Is excessive texting and internet use a mental disorder?

People who excessively game and who cannot control their email/text messaging should be included in psychiatry’s official guidebook of psychiatric disorders, this according to American Journal of Psychiatry.

In an article in this month’s edition of the highly respected scientific journal, Dr Jerald J Block, outlines what he considers to be four distinct symptoms shown by sufferers. When sufferers cannot reach their computer, they experience withdrawal and an associated sense of depression or anger. Many sufferers have a constant craving for new and better equipment, suffer a feeling of social isolation and fatigue when not sat at their computers. Dr Block states, “Attempts to measure the phenomenon are clouded by shame, denial and minimisation,”