Should Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) Be In DSM-5?

Mohamad Farhan Huszaimi Bin M. Pajar

January 2017

            Internet is necessary for survival nowadays for almost everybody including children because the internet is used for businesses, communications, games, and politics. Hannah O.Price says in his "Phenomenology of Internet Addiction" article that, "Internet became essential to the daily lives of more than one billion people" (85), which indicates that nowadays almost everything is depending on the internet. For instance, if there are no internet connections at certain places in Los Angeles, people in those places will suffer because it is hard for them to do business and get crucial current updates such as warning about earthquakes or even terrorists' attack in Paris. People in those places might have problems to buy something online or to get an online education, if they are taking online classes either from other countries or local colleges. It is clearly shown that the internet is a really important tool nowadays for everybody. On the other side, internet use also might have some negative impacts such as internet addiction. Many people do not know the term Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) because IAD is actually a new type of psychiatric disorder under addiction category which is faced by many people especially in Korea and China (Price), consciously or unconsciously, after the great invention of internet around 1983 by Robert E. Kahn and Vint Cerf.

            The term Internet Addiction Disorder was first suggested by Ivan Goldberg in 1995 (Price, 86-87). IAD draws a descriptive picture of the disorder based on the DSM-4-R criteria for alcohol or drug dependence. Kimberly Young, a psychologist, used the term IAD in 1996 during a conference of the American Psychological Association in Toronto (Price, 86). Because IAD was first introduced in 1995, scientists, physicians, and psychologists are making further study of IAD and still debating until now whether IAD should be in DSM-5 or not. DSM-5 stands for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorder, fifth edition (Ko and Yen, 1411). DSM is used as a formal manual and guide for all psychiatrists, and psychologists around the world to diagnose psychiatric patients. DSM contains every type of psychological disorder, symptoms of the particular disorders, and specific treatments can be done for each disorder based on their level of severity. IAD currently is still considered as an informal mental disorder because there are many gaps of information and problems associated with determining IAD clearly. Some of the problems are scientists (psychologists, and psychiatrists) do not have a clear definition of IAD; scientists and therapists have problems to determine the severity of the disorder, and how it departs from normality; and the criteria should be determined based on the intensity and frequency of symptoms (Ko and Yen, 1411). However, problems with determining IAD do not mean that IAD cannot be detected and treated like Postman says "As a true-blue American who has imbibed the unshaken belief that where there is a problem, there must be a solution." (158). Although IAD sometimes sounds nonsensical and unrealistic because people think that it should not exist, it does not mean people should just ignore it. As Ko et al say, "Just because [it is] difficult to define Internet addiction [does not] mean it [is not] an ‘emerging epidemic'" (1411). Thus, there must be some solutions to solve IAD.

            First of all, scientists are still debating about Internet Addiction Disorder issues and look at IAD as a serious psychiatric problem. Some people think that IAD should not even exist because nowadays internet is a really important tool for survival and they, people who oppose classifying IAD as a psychiatric disorder, say that spending more time on surfing internet is just a new culture of people in the 21st century. On the other side, scientists are still discussing about whether IAD should be in DSM-5 or not because it has many bad effects on a person's mental health especially, physical and social life. Since IAD is really a problem for people in general, IAD should be in the DSM-5 because it leads a person to an unhealthy mental health, bad social lifestyle, and bad for the person's physical health.

           

