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."

Comments

I can stop whenever I want

[Ngarrang]

...just as soon as this next web page is done loading.

Oooh, where does THAT link go?

When I was a kid, I want crazy over Transformers (1st gen). Before that, it was Hot Wheels. The Internet strikes me as one of these shiny new toys, but infinitely greater in its possibilities. But, compulsive-impulsive behavior? Why do I get the feeling that someone is looking for an excuse to live off my tax money? I am guilty for having shown addict-like behavior with it years ago. In college, if I wasn't in class, I was at a terminal run on the DEC VAX running TinyFugue and exploring every MUD and MOO out there.

There will be those who take the Internet to its extreme, sure. You will get that with any activity. But, 86% of addicts have some form mental illness? Me thinks "mental illness" has gained an overly-broad definition in the last 10 years. But, I am just an arm chair psychologist.

Gotta go, my email notify chime just went off.

Double-you tea eff?!

[geminidomino]

FTFA: "three-dimensional, multiplayer games users have described as "heroinware."

Who the fuck has ever used the word "Heroinware?"

WarCrack/EverCrack, sure. I've heard those. But "heroinware"? That doesn't even roll off the tongue.

Someone used the word to describe Doom shareware back in 94, but it doesn't seem to have caught on (802 hits in google vs 460,000 for 'warcrack').

That's the equivalent of a /.er pulling shit from the jargon file to make himself sound like a "real hacker". Gimme a break.

I need medication because I'm different

[natex84]

Everything is a disorder. We need medicine for everything. People cannot make changes in their life without medication.

Everyone must be exactly the same!

Some areas of medicine/psychology are getting ridiculous.

Re:I need medication because I'm different

[mpapet]

I'm just using your ridiculous post to make the following points:

From a social health perspective, the social costs of addicts using the internet as their drug of choice are unknown. This topic along with most addiction research deserve way more research dollars. For example, we know our social costs went down when alcohol addiction was identified and promoted as an illness. (more workers, more productivity)

If you knew anything about addiction therapy you would know that the therapy for a sex addict is much different than that of a bulemic(sp!), which is much different then that of an alcoholic. It stands to reason then, that "internet addiction" will eventually have different therapeutic methods that are unique to this category of addiction.

Not all of us live in our parent's basement any more. Take a shower. Get a girlfriend.

Re:I need medication because I'm different

[misleb]

Lets say you're a doctor and you start getting patients coming in complaining that they have what appears to be an addiction to the Internet. Or perhaps they are trying to get help for a family member who is showing signs of addiction. What do you do? Do you just laugh it off? Say something like "just stop using the computer so much." What can the patient do? I understand that medicating it seems unreasonable, but what else can you do as a doctor when you can only see the patient once a week or whatever?

It isn't like doctors are going around to people's homes and declaring otherwise healthy people mentally ill. I'm sure this is mostly a reaction to people with serious problems looking for help.

Also, keep in mind that an official diagnosis is important for insurance purposes. "Internet addiction" may sound silly, but doctors need to put down some diagnosis or insurance may not pay.

Instant cure for internet addiction then.

[moltenfury]

Getting a girlfriend or boyfriend. I've seen it work well over the years even with the most hardcore online users.

Re:Maybe

[psychodelicacy]

I have to admit that I'll go without food and sleep for ages when I'm interested in something on the computer, whether it's teh internets or doing some coding, or whatever.

But, the thing is, I'm like that when I get hold of a good novel, too. I'll sometimes forget to eat for a day if I'm reading something great, and will even cancel social engagements if the book's really good. I don't think I'm alone in this.

So, do we also need a category of book addiction? Or do we just need to get a reality check, and accept that people in a relatively affluent society are lucky to have the luxury to give up on sleep or food for a little while in order to pursue an interest? After all, we know that we're not going to starve, so what does it matter if we miss a meal in order to iron out a persistent bug or follow a fascinating click-trail through Wikipedia? I think there are too many people out there who want us all to follow norms and have a vested interest in making us feel weird and wrong when we don't.

The Sickness Industry at "work".

[Futurepower(R)]

Exactly. The sickness industry wants everything to be a disease, because they charge for diseases.

Re:In summary...

[R2.0]

This is the medical equivalent of bogus patents - take an old, well established idea, add "on the internet" at the end, and all of the sudden it's new?

Addiction to Internet pornography? No, it's addiction to pornography.

Addiction to Internet gaming? No, it's addiction to gaming.

Addiction to Internet gambling? No, it's addiction to gambling.

Addiction to Internet communication? That's a little tougher, but I'd view that more as low self esteem/insecurity - i.e. constantly needing to feel "connected". I'd bet these folks are the same ones used to who spend hours on the phone with their friends. Addiction? Hardly

This is psychiatrists trying to drum up more work for themselves.

