Periodically, in print and online media, headlines shout ‘Internet Addictions on the Rise’. China and Korea have boot camps and thousands of counselors trained to help cure Internet addiction. In the United States, there are centers at hospitals offering counseling for Internet addicts and their families. China has passed laws that restrict online gaming to no more than three hours a day. But, is there really such a disorder or disease as Internet addiction? Researchers point to individuals who have died during intensive Internet use, but further investigation of those seems to indicate that most of those individuals suffered from cardiopulmonary problems.
The original source of the term Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) was a post by Dr. Ivan Goldberg. In 1995 he published online a definition of IAD, a list of symptoms that purported to identify those people who had the disorder, and set up an online support group. Dr. Goldberg has publicly reiterated that he posted the information on Internet Addiction Disorder as a hoax, using a list of symptoms culled from the DSM diagnoses of Substance Abuse and Compulsive Gambling. Nevertheless, IAD has taken on a life of its own.
Dr. Kimberly S. Young designed a questionnaire, which she says identifies those people who suffer from Internet addiction. She also wrote a book, Caught in the Net, about individuals she said suffer from Internet Addiction, which includes counseling information for the families of people who are diagnosed with the illness. Doctor Young has a website, The Center for Online Addiction, at netaddiction.com, where you can read articles she and others have written on Internet addiction, order books about Internet addiction, and join a Yahoo support group of people who suffer from Internet addiction or have loved ones who suffer from Internet addiction. She also offers counseling services which can be paid for over the Internet and are offered either over the phone or online.
There appears to me to be a certain irony that the main sources of information on IAD are on the web- try searching Google- and that many of the places offering counseling and resources on the subject have websites. Despite some researchers’ claims that up to 10% of Internet users suffer from IAD, the Yahoo group had fewer than 1000 members as of October 15, 2008.
While Dr. Jerald Block wrote an editorial in the March 2008 American Journal of Psychiatry calling for inclusion of IAD in the upcoming DSM-V, due out in 2012, the American Medical Association decided not to recommend that the diagnosis be added. Instead, they requested that further study be done on video game overuse, saying not enough research exists to prove that IAD is a physiological disease comparable to alcoholism or compulsive gambling.