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

Who defines "excessive?"

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder the same thing whenever I hear some addiction being defined as "excessive (insert activity here)." Who gets to define excessive? What's excessive for me may not be for you.

Re:Who defines "excessive?"

[sm62704]

The new definition for the word "addiction" is the same as the old word for "habituation". OK, what is the new word for physical addiction, like with heroin or alcohol, where you can die from not getting your drug?

If you take away my reefer or my internet or my writing I may be agitated and unhappy, but I can still function. Take away my coffee and I get headaches and can't do my job because I can't think straight. Take away Amy's booze and she sees snakes and thinks there's bugs crawling on her skin. What do you call THAT these days?

You can't get addicted to the internet, or evercrack, or your crackberry. Internet habituation sure sounds like an obsessive compulsive disorder, and in some cases may need treatment, but it's not a true addiction.

Like homosexuals purposely changed the word "gay" to no longer mean "happy and carefree", anti-drug zealots (NOT health care professionals) have changed the meaning of the word "addiction". But physical addiction is still a curse to those addicted to certain substances, like heroin, alcohol, tobacco, etc.

I'm not negating the power of habituation. When I gave up cigarettes in 1999 I was amazed that the habit was as strong as the physical withdrawal from that deadly awful drug.

The anti-drug monsters waging their "war on (some) drugs" are doing no favors to addicts or those in danger of addiction. IMO they are a far greater menace to society than the drugs and addicts they hate.

-mcgrew

In summary...

[IBBoard]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in summary have the American Journal of Psychiatry released a report that an addiction to an entity resulting from a compulsion to use/have it should be added to a list of mental ilnesses/addictions that includes compulsions to use/have things?

What if I had an addiction to orange juice and drank it ever hour, on the hour, or else I suddenly got shakey and had withdrawl symptoms - would they add "orange juice addiction" to the list?

Sounds like a bit of a "well, duh" to me.

Also, I love the first line of TFA (emphasis mine):

Compulsive e-mailing and text messaging could soon become classified as an official brain illness.

Re:In summary...

[gnick]

What if I had an addiction to orange juice and drank it ever hour, on the hour, or else I suddenly got shakey and had withdrawl symptoms - would they add "orange juice addiction" to the list? If a significant number of people were doing the same thing to a degree that it was screwing up their lives? Probably. But, probably just a a strange subset of CDO*. They're treating this as special because there are a lot of people developing real problems (work/personal/etc) because they refuse to get off the damned computer.

Disclaimer: I'm certainly no psychiatrist and have no idea if you need to treat people with this particular problem any different than your standard obsessive.

*CDO = Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Don't you hate it when people fail to properly alphabetize their acronyms?

Re:Instant cure for internet addiction then.

[JCSoRocks]

Seriously. This isn't an addiction, it's people using up their free time. Give them something more interesting to do and they'll do that instead.

What if your job requires it?

[khasim]

Okay, so excessive emailing is a problem.

But I'm the email admin for the company I work at. At what point do I qualify as "addicted" so I can get disability?

Do real junkies ever get tired of heroin? Or annoyed at stupid people for giving them more heroin?

Re:What if your job requires it?

[SatanicPuppy]

"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."

As a counter-example I call to your attention: Social Anxiety Disorder.

Not to be confused with "Seasonal Affective Disorder" (another real winner). The definition is vague, the symptoms can describe anyone who is uncomfortable in crowds, and yes, there is a pill. It's "Paxil" which is habit forming and has quite a colorful history: faked clinical trials, numerous lawsuits, all the way to a recent snafu where they dumped a batch on the market that was Ooops! missing the active ingredient...Did I mention it's habit forming? Lot of SAD people going into withdrawal while taking their pills. It's also another one where they marketed it agressively to kids, and, if you read the DSM definition of SAD, you'll find that kids who suffer it sometimes lack some of the vague-ass symptoms.

I don't trust the DSM anymore, frankly. The number of anxiety-style disorders that they've added in the last 20 years is staggering and obscene, and none of them have hard physical causes, and yet all of them respond to chemical treatment. That is extremely suspicious.

Re:Instant cure for internet addiction then.

[PhoenixFlare]

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

Thank goodness that my wife actually, y'know, shares my interests and loves internet/gaming activities as much as I do. We have pets, stable jobs, pay all the bills, etc.

Seriously. This isn't an addiction, it's people using up their free time. Give them something more interesting to do and they'll do that instead.

What you do with your free time should be based on what you find entertaining, not just because of the stupid notion that gaming and such are only for people who can't find anything better to do.

Prevalence in society

[esocid]

Today it is actually fairly hard for people to get away from a computer. At work people need to have one to get emails from coworkers or clients and whatnot and to utilize whatever programs/databases they need to work. They are becoming more prevalent in schools, especially in colleges. Some people may take it to the extreme and spend every waking hour on or near a computer but who complains when someone reads books "too much?" It only becomes a problem is it is an obsessive behavior that interferes with important activities, and who's to say whether a person's addiction to the internet is due to them having an addictive personality in general? I actually love leaving my technology behind when I go on vacation because it completely is a ball and chain. I wonder how many "addictions" arise when something new comes out?

Re:Its not the drugs, its the money I worry about

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm split on this issue, I like you worry about the creation of another dependant class, but on the other hand I see what WOW has done to my life. I've lost 2 jobs in the last 4 years because of it. At times I've quit so seriously that I sharded all my items, and deleted my characters only to come back a couple months later and be all the worse cause I'm starting over. At one time I changed my password to a key that was randomly generated for my WEP on linksys, and ended up buying a new account. ...
At least I have never ended up taking handouts from the government ... yet.

Re:Instant cure for internet addiction then.

[canajin56]

You seem to be taking this out of context, and taking it personally. They aren't saying "You play WoW for like 3-5 hours a night, and 8+ saturdays and sundays, you are an addict and need help." In that case, you clearly have lots of free time, and perhaps not a lot of a "real" social life to take up that free time. (Although I somewhat disagree with the notion that it isn't a social life. I chat and play games with friends in Texas, the UK, California, and Bermuda, how is that fundamentally less social that playing darts with them at the bar, other than the fact that its less physical?) I admit I play online games perhaps too much, and could be doing other things with my free time (like the dishes). The difference is, the addicts they are talking about, they don't just spend all their free time on it, they make more free time by calling in sick to work, skipping classes, skipping out on family functions. Playing during work. That's when you would call it an addiction. They aren't using up their free time, they are MAKING free time to do it more. If you have a pint with dinner every night, you probably wouldn't be called adicted, though you might not being doing your liver any favours. But if you have a flask at work, and are coming in to work hung over or drunk most days, then you have a problem. Given that there ARE people who fit into the latter category, you wouldn't expect a person in the former (a beer or a glass of wine with dinner most nights) to object to the notion that you can have an alcohol problem.

It works the same way with games. In my group, there was somebody who dropped out of college to play full time, sold his car to upgrade his computer and pay his monthly fees. I'd say that is a big problem. In my group, there is also somebody who probably played just as much as this guy, more or less. They are a university student. They aren't on as much during the day, but often are evenings and all weekends. But when their courses and research get heavy, they vanish for a week or two. They only show up for important raids, so only a few hours a week, tops. That's the difference. It is all their free time, or at least most of it. But it doesn't interfere with the rest of their life. If your playing isn't messing with the rest of your life, you aren't the sort of person they are talking about, and shouldn't get defensive ;)