Citation

Dannon PN, Iancu I. Harefuah 2007; 146(7): 549-53, 573, 572.

Affiliation

Rehovot Mental Health Center, Psychiatry B. Department, Beer Yaakov Mental Health Center, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University. pinhasd@post.tau.ac.il

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Israel Medical Association)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

17803171

Abstract

The Internet provides inexpensive, interesting and comfortable recreation, but sometimes users get hooked. Thus, the computer-internet addiction concept has been proposed as an explanation for uncontrollable and damaging use. Symptoms of addiction could be compared to other addictive behaviors such as pathological gambling, kleptomania, trichotillomania, sex addiction and pyromania. Although criteria to diagnose this addiction have been proposed, methods of assessing excessive computer-internet use are limited. Early diagnosis could help the patient that suffers from this addiction before developing additional psychiatric diagnoses. A review of the proposed etiologies in the literature is summarized, together with recommendations for physicians and mental health officials.

Language: he