Boston Globe – The trouble signs are all there. They don’t sleep enough, they don’t eat right, they’ve lost touch with their friends, and their school performance has dropped off a cliff.
Their worried parents bring them to the doctor, fearing drug abuse or depression, but the evaluations come up empty. A doctor at Children’s Hospital Boston says something else may be at work. “We see kids who are just gaming, and they appear to their parents to have all of the signs and symptoms of drug use,’’ Dr. Michael Rich said about the seductive world of online games. “But in fact they are only hooked on the drug of electrons on their screen.’’
Climbing levels in games like World of Warcraft, where unlimited numbers of role-playing competitors play around the clock and around the world, can be habit-forming and disruptive for both adolescents and adults. Other online activities, from visiting porn sites to incessantly checking e-mail, can also interfere with work, school, and relationships. In a world where always being connected seems as vital as breathing, how much is too much? And does excessive Internet use equal addiction?
A debate already divides behavioral addictions such as compulsive gambling or shopping from physiological addictions to alcohol or other drugs. People don’t die when they unplug from the Internet, Dr. Ronald Pies points out.
“A person who is hooked on a barbiturate, taking tons and tons of it every day, and is suddenly cut off from the supply will go into a physiological withdrawal, which could kill him and often does,’’ said Pies, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine. “I have yet to be convinced that a teenager who sits in his room using the Internet for five, six, seven hours a day, as troubled as he or she may be, has a condition that can reasonably be compared to barbiturate addiction. Which is not to say there aren’t people with a severe, pathological use of electronic media.’’
