Internet Addiction Spawns US Treatment Programs (reuters.com) 80
SpzToid shares a report from Reuters: When Danny Reagan was 13, he began exhibiting signs of what doctors usually associate with drug addiction. He became agitated, secretive and withdrew from friends. He had quit baseball and Boy Scouts, and he stopped doing homework and showering. But he was not using drugs. He was hooked on YouTube and video games, to the point where he could do nothing else. As doctors would confirm, he was addicted to his electronics. "After I got my console, I kind of fell in love with it," Danny, now 16 and a junior in a Cincinnati high school, said. "I liked being able to kind of shut everything out and just relax." Danny was different from typical plugged-in American teenagers. Psychiatrists say internet addiction, characterized by a loss of control over internet use and disregard for the consequences of it, affects up to 8 percent of Americans and is becoming more common around the world.
"We're all mildly addicted. I think that's obvious to see in our behavior," said psychiatrist Kimberly Young, who has led the field of research since founding the Center for Internet Addiction in 1995. "It becomes a public health concern obviously as health is influenced by the behavior." At first, Danny's parents took him to doctors and made him sign contracts pledging to limit his internet use. The "Reboot" program at the Lindner Center for Hope offers inpatient treatment for 11 to 17-year-olds who, like Danny, have addictions including online gaming, gambling, social media, pornography and sexting, often to escape from symptoms of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. âoeRebootâ patients spend 28 days at a suburban facility equipped with 16 bedrooms, classrooms, a gym and a dining hall. They undergo diagnostic tests, psychotherapy, and learn to moderate their internet use.
"We're all mildly addicted. I think that's obvious to see in our behavior," said psychiatrist Kimberly Young, who has led the field of research since founding the Center for Internet Addiction in 1995. "It becomes a public health concern obviously as health is influenced by the behavior." At first, Danny's parents took him to doctors and made him sign contracts pledging to limit his internet use. The "Reboot" program at the Lindner Center for Hope offers inpatient treatment for 11 to 17-year-olds who, like Danny, have addictions including online gaming, gambling, social media, pornography and sexting, often to escape from symptoms of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. âoeRebootâ patients spend 28 days at a suburban facility equipped with 16 bedrooms, classrooms, a gym and a dining hall. They undergo diagnostic tests, psychotherapy, and learn to moderate their internet use.
Jerome K. Jerome has an answer (Score:4, Funny)
From "Three Men in a Boat":
In the present instance, going back to the liver-pill circular, I had the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief among them being “a general disinclination to work of any kind.”
What I suffer in that way no tongue can tell. From my earliest infancy I have been a martyr to it. As a boy, the disease hardly ever left me for a day. They did not know, then, that it was my liver. Medical science was in a far less advanced state than now, and they used to put it down to laziness.
“Why, you skulking little devil, you,” they would say, “get up and do something for your living, can’t you?” — not knowing, of course, that I was ill.
And they didn’t give me pills; they gave me clumps on the side of the head. And, strange as it may appear, those clumps on the head often cured me — for the time being.
Re: Haha (Score:1)
Well Government money. These treatment places are about going through the check boxes to cash in on subsidies, grants and insurance.
I hope they at least have WiFi.
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Government money is your money. If more people realized that, we might get a better deal for OUR money.
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Many illnesses start off being "unrecognized". We study mental illness, cancer, alzheimers and other maladies to expand our knowledge and learn how to identify and treat them.
Supernatural theories attribute mental illness to possession by evil or demonic spirits, displeasure of gods, eclipses, planetary gravitation, curses, and sin. Engravings from 1525 showing trephination. It was believed that drilling holes in the skull could cure mental disorders.
https://nobaproject.com/module... [nobaproject.com]
Want computer help? Ask a 2-year-old. (Score:3)
I asked if the 2-year-old had her own tablet computer. The mother said no, but the 2-year-old often played with the 6-year-old's tablet.
Obviously, the 2-year-old doesn't go to work, doesn't cook, and doesn't clean the house. So she has a lot of time to teach herself the user interface of the tablet.
I'd just like to interject for a moment (Score:1)
What you’re referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which
5% of the Japanese population is like this. (Score:2)
Re: 5% of the Japanese population is like this. (Score:1)
Yes, the pitiful few who can actually be helped - they know in their guts they have a problem; and while they're ill enough to be unable to do anything about it, they desperately hope for someone who will force the issue.
Pity they're so few in number - the blissfully ignorant seekers of gibs will ensure no remedy ever occurs.
