The need for a better computer is one of the main tell-tale signs of
‘internet addiction’ – a public health issue that should be recognised
as a clinical disorder.
Craving more software and time on computers are also pointers of
internet dependency, which is typically caused by a
compulsive-impulsive use of computers.
Explaining his analysis, Dr Jeremy Block, a leading psychiatrist
specialising in cyber addiction, said three other elements exist when
heavy internet use becomes a mental illness.
Firstly, users are so ‘always-on’ that they experience a "loss of sense
of time or a neglect of basic drives," Block wrote in the American
Journal of Psychiatry.
Typically, the user goes onto suffer withdrawal effects, including
feelings of anger, tension and/or feelings of depression when the
computer is inaccessible.
Excessive use of the net has other negative repercussions, the third
component of addiction, including arguments, lying, poor achievement,
fatigue and social isolation.
Pointing to South Korea as a case study of internet addiction, Block
said the disorder is now so common that it merits inclusion into the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Ten people in the country have died from blood clots after long periods
seated in internet cafes, in addition to a game-related murder.
A further 210,000 children are estimated to be affected by internet
addition, of whom 80% may need prescription drugs, while up to a
quarter may need hospital treatment.
Yet in the US, the world’s leading IT nation, accurate estimates of the
scale of internet addiction are “lacking,” partly, Block said, because
most of the activity is behind closed doors.
“Unlike in Asia, where Internet cafés are frequently used, in the
United States games and virtual sex are accessed from the home,” he
wrote in the journal’s current edition. “Attempts to measure the
phenomenon are clouded by shame, denial, and minimization.”
Despite his call for cyber addiction to be added to the DSMMD list,
which psychiatrists use to diagnose mental illness, studies by Stanford
University recently found it was unknown if net and computer game
addiction is, in fact, a clinical disorder.
Supporting Block’s view, Keith Bakker of Smith& Jones, a cyber
addiction expert, has told FreelanceUK that most of the teenagers at
his Dutch clinic “eventually see that gaming and chemical dependency
are very much the same.”
Mar 26, 2008
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