', children forget to eat lunch, ignore sports and other physical activities, forgo going to the toilet and end up being nervous and distracted when their smart devices are taken away from them. With digital and web addiction affecting nearly 2.55 million people in South Korea, medical practitioners are calling for the categorization of IUD as a mental illness and they are certainly right in doing so. With children as young as the age of 3 being addicted to the internet and technology, the inclusion of IUD in the DSM – V is justified. Internet use needs to be monitored and the youth must learn to balance technology with other activities. When the darker side of internet addiction is exposed through display of violence, tantrums, and outrage then it becomes a serious problem; it can even be termed as a mental illness. In the last couple of years, we have been exposed to situations where the line between addiction and insanity has been blurred. In 2009, a boy in Ohio shot his mother and gravely injured his father when his parents prevented him from playing an online game because they were afraid that he was becoming obsessed with it. He was only a teenager who probably would have been sent to a juvenile home but if the same happens with an adult then he will be tried for manslaughter. If internet addiction is deemed a mental illness and there are no amendments made to the criminal justice system then it's quite possible that the defendant will be let off on an insanity plea and may be offered a community sentence rather than a jail term. This will prove to be a serious disadvantage of including internet addiction as a mental disorder, especially in a country like the US where guns are freely available on sale in stores such as Wal-Mart. A teenager who is addicted to the internet and at the same time is charged with murder, which is actually premeditated, can plead to insanity as internet-addiction is a mental illness. This means that he could be given only a community sentence; is that fair to the murder victims?
The inclusion of internet-addiction in the DSM-V could actually be misused. To avoid this, there will need to be reforms and amendments to the existing laws of a country. Only then is it feasible to classify internet addiction as a mental illness.
Many of us use the internet, especially social media, to stay updated on current news and world stories. Often, we check our emails more than 30 times per hour. Are we all mentally ill patients? When someone tries to pry me away from Facebook or LinkedIn, I get upset but not violent. Am I suffering from a mental illness? As I was randomly searching the Internet, I came across an internet addiction test that includes some very familiar questions: How often do you find that you stay on-line longer than you intended? How often do you neglect household chores to spend more time on-line? How often do you snap, yell, or act annoyed if someone bothers you while you are on-line? I answered
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