Personality Disorder: Internet Use Disorder

The use of the internet is pervasive in our culture. So much that the American Psychiatric Association is recommending further research on the condition called “Internet Use Disorder” in the upcoming diagnostic manual DSM V.

The disorder primarily refers to Internet gaming, however, it does include the criteria of “withdrawal symptoms when internet is taken away.” Sound familiar?

Addiction is not the only mental health condition that the internet can trigger. The other one is depression.

A recent article in the Scientific American suggests that people who rapidly move around on dozens of websites, engaging in fleeting contact, are most likely to get depressed:

“Peer-to-peer file sharing, heavy emailing and chatting online, and a tendency to quickly switch between multiple websites and other online resources all predict a greater propensity to experience symptoms of depression. Quickly switching between websites may reflect anhedonia (a decreased ability to experience emotions), as people desperately seek for emotional stimulation. Similarly, excessive emailing and chatting may signify a relative lack of strong face-to-face relationships, as people strive to maintain contact either with faraway friends or new people met online.”

It is the depth of emotion that is seen as critical for normal affect. The enormous amount of distraction that’s offered online seduces us into paying less and less attention towards a single topic — or people, for that matter.


Another phenomenon is loneliness.We do sit in front of our laptops mostly by ourselves, of course. There may be other family members around, but we tend to not engage much with them when the computer is on.
Even when talking with friends online, like on Facebook, there is a strange kind of loneliness that arises out of peer pressure, as an interesting reflection in hearty magazine point out: “The loss of a person’s ability to think differently than the people surrounding him is, in and of itself, a mode of INsanity that has everything to do with loneliness.”

The dynamic gives a whole new meaning to the term “alone in the crowd.”

Modern man as isolated, intimidated, disconnected and constantly distracted — not exactly an appealing vision of the future.

Multiple Personality Disorder: 'Hide and Seek' the film

So what do you think?

 It is about a girl who seemingly does dark things with the help of her imaginary friend Charlie…Hide and Seek is a 2005 American thriller film starring Robert De Niro, Famke Janssen and Dakota Fanning. 

It is not made clear till the end of the movie however, that David Callaway (Robert De Niro) is Charlie, a man suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder (and not Emily whose mother had just died was a far more likely candidate to develop a Mental Disorder of this type). David Callaway developed this disorder when suffered a trauma: Callawat caught his wife betraying him and as a result he killed her.

Have you also noticed his second personality trait? Ok, we have seen a few ones so far, but what about his Schizoid side? 

David Callaway is a deeply disturbed type of person whose fear of involvement with others is so extreme that he withdraws into himself and attempts to do without human relationships as far as possible. These are the people we call schizoid. Schizoid people come to the attention of psychotherapist in a variety of ways. They are often pressed into seeking help by those who are near enough to them to realise that there is something wrong, because they have little faith in the ability of others to understand or help them. If self referred, the client will complain of not being able to make relationships, especially with the opposite sex; or of being quite unable to concentrate on work or complete work; or of what he is likely to call depression.

Have you also noticed his second personality trait? Ok, we have seen a few ones so far, but what Schizoid types? 

David Callaway is a deeply disturbed type of person whose fear of involvement with others is so extreme that he withdraws into himself and attempts to do without human relationships as far as possible. These are the people we call schizoid. Schizoid people come to the attention of psychotherapist in a variety of ways.

 They are often pressed into seeking help by those who are near enough to them to realise that there is something wrong, because they have little faith in the ability of others to understand or help them. If self referred, the client will complain of not being able to make relationships, especially with the opposite sex; or of being quite unable to concentrate on work or complete work; or of what he is likely to call depression. 

more to follow in the next article...