First US Inpatient Treatment Program For Internet Addiction Opening In September

cold fjord writes "Fox News reports, '... a psychiatric hospital in central Pennsylvania is now set to become the country's first facility of its kind to offer an inpatient treatment program for people it diagnoses with severe Internet addiction. The voluntary, 10-day program is set to open on Sept. 9 at the Behavioral Health Services at Bradford Regional Medical Center. The program was organized by experts in the field and cognitive specialists with backgrounds in treating more familiar addictions like drug and alcohol abuse. '[Internet addiction] is a problem in this country that can be more pervasive than alcoholism,' said Dr. Kimberly Young, ... 'The Internet is free, legal and fat free.' The program is designed to accommodate four adult patients at a time, with each new class slated to begin treatment on the same day. These classes take part in group therapy and are placed inside a wing of the hospital designated for other addicts. These patients will undergo a psychological evaluation and learn ways they can minimally use the Internet and avoid problematic applications.'"

Comments

I'm totally holding out

[smittyoneeach]

. . .for the one you do via SMS, while driving. Preliminary course outlines involve a cliff, I heard.

Re:I'm totally holding out

[Concerned Onlooker]

Couldn't agree more. That is why I advocate removing all types of regulation and consumer protections. If you're too stupid to have your imported food tested for melamine content then you're too stupid to live, I say.

By the way, you misspelled "due."

What is the problem?

[sosume]

The Internet is free, legal and fat free

So what is the problem? Some people will always be happy to find a time sink. If the internet didn't exist these 'addicts' would be eating, watching TV, gaming or taking illicit substances all day. So easy to blame the time sink when these problems are rooted much deeper.

Re:What is the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Internet addiction is not considered a mental disorder. Currently it is an area for additional study in the DSM-V. So I do have to wonder, how are these people paying for this treatment? I don't think an insurance company is going to send someone to an expensive inpatient treatment facility for something that isn't classified as a mental disorder. And how is the place licensed? A lot of this does not make sense, and my SCAM alarm is ringing.

Re:What is the problem?

[Thanshin]

Once someone's set up on finding reasons to feed its brain and get the pleasure of feeling superior to others, it's no longer important if those reasons are real or not.

Once one's addicted to the feeling of superiority, he has to feed it in increasingly growing doses. And you can only feel so smug for being whiter or having a better religion or living in a greater country. Eventually you need to also feel skinnier, more beautiful, more intelligent, or better in any way you can think of.

Using less internet looks like decent crack for the severely smugness addicted.

[Just like this very commentary, which, to the mind of the severely smugness addicted author, proves his immense intellectual superiority.]

[In case you're wondering, speaking in third person is a symptom of the latest stages of smugness addiction.]

Re:What is the problem?

[91degrees]

If this is an area for study, could this treatment be part of a study and funded by a university or whoever funds studies into mental disorders?

Re:What is the problem?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Given that it's a voluntary adult treatment program, I assume we'll see pretty strong self-selection from people who think that it is a problem, presumably because they find themselves putzing around on the internet compulsively to the exclusion of doing whatever it is that they need and/or think that they want to do.

That's the handy thing about self-selection: regardless of how trivial the problem seems, when they have to sign up (and stump up $14,000...) voluntarily, you can be pretty sure that you'll get a set of patients who are genuinely deeply troubled by it. Given that the internet isn't physically addictive, and large swaths of it are actually pretty dull in excess, I'd expect somebody who seeks treatment for 'internet addiction' to have some sort of doing-stuff issue (even if the root cause is something like an anxiety issue, with the internet just being the most accessible retreat).

Once you start doing involuntary adult or child work, you are under rather more of an obligation to have an actual criterion or criteria to distinguish 'Timmy would rather play WoW than do homework, which upsets his parents' from 'Timmy is an addict', since there you are indulging in overt coercion at the behest of people other than the patient.

Re:What is the problem?

[aardvarkjoe]

So what is the problem? Some people will always be happy to find a time sink.

An addiction is not just a "time sink." It's an addiction when you can't stop a behavior, even when it is harming your life.

Acknowledging that some people are addicted to internet usage, and need help, is not the same as saying that the internet is "bad." There's no need to get so defensive about it.

Missing an opportunity here...

[Shoten]

This looks to me like the perfect business opportunity. Inpatient care is terribly expensive, putting this out of the reach of people who can't afford it because they've lost their jobs due to their addiction and no longer have benefits. Why not offer it online?

I can think of many therapeutic activities that would help towards curing the impulse to spend all of one's time online:

-Troll debating
-Handling requests from the clients of graphics artists and webmasters
-Collecting free iPads, iPhones and other electronics from all those sites that just give them away for free
-Resolving arguments in online gaming chat sessions

I can think of many more as well...the options are nearly endless! And this could all be done from the comfort of their own home...

Is there a slashdot ward ?

[Alain Williams]

Perhaps largely populated by First Posters ?

TV addiction?

[KraxxxZ01]

How come there is no treatment for TV addiction? Is there a thing like TV addiction? Or feeding yourself 8 hours of programme a day is considered normal?
Maybe there is but I'm not aware of it.

Addiction shmadiction?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

A 'digital detox' is when the patient is cut off from any Internet connection or computer use for 72 hours. For many, the thought of being disconnected from the Internet may feel like a vacation. But for those with the addiction, they can face withdrawals similar to those seen in people addicted to marijuana.

For some of us, the thought of 72 hours without a book - or some written text in general - is equally frightening. Also, the authors are apparently confused by the distinction between online games and the Internet at large.

We also need a "television addiction" program then

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll take an "internet addiction" diagnosis and treatment program seriously as soon as the Boomers concede that they have a crisis-level problem with consuming television.

Re:Far More Interesting

[flyneye]

If this was interesting to you, you may be an internet addict. Please seek help at one of our fluffy facilities.
Internet addiction is a real problem that can destroy lives and homes and make puppies cry.
Eventually it can lead to hairy palms and blindness.
Look for these warning signs;
                                1. owning a smart phone.
                                2. spending more than a few seconds considering a LOL Cats picture.
                                3 spending more than 15 minutes a day emailing.
                                4.Gaming
                                And the biggest sign of all, bothering to have multiple social media accounts
Please send money, only you can help, do it for the children.

Yes, but . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

if they haven't got WiFi, I am not going!

Re:Money Maker for the Hospital

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Just don't expect insurance to cover your expenses. I love all these little "problems" the world invents - working so hard to absolve people of personal responsibility.

TFA specifically says that insurance doesn't cover the program.

More generally, is 'I am having trouble solving a problem, therefore I will seek expert advice and/or assistance' not 'personal responsibility' all of a sudden? I thought that problem triage and allocation of problem-solving capacity was an essential and foundational aspect of 'personal responsibility', with the question of whether or not to bring in consultants determined by the problem to be solved and its difficulty with respect to what you can do yourself...

Meetings will be held online....

[ChronoFish]