As social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook pick up millions of new users each year, the possibility of serious addiction to them has emerged.
Susan Weinschenk, PhD says the speed and unpredictability offered by social media stimulates dopamine, which can create an addiction to seeking - rather than finding - contact through them.
Weinschenk says studies have shown that rats who are addicted to their own dopamine will continue 'searching' for food until they starve to death, even when food is place right next to them.
Social networking sites are getting millions of new users each year. As participation increases, so does the scope for overuse - and the possibility of addiction.
However, problem computer use is a barely recognized or researched condition. A medical decision on whether insurance companies will classify internet addiction as an illness and pay for treatment is only due in 2012.
Experts say that becoming obsessed with social media – tweeting dozens of times per day, constantly checking messages and spending months per year on Facebook – could pose risks like any other form of compulsive behaviour.
A leading expert and Oxford professor of synaptic pharmacology warned the UK government last week that Facebook and Bebo were 'infantilising' children and making them selfish and attention-deficit.
Baroness Greenfield's rebuke prompted government members to admit not enough work has been done on the psychological impact of social media on children, The Guardian reported.
But the results of previous studies have been difficult to interpret.
In 1995, psychologists surveyed over 4,000 high school students in the United States whose computer use was monitored for seven years.
By 2002, 7.4 per cent of those who used the internet frequently had symptoms consistent with depression.
Researchers could not conclude whether internet overuse had caused it, or whether those who had depressive tendencies to start with had been more likely to overuse the internet.
Older studies have found a link between sitting in front of a screen for prolonged periods and depression – but could also not conclude which caused which.
Different kinds of net addiction have been described in psychology journals, but never officially labelled illnesses.
'Cyber-relational addiction' relates to excessive involvement in online relationships, 'net compulsions' is the inability to stop online shopping and gambling, and excessive surfing can spark what is termed 'information overload'.
Treating problem computer use is as costly as treating any other addiction or obsessive behaviour, and involves expensive psychologists' or psychiatrists' fees. The fees of one retreat in the US promises to cure internet 'addicts' for anywhere between US$15,000 to twice that.
