"An editorial in this month's issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry says Internet addiction - including 'excessive gaming, sexual pre-occupations and e-mail/text messaging' - is a common compulsive-impulsive disorder that should be added to psychiatry's official guidebook of mental disorders," reports Sharon Kirkey in The Ottawa Citizen.
Like other addicts, users experience cravings, urges, withdrawal and tolerance, requiring more and better equipment and software, or more and more hours online, according to D. Jerald Block, a psychiatrist at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. Dr Block says people can lose all track of time or neglect "basic drives," like eating or sleeping. Relapse rates are high, he writes, and some people may need psychoactive medications or hospitalization.
Later in the story it says:
Some use computers like they would drugs or alcohol as a way to escape reality, the researchers say. Addicts may be addicted to everything from the sheer act of typing, to chat rooms, online shopping or three-dimensional, multiplayer games users have described as "heroinware."
At least South Korea is taking the problem seriously:
After 10 people died in Internet cafés in South Korea from cardiopulmonary-related deaths - at least seven reportedly due to online gaming - the government trained more than 1,000 counsellors in the treatment of Internet addiction, Dr Block writes.
With apologies to Napoleon XIV for the headline.
