China Health Ministry to treat 'Net addiction as disorder

By one definition or another, many of us are probably addicted to the Internet in some fashion. China may soon become the first country to officially define Internet addiction and register its findings with the World Health Organization. The definition arise out of research performed at Beijing's Military General Hospital, and is expected to be adopted by China's Health Ministry in 2009.

So, what does it take to make you an Internet addict, at least according to China? If you find yourself using the Internet for more than six hours per day and exhibit at least one of a number of symptoms, you could be addicted. The list of symptoms is about what you would expect, including things like insomnia, difficulty concentrating, mental or physical stress, irritation, and spending time wishing you were online.

The doctor at the Military General Hospital who headed up the research, Dr. Tao Ran, told the Times Online that he studied more than 3,000 people over four years in determining what makes up Internet addiction. "We took symptoms that appeared at the same time in more than 50 percent of patients and then we noted how frequently these same symptoms were repeated," he told the paper.

Get 'em started early

It's easy to chuckle about Internet addiction, but the concept continues to gain traction in the medical community. In February of this year, fMRI scans were used to examine activation profiles in the brains of subjects playing a video game, and many of the same pathways involved in drug dependence and addiction were activated (at least in the male subjects). Then in March, the American Journal of Psychiatry argued that Internet and gaming addiction should be added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) V, the handbook of mental disorders used by mental health workers in the US. Not everyone is in agreement, however; a committee of the American Medical Association made the same recommendation last year, but that position was quickly reversed.

According to Tao, about 10 percent of China's youth is addicted to the Internet, with more than two-thirds of his patients being male. He pointed out, however, that the Internet is less of a cause and more a symptom of an overall addiction problem. We know one thing for sure: young people who are addicted to the Internet need to figure out how to take control of the problem before they enter the workforce and find themselves getting fired because of it.