excessive internet use among young people is making many lose control often with serious consequenceskolkatabased nina ray will not forget the morning when her son hit her she had refused to re store the internet connection that had fuelled his addiction it had transformed her shy teenager into a violent person she no longer recognised ishan had broken the tv his fathers laptop and even started hitting himself pricking his head with a safety pin or using a blade to slash his fingers all for the love of computer gamesishan was not usually given to angy outbursts it was only when he started playing computer games endlessly for 1012 hours a day that things spiralled out of control in class ix the rays got him a computer to reward him for his academic performance among the top three students in his class ishans day increasingly became about his online scores he gave up watching tv or talking to friends he even ate his meals at the computer table fearing a break might affect his score by 17 his behaviour had become rough and violentthe parents came to us in october 2016 at their wits end says dr manoj sharma additional professor at nimhans shut clinic service for healthy use of technology adding that this is not an isolated case it is a worrying sign when we started the clinic in 2014 there were one or two cases a week now we receive fivesix cases and some of them are cases of selfharm excessive internet use is seen as a behavioural addiction which means losing the ability to stop going online to the point where it impacts on other areas of your life including relationships emotions social life and school it has spread like a raging virus among teens and young adults across the world a recent uk study found that 373 of 15yearolds were extreme internet users spending at least six hours a day on the net nearly all of them were on social media studies have confirmed that extreme use of social media is linked to anxiety depression attention disorder and poor social skillsa 2013 india study on about 1000 adolescents in mumbai found that while 07 could be called addicts nearly a quarter 248 were possible addictsin india internet use above five hours is considered excessive says dr yatan balhara from the aiims internet deaddiction centre we have even seen cases where children have been online for 19 hours at a time but just the time spent online is not so alarming say doctors there is reason to worry if excessive use is accompanied by loss of control neglect of other activities and inability to stop despite the harm its causingamong the top net addictions are gaming social media and porn in that orderthe challenge is to recognise that theres a problem balhara says it is like addiction to heroin cocaine or alcohol the user gets a thrill and comes back for more but there is no