Something Extra: Internet Insanity

MIAMI - Is the internet driving us crazy? How long can you stay away from checking your texts, your email or Facebook? Are you addicted?

Those are among the questions asked by the thought-provoking cover story of this week's Newsweek.

The answers should concern all of us.

The article cites astonishing facts of how we've merged with machines.

The average teenager processes thirty seven hundred texts a month.

We are so compulsive about getting our messages and calls that two-thirds of us report feeling phones vibrate when they're not. Researchers call it "phantom vibration syndrome."

Scientists are finding internet use alters the brain and that the brains of internet addicts resemble those of drug and alcohol addicts.

Experts are quoted as saying computers are like "electronic cocaine."

Numerous studies have found connections with depression, obsessive compulsive behavior, A-D-H-D, even psychosis.

And the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders will, for the first time, refer to Internet Addiction Disorder.

The benefits brought by the internet are too long to list here, but it may be time to more seriously study its detriments.

Here's a link to the Newsweek article.