Internet Addiction Disorder should be in the DSM-5 because it causes a person to have mental disorders. Price says, "Cyber addiction shares some characteristics with the other forms of dependence [such as] less of control, inability to reduce addictive consumption [,] and feeling of intense pleasure" (87). People that have IAD are less likely to do healthy activities that can relax their mind such as exercising and talking with other people. Scientists are frequently relating IAD with attention-deficit or hyperactivity disorder, known as ADHD, (Yen et al, 187), which is a type of mental disorder under stress and depression category. ADHD is experienced by most people with IAD due to extremely high level of stress. People with ADHD will find it is hard for them to face any challenges in their life because of the uncontrollable stress level. Based on the research done by Yen et al, adult ADHD was associated with internet addiction (189). The result from studies by Yen et al clearly indicates that Internet addiction might cause a normal person to suffer from ADHD in the future if they are having internet addiction problem. At the same time, ADHD will also lead a person to a terrible academic and job performance. "Adolescents with internet addiction usually suffer from problems with their daily routines, school performance, family relationships, and mood." (Yen et al, 9). People with ADHD will find it is hard for them to focus on something such as school and jobs, because they will always think about internet and they will feel depressed if they do not have internet even though it is just for an hour. People with ADHD will pay little attention to the negative consequences of heavy internet use (Yen et al, 189). Some of the symptoms of IAD are excessive use of internet (often loss of the sense of time), feeling of craving when they stop surfing internet, feeling of stress and depression, tolerance (increased connection time even more), and relapse (an earlier addictive activity to recur) (Price, 86). The result of research made by Yen et al also indicates that people with Internet Addiction had a higher level of hostility, depression, phobic anxiety, and additional symptoms, and a higher level of anxiety (13). Yen et al also say, "Internet addiction or substance use in adolescents was associated with more severe psychiatric symptoms. The symptoms lead a person to be an aggressive person towards other people due to the depressed mood and ADHD. Price says, "Web suffers having mood disorder, anxiety, [and] depression" (88). Thus, internet addiction may cause psychiatric symptoms. These negative outcomes show that IAD should be in DSM-5.

            Other than that, IAD should also be in DSM-5 because there are lots of children are having IAD. Psychologists, and psychiatrists should prevent IAD from happening among children because IAD will lead to psychiatric problems among children and teenagers which will affect their bright future drastically. IAD is also a big problem facing by many undergraduate students like what Yen et al say, "Previous reports demonstrate that 8% to 13% of undergraduates are addicted to the Internet, which has impaired psychological well-being, peer and family interactions, and academic performance" (187). It is obviously shows that IAD leads to many negative effects in a person's mental health. Since IAD affects people's mental health negatively, IAD cannot be considered as an "evolved" culture in the 21st century, which the oppositions (people who disagree to put IAD in DSM-5 and think Internet addiction is not a serious problem), think. A mental disorder such as ADHD should not be considered as a culture for people in 21^st century. It is true as what Postman says, "[Everybody] is Marxist, for we believe nothing if not history is moving us toward some preordained paradise and that technology is the force behind that movement" (158). In conclusion, because Internet addiction disorder leads to unhealthy mental health such as having ADHD, IAD should be a formal psychiatric disorder and be in the DSM-5 so that people with IAD will get diagnosed, treated, and could live happily in the future.

           

Then, Internet Addiction Disorder should be in DSM-5 because IAD causes a person to have social problems. People with IAD will usually have antisocial personalities such as be aggressive towards other people due to their unhealthy mental health. People with IAD will have a social problem because of the anxiety. As a research made by Yen et al found that logistic regression demonstrated that high social phobic anxiety is associated with internet addiction (14). People with social phobic anxiety will find it hard to go out and hang out with other people like what normal people do because they scared to socialize. One of the symptoms for social phobic anxiety is isolation from friends and family, ("Computer/ Internet Addiction Symptoms"). This insularity may prevent them from coping with their problems (Yen et al, 14). Lack of person to person contact might cause a trouble to the person when he or she is facing problems in real life. Some of the IAD people are even scared to meet with the other people due to the phobia, known as social phobia, and low self-esteem (Price, 88). People with IAD are lack of confident when talking to other people or when they are doing social activities such as playing soccer together and walk at a park with friend. For instance, a person with IAD scare to hang out and talk to someone because they think the person who they communicate with will harm them.

            It is also hard for IAD people to share something they feel with another person because they feel awkward of sharing their feeling and talking to other people about anything related to humanity or life issues such as marriage. For example, if a guy with IAD fall in love with a girl, then the guy feels jealous when he saw that girl hugs someone else, that guy will having problem to understand and handle the feeling of envy and love. People with IAD might do something unwise such as murder their crush due to the feeling of jealous. Indeed, it is true people can socialize by using internet, but long exposure on internet will increase the chance for a person to get IAD. Price cites "Subjects using Internet for its social functions are more exposed to addiction" (89). The point here is that it is different if the person get social on internet and in real life (face-to-face interaction) because if the person social through the internet, they might playing games, or read some articles which will lead them to internet addiction. Once they are having internet addiction, it will be hard for them to communicate with other people again because of social phobia and low self-esteem.

