Hatrack River Forum: Do you have MOUSE?

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Posted by msquared (Member # 4484) on :

In USAToday today.

Researchers publish guidelines for Web addiction
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — To determine whether someone is spending an unhealthy amount of time with their computers, two University of Florida psychiatrists say doctors need to only remember the acronym MOUSE.
Web surfing, e-mailing, instant messaging, gaming, shopping, downloading music and visiting chat rooms become troublesome when they interfere with someone's job or social life, said Dr. Nathan Shapira of UF's Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute.

The challenge for health care professionals is to determine when high Internet use is dysfunctional, and whether unhealthy Internet use is a lone disorder or a byproduct of other disorders, such as manic depression.

Writing in the current issue of the journal Depression and Anxiety, UF scientists propose criteria to diagnose problematic Internet use that they formulated on the basis of their research findings and other available data.

In a related article, published recently in Current Psychiatry, UF researchers presented five questions to help practitioners get a sense of their patients Internet use. The points revolve around the acronym MOUSE: More than intended time spent online; Other responsibilities neglected; Unsuccessful attempts to cut down; Significant relationship discord because of use; and Excessive thoughts or anxiety when not online.

Shapira devised the criteria after conducting face-to-face psychiatric evaluations of 20 volunteers who identified themselves as having problems with the Internet and 17 randomly selected college students with varying levels of Internet use.

Volunteers who called themselves problematic Internet users had, on average, five pre-existing psychiatric problems, such as bipolar disorder, depression or alcohol abuse, he said.

Additionally, they were online more than 30 hours per week, and their nonessential Internet use was 10 times greater than their essential use, such as job- and school-related activities.

But not everyone believe high Internet usage is bad.

"Its very useful for some people to spend high amounts of time on the Internet for work, school and recreation," said Jeffrey I. Cole, director of the University of California, Los Angeles Center for Communications Policy. "For the vast majority of Americans, Internet use doesn't come at the expense of other activities."

Shapira submitted a chapter on problematic Internet use for an upcoming volume of the Handbook of Impulse Control Disorders, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association, at the request of the editors. More research is needed to determine whether Internet addiction should be a separate listing in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is considered the standard for psychiatric diagnoses in the United States, or whether problematic Internet use should fall under the umbrella of impulse control disorders, such as pathological gambling.

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Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

msquared

Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :

Computer use doesn't interfere with my relationship. In fact it helps it. I'm more likely to get an answer from him when I IM him than when I talk to him even though our computers are in the same room less than six feet apart from each other. THe same is true when he IMs me

or are we both "problematic users"?

[Big Grin]

Posted by ak (Member # 90) on :

MOUSE:

More than intended time spent online;
Nope. I intend to spend all my time online.

Other responsibilities neglected;
Nope. I just jettisoned all other responsibilities. Now all my responsibilities are online responsibilities.

Unsuccessful attempts to cut down;
Why would I try to cut down?

Significant relationship discord because of use;
All my relationships are online, so no.

Excessive thoughts or anxiety when not online.
I'm always online so this doesn't happen either.

<phew> I guess I'm in the clear! [ROFL]

[ August 06, 2003, 07:43 PM: Message edited by: ak ]

Posted by Book (Member # 5500) on :

What relationships? [Frown]