The first stone flying (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: The first stone flying (Score:3)
Just remember, you choose to do this
Well, that is the entire debate right there. That there is increasing amount of evidence that some people have trouble choosing not to even when they should. This is what is means for an action to be addictive; that in the face of unhealthy consequences, some peopleâ(TM)s brains wont let them do it in moderation.
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And we, the working people, are indirectly paying for their 'lifestyle' as taxes only seem to go up.
Okay, I'll bite. How much of the taxes you pay, as an American, go to supporting Japanese Hikikkomori?
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Became president?
Who is Sick and Who is Well?!? (Score:1)
One in all in. Perhaps people spend a lot of time on the internet and gaming because shock horror, that is the fun interaction they prefer. So why is mass consumption of a depressants, it crowded places, full of fake, desperate, plastic people, so much fucking better, do you know how annoying drunks are, the only way you can effectively interact with them is by being drunk. The sports field to express your combative sexual hormones to beat the opposition, now that's fucking gay. How about acts of mass mutua
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it's not about prefering games/internet/... all the time that's the problem.
the issue is when it turns into a compulsion where you can't do anything else and it fully consumes you; ignoring your own health and well being (and possibly others).
No such thing as 'internet addiction' disease. (Score:5, Interesting)
What you are seeing is a symptom, not a disease. Many people withdraw from the world at varying times to varying degrees. When it becomes obsessive, we suspect a problem.
In another time and place this problem could exhibit symptoms of 'TV addiction', 'romance novel addiction' or 'ham radio addiction'. Don't confuse symptoms with causes. Don't insist on easy answers to incredibly complex problems.
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OK, so what is the disease?
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I'd venture to say society is the disease.
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Society. Get rid of it and you'll see people get better.
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After reading the article, I was forced to ask myself, "Where were the child's parents and what were they doing?"
For example:
When Danny Reagan was 13, he began exhibiting signs of what doctors usually associate with drug addiction. He became agitated, secretive and withdrew from friends. He had quit baseball and Boy Scouts, and he stopped doing homework and showering.
But he was not using drugs. He was hooked on YouTube and video games, to the point where he could do nothing else. As doctors would confirm, he was addicted to his electronics.
“After I got my console, I kind of fell in love with it,” Danny, now 16 and a junior in a Cincinnati high school, said. “I liked being able to kind of shut everything out and just relax.”
I will confess, from first-hand experience, the first few points, such as becoming secretive and withdrawn, could easily have been interpreted as depression or social anxiety.
When I was a teenager, if I did something as drastic as wanting to quit a sport or Boy Scouts (which requires a long-term investment in time, money, and effort), a red flag would go up and my parents would want t
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Certainly if I can get you to believe this disease is real and that I can cure it, you will pay me everything!
How come there isn't treatment for... (Score:2)
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Allow me to sum it up (Score:3)
I don't know why my kid likes this because I don't understand it, so it must be addiction because I can't enjoy it.
Crap Parenting (Score:4, Interesting)
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My parents acted like this. They weren't willing to put in the time and they were awful to be around. So I avoided them and withdrew online and they threw me in a nuthouse. My dad did "stop" me, he took my electronics and computers for awhile, our relationship was destroyed well before that though. As a matter of fact I'd started treating other people the way he treated me and people were getting very concerned. Fast forward 20 years. I was fine as soon as I got away from both of them. I eventually
Hold on.... (Score:1)
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More profit for healthcare industry (Score:2)
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It's nothing but another means to make more money for big, for-profit healthcare. There is no internet addiction.
Well there is - but Darwin takes care of that. They either sit in front of the computer and never breed, or stare at their smartphone and walk into traffic. I've saved 2 women from getting hit when they were so engrossed in social media that they walked right into busy traffic. I think I might be an enabler.
You're all addicted (Score:1)
Prove you're not: TURN OFF YOUR PHONE FOR ONE WHOLE DAY.
Hell, don't answer *any* texts for 8 hours.
If you can't do either of those, you're a damn addict. At least regular drug addicts go off in a private place to shoot up, while you walk, drive, eat dinner and "watch" a movie, or, hell, go on a date and you CAN'T GET OFF.
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Orthodox jews have a rule that says they must not use electrical devices on Saturday except to save a life. I had a friend who adopted a version of this rule where he avoids using communication devices (he still used the internet for browsing websites, this was before the social network age). In the past I thought they were all dumb. Lately I'm beginning to think they had a point.