            Furthermore, society might also be affected badly if most of the population in a particular country have IAD. Price writes, "the cyber addiction is a true society' problem whose frightening consequences led many countries to work out a prevention of the risks" (91). People are worried about IAD will cause negative outcomes to a country because the higher probability of people with IAD to face physical problems such as losing jobs, and low job quality; and social problems such as divorce. These physical and social problems will cause a huge trouble to a country's politics, economy, and social environment. For example, people with IAD will have a high probability of losing job because it is hard for them to maintain high job performance. Lose jobs and terrible job performance in any field, such as business field especially, due to IAD will lead to negative impacts on communities, and countries' economic. People with IAD also tend to do crime because their mental state is not normal and less humanity among IAD people. Besides, divorce will also cause many problems to the communities. Hence, because Internet Addiction Disorder leads to bad social effects on a person, community, and country, IAD should be prevented and people with IAD should be diagnosed in order to have a better surrounding community, which means that IAD should be in DSM-5.

           

Besides that, Internet Addiction Disorder should also be in DSM-5 because IAD leads a person to poor physical health due to most IAD people spend their time in front of computer instead of doing something benefits for their physical health such as eat healthy foods, and go to the gym. Nowadays, there are only certain countries, which are South Korea and China, considering IAD as a general health problem. South Korea considered addiction to Internet was a serious public health problem (Yen et al, 87). Some of the physical effects are backache, headaches, excessive weight gain or loss, disturbances in sleep, carpal tunnel syndrome, blurred or strained vision, ("Computer/ Internet Addiction Symptoms"). People with IAD might have backache because the long period of hunchbacked position during sitting in front of computer. Then IAD people usually have blurred or strained vision because of the long exposure to the screen of the computer. There are certain wavelengths that will corrode the eyes of computer users. Blurred vision might be the result of continuous eyes corrosion due to long exposure in front of computer, television or any smartphone screens. Severe headache is due to the lack of brain rest. Human's brains need to get rest after doing a consistent, and long activities such as surfing internet, if not, some part of the brain will start to damage and cause headache.

            Other than that, people who have Internet addiction disorder tend to have cardiovascular disorder such as asthma. Yen et al found that people with IAD tend to have cardiovascular disorder other than

depression and hostility (649). Clearly that IAD also causes a person to have an unhealthy physical circumstance. Yen et al say, "Problem behavior that adolescents are facing would result in similar health compromising outcomes." (10). Unfortunately, there are 20 to 24% children in South Korea need hospitalization (Yen et al, 87) because of their poor physical health which requires doctors attention. For instance, many of students in college or university have high lens power for their glasses due to the long exposure to computer, either due to study or play games. However, most frequent damages include sleep, and sight problems (Yen et al, 89). There was a case of IAD that causes death due to the lack of hygiene (Yen et al, 89). Many of these results were found in Asia and people in the United States might not think IAD will happen to them, but people should take lessons from the outcome of the result in researches. The other most frequent effect of Internet Addiction Disorder on physical health is excessive gain or loss weight. Excessive gain and loss weight might happen because people with IAD do not feel hungry when they are online or they are always hungry when they are online. Most people will eat unhealthy food such as chocolate bars, and fast foods. For instance, if a person is playing an online game with his friends, the person will probably just grab chocolate bars for the whole day instead of fish and chips because he or she wants to play games while eating. Thus, because Internet Addiction Disorder causes many negative effects on a person's physical health, IAD should be in DSM-5 so that these negative physical effects can be healed earlier before it is too late and might cause fatality.

            Internet Addiction Disorder should be considered as one of the psychiatric disorders and should be in DSM-5 because people with IAD have an unhealthy mental health, lots of social problems, and poor physical health. People, in general, should be concerned about Internet addiction issues because it may cause many negative outcomes to a person, community, and country. IAD is a serious disorder that should be diagnosed by trained psychologists and psychiatrists around the world. Besides that, parents should keep an eye on their children’s activity on Internet so that Internet addiction can be prevented. The NGO's company should also make up campaigns to reduce and stop Internet addiction in community for a brighter future. To prevent the disorder is way better than to heal the disorder. The negative outcomes of Internet addiction might not show after a few months, but it will show after a few years. Hopefully people; scientists, politicians, and general people; will take Internet addiction disorder seriously and try to prevent it from happening to have a better future for ourselves, our community, and our country.

Work Cited

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