Excessive Internet users could soon be labelled as suffering with a mental disorder. Credit: Rick/Flickr.
If you experience withdrawal symptoms and cravings when away from your computer, and find yourself inexplicably needing to spend increasing amounts of time online, then it’s quite possible you might soon be categorised as suffering with a mental disorder.
More pointedly, the Ottawa Citizen reports that an editorial feature in this month’s American Journal of Psychiatry suggests Internet addiction, which includes “excessive gaming, sexual pre-occupations and e-mail/text messaging,” should be recognised as a compulsive-impulsive disorder and duly added to the official psychiatry guidebook.
According to psychiatrist Dr. Jerald Block of the Oregon Health and Science University, Internet addiction is extremely similar to any other kind of addiction in that it promotes cravings, urges, withdrawal and increased usage tolerance.
Dr. Block also notes that online addicts are prone to losing track of time, they also forego basic human functions such as eating or sleeping in order to indulge their addiction. He even suggests around 86 percent of Internet addicts have a degree of mental disorder and that resulting effects may require psychoactive medication or hospital treatment for certain individuals, while relapse rates are also high.
Similarly, a team of British psychiatrists has recently outlined in the Advances in Psychiatric Treatment journal that an estimated 5-10 percent of all Internet users are addicted and, while initial research would suggest most are likely highly educated and introverted males, related studies are suggesting middle-age women could be more susceptible to online addiction.
If Dr. Block’s concerns are recognised then Internet addiction could well be included in the 2012 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, which is the official reference book of mental illness used by psychiatrists.
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