Re:Call me a cook if you want ...

[RocketScientist]

Obviously if you play online games instead of watching TV, you're not consuming enough. You're paying $10-$30 a month for your game, but you're not seeing enough television advertisements, not buying enough golf equipment, not buying as many movie tickets, expensive SUV's to haul your crotchfruit to soccer games, and so on. You might want to buy an upgrade for your computer now and then, but that's nothing compared to gearing out for an avid golfer, or an avid fisherman, or an avid television watcher.

Basically you're not consuming enough of the crap they want to shove down your throat. So they call it an addiction so they can give you drugs so you'll behave like a nice little drone, and watch their advertisements and buy their tooth whiteners.

I've watched more people wate more time on "an addiction" to collegiate sports, celebrity gossip, cricket, football, or just shopping than online anything. And yet these folks are considered normal for spending hours every night researching their fantasy sports teams (not just online, magazines, books, go to Amazon.com and look it up) and solid hours every weekend watching games. But that's normal. They're seeing their fair share of ads for Budweiser, so it's all good. But if you spend a few hours nights and weekends online playing games with friends, well, you're not seeing your share of advertisements, so that's obviously an addiction.

I'll take these jackasses seriously when I start hearing about American Idol addicts, TV addicts, and Golf addicts, or even (timely enough) College Basketball addicts. Until then, they're all basically bought by the advertising and marking cabal.

Re:Call me a cook if you want ...

[QRDeNameland]

So they call it an addiction so they can give you drugs...

Now there's a wonderful irony of modern society.

Ah, no need to assume a conspiracy

[Moraelin]

Well, seriously, you don't need to assume a conspiracy here. (There might still be one, but it's not needed to explain it. Occam's Razor, if you will. Or Hanlon's Razor.)

The way it works is sorta like this:

1. Most humans are herd animals, and educated to be very "us vs them" at it. And have layers upon layers of mental tricks to rationalize anything they personally do as the Right Thing. See, cognitive dissonance, for example.

So when Mr X goes to the pub and yakks about the latest football game, it not only gives him a much needed feeling of belonging to some group, it also provides a circle-jerk reinforcement of the idea that any sane male would naturally feel an urge to go to the pub and yakk about football. So if Mr Y wants to go play WoW instead, there must be something awfully wrong with him.

(And just so I don't piss off only the football fans, the same happens in reverse too. If John goes to the pub instead of doing the latest raid with us, there must be something awfully wrong with him. And if Tom is running OpenBSD instead of coming to our LUG meetings, and quotes Theo de Raad all the time instead of worshipping Linus like the rest of us, well, I'd be careful around him, if you know what I mean. Etc.)

At any rate, people can be very distrustful of anything that is not one of "us", and doubly so of anyone or anything that challenges the rationalizations and excuses that that "us" group is built on.

That incidentally means that anything new will invariably be met with such distrust. Society has had generations of building up a status quo, and lots of unwritten rules and roles for its members. Real Men do this, Real Women do that, Real Old Geezers do that other thing, and everyone is happy that they don't have to think much about it. Everyone else is doing the same things, so it must be the right, God-given way. And then this new group comes by and goes and reads comics instead, or watches TV, or listens to this newfangled heavy metal, or whatever.

I'm not kidding. Each of those has been the new thing at some point, and were demonized and presented as some dangerous influence on the youth at some point. Games are just the newest instance of some people who just don't want to fit their traditional roles in this big "us" group, and it makes everyone else uneasy. Why would they want to do that instead of watching the sacred football game on TV, like everyone else? How we forget that not so far in the past it was watching TV (instead of going and yakking outside) that was the newfangled TV addiction that was making everyone else uneasy.

So, anyway, we have a bunch of gamers and a large majority which doesn't understand them, and (to various extents) is made uneasy by them. They don't care that you don't watch ads or don't buy enough golf clubs, but they do get worried that you chose to not be a part of their group.

2. There's the kind of people who just want some publicity, or to sell you something. Whether it's a new drug, or their expensive psychotherapy fees, or the idea of electing them to Congress. Make no mistake, these don't care about what else you buy either. They just care about selling their own snake oil to enough people, and if you're not a buyer, well, then maybe you'd make a good bogeyman instead.

And that uneasy majority from #1 is a perfectly willing buyer for that snake oil. Especially one packed as, basically, "yes, it's scientifically proven: it's perfectly normal to be part of _your_ group and do the things _you_ do. And as you were suspecting, it's everyone else that are fucked-up in the head." That's what that majority wanted to hear.

3. It also doesn't help that we have a whole game industry trying hard to amplify the symptoms, if they can't actually make their games more "addictive".

We have limited save points. (My personal record was having to grind 10 hours before I found the next save point in a game.) We have 40-man raids that take a whole night to finish, and where if you quit suddenly, you've just piss