“Excessive Internet use that harms personal relationships or affects work performance could be classified as a new psychiatric disorder that could effect businesses, researchers at University of Florida said.” This is, simply, ridiculous. Internet addiction is real, surely, but there is no need for a separate category of illness; it fits somewhere in the already well-elaborated constellation of impulsive, addictive and compulsive behaviors. The five proposed diagnostic criteria — excessive involvement in the activity, inability to cut down despite trying, neglect of other obligations, significant relationship discord as a result of the activity, and excessive thoughts or anxiety about it when not involved in the activity — are a strong parallel of the screening criteria many psychiatrists use for alcoholism, for example.

And while we’re at it, here’s another gripe about their criteria. They propose the acronym MOUSE to represent the five factors, as follows — “More than intended time spent online; Other responsibilities neglected; Unsuccessful attempts to cut down; Significant relationships discord; Excessive thoughts or anxiety when not online.” Cute, media-friendly, but the most useless acronym I have ever heard (as someone who loves to invent and impart to my students acronyms for things like diagnostic criteria or treatment approaches…), since the words represented by the letters of the acronym (in bold above) are utterly uninformative. More what? Unsuccessful at what? Significant what? You get the picture. Contrast, for example, one of the most famous acronyms in psychiatric teaching. SIGECAPS, whcih every student learns and remembers, represents the diagnostic criteria for major depression, and each letter stands for something unique, specific and memorable — sleep, interest, guilt, energy, concentration, appetite, psychomotor disturbance, and suicidality.