'Net addiction': More 'patients'

Some mental-health professionals are calling it "Internet addiction disorder," others are calling it a fad. Whatever, it's increasingly in the news. Citing Dr. Hilarie Cash's practice in Redmond, Wash., the New York Times reports that she and other specialists treating this problem (e.g., Dr. Kimberly Young in Bradford, Pa., and Dr. Maressa Hecht Orzack in Belmont, Mass.) - which skeptics like Prof. Sara Kiesler at Carnegie Mellon U. contrast to actual physiological addictions - are estimating that 6-10% of the US's some 189 million Net users "have a dependency that can be as destructive as alcoholism and drug addiction." Even more key, it appears to me, is the view that "a majority of obsessive users are online to further addictions to gambling or pornography or have become much more dependent on those vices because of their prevalence on the Internet." The Net's downside in this area is summed up in these key phrases: affordability, accessibility, opportunity for anonymity, and an alternative reality. The Times cites an inpatient program at Procter Hospital in Peoria, Ill., that treats cocaine and Net addicts in the same therapy groups. [Parents might want to know that Dr. Cash and other therapists told the Times they're seeing a growing number of young people as patients.] For further discussion, see the Christian Science Monitor, citing research showing that "40 million Americans regularly view Internet pornography, which accounts for $2.5 billion of the $12 billion US porn industry"; the Boston Globe's "The secret life of boys"; and the Times of Oman reprinting a pay-to-view article in the UK's The Independent on "Internet addiction."