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piqer for: Health and Sanity Global finds
I was born in 1987 in Bucharest. I studied Psychology and Educational Sciences at the University of Bucharest. For two years I worked in a psychotherapy practice, dealing with gambling addicts. I'm an independent reporter, writing and doing video reportages mostly about social and political issues. I am currently based in Jena.
A Glimpse Into The World Of Internet Addicts
My cousin got his first computer when he was about 12 years old. In post-communist Romania that was quite something. He had, in his younger years, already played lots of video games. He was a sickly boy, who mostly played indoors, so his parents gave their best so that he would have everything he wanted.
After they divorced, when he was seven years old, the efforts of providing him with everything intensified from my aunt’s and my grandfather’s side. When my cousin discovered computer games he was glued to the screen, and started developing the symptoms internet and gaming addicts show: not eating properly – he survived on Coca-Cola and pastries, missing school, not sleeping at night because of game marathons, not washing for days on end.
He somehow managed to pull himself together and finish high school and then embarked onto signing up for university. He chose one where he had to pay about 1000 euros per semester and where he only had to show up for exams. He signed up three times, each time paying the fees again, until he finally acknowledged that his gaming addiction was not going to let him finish and get a degree.
Luckily, his story has a happy ending. Without any professional help – there is no programme that addresses the growing game addiction and gambling addiction phenomena in Romania – he landed a job in a call center which he’s held on to for at least five years, he’s gotten promoted and he’s also got a stable girlfriend.
“It’s still early days for research. Cash says experts believe that between 1% and 13% of the US population have some level of internet addiction, and up to 20% of young adults.“There isn’t consistent criteria to measure this yet,” she says, nor is there agreement in psychiatry that one can be addicted to the internet. But Cash says research has “accumulated to the point where something called internet gaming disorder has made its way into the back section of the Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM), meaning it’s being considered for future possible inclusion.”
