Net addiction can develop clinical disorder: Dr. Block

NI Wire

New Delhi

Wed, 26 Mar 2008: 

To be too much computer and internet savvy can lead to mental disorder and can ruin your social life as users feel loneliness, irritation, depression and anger, when a computer can not be accessed, said an eminent US psychiatrist in an article that was published in the March issue of ‘American Journal of Psychtry’.

As per Dr. Jerald Block, the researcher and author of this topic, ‘To spent too much hours on Computer and net can develop compulsive-impulsive spectrum disorder’ that is extremely touch to detect and can not be treated easily.

“Unfortunately, Internet addiction is resistant to treatment, entails significant risks, and has high relapse rates. Moreover, it also makes comorbid disorders less responsive to therapy”, said Dr. Jerald.

Comorbidity disorder is a very complex disorder and “mostly US net addicts go to the psychiatrist after undergoing ‘Comorbidity’ disorder and then it becomes very difficult to diagnose it” stated Dr. Block.

The symptoms begin when users spend too much time on online gaming, e-mailing, chatting and viewing porn sites and this can lead to mental health problems and further ‘clinical disorder.’

The computer addicts spend massive amount of time of their life and ‘if you try to cut the cord in a very abrupt fashion, they’ve lost essentially their best friend.’

Dr Jerald Block from Oregon Health & Science University probes four major components behind this disorder that are: 1) excessive use, often associated with a loss of sense of time or a neglect of basic drives, 2) withdrawal, including feelings of anger, tension, and/or depression when the computer is inaccessible, 3) tolerance, including the need for better computer equipment, more software, or more hours of use, and 4) negative repercussions, including arguments, lying, poor achievement, social isolation, and fatigue.

The study of Dr. Block is based on the most net users that are emerging in South Korea, China and US.

In recent times, the numbers of crimes related to internet have been mentioned in the South Korean media. According to South Korean government data (2006), “210,000 South Korean children (2.1%; ages 6–19) are afflicted and require treatment. About 80% of those needing treatment may need psychotropic medications, and perhaps 20% to 24% require hospitalisation.

“Since the average South Korean high school student spends about 23 hours each week gaming, another 1.2 million are believed to be at risk for addiction and to require basic counseling.” writes Dr. Block in the articles.

As per Dr. Block’s study, ‘China and US are also having large number of cases of these sort of sickness’ while rest of the Asia is still not reached up to danger line because of using net on the cyber café.

“Despite the cultural differences, our case descriptions are remarkably similar to those of our Asian colleagues and we appear to be dealing with the same issue”, writes Dr. Block.

Since last some years, the trend of Internet using is escalating very rapidly and being the reason of leaving schools and offices because of not showing required performance.