PEOPLE who send excessive texts and emails may have a mental illness, according to an article in a leading psychiatric journal.
As more people leave the office computer, only to log on as soon as they get home, the American Journal of Psychiatry has found addiction to text messaging and emailing could be another form of mental illness.
I kid you freakin’ not. That’s an actual finding by Dr. Jerald Block as reported by news.com.au. Here are the four symptoms to classify people into this mentally ill group:
- suffering from feelings of withdrawal when a computer cannot be accessed;
- an increased need for better equipment;
- need for more time to use it;
- experiencing the negative repercussions of their addiction.
Dr. Brock considers text messaging to be a part of this category because it’s a form of electronic communication. The article uses a female sales consultant as an example of someone who “suffers” from this “debilitating” illness. She explains that she’s on the computer for work all day and then comes home and simply has to browse Facebook, eBay, and other entertainment sites.
Dr Robert Kaplan, a forensic psychiatrist at the Graduate School of Medicine, University of Wollongong, said he first saw a case of internet addiction in 1998.
“I think in general it’s escalating,” Dr Kaplan said. “We now all live in an internet world, and it brings with it a range of problems.”
Someone please tell me this is an early April Fool’s joke. If not, I’ll cry golden tears if pharma companies put out medication for this.
depression introspection 
I’m sure it was pharma companies that funded the research!
Then I guess life, or at least the American version of it, is a mental illness. Maybe I’m onto something …
I think it’s just the problem of living in a more advanced technology world 🙂
didn’t you know being human is pathological
Yeah, the internet can be addictive-but that criteria is pure b.s. The real criteria is a lot more intense.
In China they have these military type camps that parents can send their kids to if they think they are addicted to the computer.
text messaging saves money on phone bills, esp when someone[like me]has 2 college kids that don’t live nearby or out of state. ttyl.
When will the incessant need of coming up with new mental illnesses become a mental illness?
Bob, when the pharmaceutical industry is regulated and stops using people as a marketing tool for billion dollar corporations to feed from.