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Discussion of Internet Addiction as Mental Illness Resurfaces
Lone Writer writes "The editorial section of the American Journal of Psychiatry for March offers the opinion that Internet addiction is a 'compulsive-impulsive' disorder, and should be added to the official guidebook of disorders. The editorial characterizes net addiction as including 'excessive gaming, [online] sexual pre-occupations and e-mail/text messaging'. From the article: '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 Dr. 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."
The DSM(the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) typically uses when it causes clinically significant distress on the part of the person, or in their work, social, personal lives.
:P So you're fine.
The DSM is usually reluctant to pathologize something unless it's really bothering the person themselves, or makes it impossible for them to live a normal life.
You have a tendency to check twice if the door to your house is locked after leaving? That's not really going to cause you major problems, and odds are you're not freaking out about it. Not OCD.
Have frequent compulsions to drive back home and check if your door is locked, occuring throughout the day, making you get fired from your job, ruining your social life and making you feel like crap? That might be more likely to get you that diagnosis.
You doing lots of e-mail for work is not likely to interfere with your ability to work.
Heroin junkies might not mind their heroin(though some do), but if it screws up their lives then it's something the DSM will look at.
OK, first of all let's be clear on something: Internet "addiction" isn't addiction. Neither is sex addiction, shopping addiction, and so forth.
"Behavioral addictions" are mental in nature. True addiction is physiological.
Secondly, it should be trivially obvious that ALL of these so-called behavioral addictions are SYMPTOMS of some other root cause, often some manifestation of OCD. You can treat heroin addiction by removing the substance and healing the body (i.e. go through withdrawal and detox--nasty business, but fairly effective). You don't treat internet addiction by taking away the internet, you find what is driving the person towards addict-like behaviour, and solve that. Voila--internet addiction is a symptom.
I don't know why the psychiatry field is so determined to label all symptomatic behaviours as diseases, but they're not doing themselves any good.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
It doesn't make sense to choose an arbitrary number, the central question is: Is it ruining my life? If some is on the Internet for every minute of their spare time, and the overall quality of their life is greater, or about the same as before the Internet, then no medical illness is present. However, if another person is failing to go to school or work, losing important relationships, and suffering other serious negative consequences, AND they cannot stop in spite of all the loss, that is probably an illness. Illness doesn't mean excessive use, it means very serious consequences, up to and including death. This is an uncommon illness, but probably not rare.