E-addiction a cause for concern

Vijayawada: An intermediate student from the city, who excelled in the State Board examination, is now getting a ‘Digital detox treatment’ and reinforcing his social skills. The 16-year-old is addicted to online gaming and social networking sites. There are days where he used to play for 16 hours at a stretch and spend over 18 hours in front of computer and smart phone.

Similarly, many youth in Vijayawada are addicted to internet. According to the study of Indian Journal of Psychiatry for the year 2016, over seven per cent of the country population has been under internet addiction and undergoing treatment. The actual addiction count is almost three times high where many people are suffering from lack of awareness and still away from getting treated.

The study also says that the metro cities and the Southern States got more number of e-addictions when compared to the other parts of the country. Andhra Pradesh ranks second in internet addiction next to Karnataka which stood first among the southern States in the country.Vijayawada city is on a high note of e-addictions. On an average every psychiatrist of the city attends nearly six to eight e-addiction cases in a day and over 125 cases are being registered on a day-to-day basis. Psychiatrists and neurologists are expressing their concern over the rise of internet addictions in the city.

The youth in the age group of between 14 and 30 years are getting more involved with virtual world and that is leading to e-addiction. Very few were getting treated for these disorders and there is no awareness in others. Parents were also not in a position to detect the symptoms and failing to get them treated in early stage. People with e-addiction tend to choose lonely life, isolated, depression and suffer from mental stress and disorders”, said Dr I Rama Subba Reddy, psychiatrist.

Many people of the city were going with unlimited data plans as they can browse and download various things without any restrictions. On an average around 200 new connections are being taken up by the customers in the city. The use of WiFi is also very high when compared to broadband connections. Almost 80-90 per cent of the connections exceed their FUP limit within 15 days of a month,” says a broadband agent on the condition of anonymity.

The elderly people of the city are accusing the State government for offering free WiFi at public places. The city has got free WiFi zones at MG Road, RTC Complex and railway station. Apart from these many food chains and other stores were also offering free WiFi to attract the customers. The youth of the city were spending more time at these WiFi zones and getting addicted to internet and other social networking sites.

Even parents are concerned over the addiction to the mobiles and computers. Naveen Kumar, a parent, said he is worried with the behaviour of his son saying that the young boy studying intermediate is getting frustrated over petty issues and expressing anger on parents and other family members when smart phone or system with net is not available. He is not able to control his anger when he was asked to get detached from smart phone. Even many youngsters are feeling humiliated when their parents don’t buy smart phones for them.

Internet addictions were not only affecting the personal life it also impacts the social life of the person. People tend to lose control over their mind and suffer from the loss of memory and concentration. The addicted should go though both psychiatric and neurotic treatments which enables them to revitalise their social abilities,” said Dr V Pramod, neurologist at GGH, Vijayawada.