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Thomas S. May, M.A.Medical Writer |
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Internet Addiction: Myth or Reality?
Thomas S. May, Medical Writer Introduction The top five signs of Internet addiction, according to a joke that has been circulating on the Net lately, are:
Really Drive You Crazy Those of us who spend a lot of time sitting in front of a computer browsing the Web or talking to strangers in chat rooms know that the Internet can be quite "addictive." But can it really be so dangerous that you develop serious mental health problems requiring medication or some other forms of treatment? Some experts believe it is quite possible to become pathologically addicted to the Net and develop "Internet addiction disorder." Others are more skeptical, however.
Problems Galore
Dr. Kimberly Young is a clinical psychologist at the University of
Pittsburgh at Bradford, and she is considered by many "the world's
foremost cyberpsychologist." She believes that Internet addiction is a
very real and serious condition which can lead to numerous problems,
including social isolation, sleep deprivation,
depression,
and marital discord.
Internet addiction can also
cause work-related problems such as reduced productivity and absenteeism,
Dr. Young suggests. Workers affected by this condition may spend a lot of
time on the Internet talking to others in chat rooms, for example, or
looking at pornographic sites during working hours. "There have been a
number of lawsuits for wrongful termination because of this," she says.
"Workers who have been fired have launched wrongful dismissal suits based
on the Americans With Disabilities Act, arguing that Internet
addiction is a 'protective mental disorder' and that you can't fire
somebody for that. They [the employers] need to offer rehabilitation."
Surprising Results A
recent study conducted by Nathan Shapira, a University of Florida
psychiatrist, appears to confirm that pathological Internet use can have
very significant and bad effects on a person's life. "This was the first
study to do a face-to-face, systematic, psychiatric evaluation of
individuals with problematic Internet use, and some of the findings were
quite surprising," Dr. Shapira told Medscape Health by Medscape.
"The group of people we looked at couldn't control their Internet use. They would sit down for an hour and be on for several hours or all night long, and it was causing problems in their life--social, occupational, and financial difficulties. People would often be doing many things--like downloading, chatting, and playing a game--simultaneously. For example, I had one individual who was a successful businessman, but he was having problems in his social life. He would be on three different computers all at once in his home--and watching a movie at the same time," Dr. Shapira said.
One of the most surprising findings of the study, according to Dr. Shapira,
was that all of the subjects had other long-term psychiatric illnesses
besides problematic or pathological Internet use. The study also found
that when some of these people received treatment for the associated or
underlying disorder, they seemed to gain control of their Internet use, as
well. Cause or Effect Based on the above study, one may wonder whether the Internet itself can cause mental illness or instead can only serve as a trigger or catalyst for other psychiatric conditions. Dr. Shapira seems to think that the latter might, in fact, be the case. "Many of these people have had long-term psychiatric illness, which apparently interacted negatively with the Internet. So one could characterize the Internet [to be] like a 'psychiatric stress test,'" he said. Dr. Shapira admits he does not like to use the term addiction when referring to problematic Internet use. "Under the current diagnostic codes for psychiatry, for a condition to be classified as an addiction, there has to be an ingested substance like alcohol, for instance. There is a category of disorders called 'impulse control disorders,' and we believe that problematic Internet use belongs in this category," he says. Whether this kind of Internet use is called an addiction or an impulse control disorder is no trivial matter, Dr. Shapira argues. "I think it's important to differentiate, because there has been a lot of research on impulse control disorders, and they commonly have associated psychiatric disorders, like mood disorders such as depression or bipolar disorder. We know that if you treat the associated mood disorder, you can often help the impulse control disorder as well," he adds.
Nevertheless, Dr. Shapira agrees that, regardless of what we call it,
problem Internet use is a very serious--and growing--problem. "My sense is
that this will get worse," he says. "I base that on the fact that everyone
I've evaluated so far liked the speed and liked to do more than one thing
online. I think as the prevalence and the size and the speed of the
Internet expand, this problem is actually going to get worse."
Thomas S. May is a freelance
medical writer. Source: Medscape Health
Reprinted from Medscape Health for Consumers.
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