point, gospel truth is perceived on the same level of reality as a video game."

As an example, while serving as a bishop in his local ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Scoresby said he interviewed a 16-year-old girl who ended up having sex with a boy she had dated only once.

When asked why she had done so — in light of gospel teaching at home and church to avoid premarital sex — the girl responded, "Honestly, I didn't even think about it." Scoresby said the girl had no concept of what it meant to say "no" and could only understand the consequences of her actions in hindsight.

"The Book of Mormon (and its teachings) are at risk of being put on par with the information in someone's Internet blog, and kids are treating them the same" in terms of seriousness, he said. "When you see kids being casual about what we believe are the most significant truths of all time," he said, that's when church leaders come to know that many youth don't understand moral choices or the consequences involved.

Many church leaders are now seeing serious problems among teens who "spend much more time with machines than people," even though gospel lessons, moral character and social skills are all learned from interaction with others. "People can't believe you can form an emotional association with a machine, but you can," he said.