Net loss: Time to beat the bingewatching habit
Offset the imbalance that addiction to technology has introduced into your life
Last week, the Service for Healthy Use of Technology (SHUT) clinic at the Bengaluru-based National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (Nimhans), received its first case of addiction to the streaming service, Netflix. A 26-yearold unemployed man approached them, saying he had begun to spend more than seven hours every day watching shows and movies . Manoj Kumar Sharma, a professor of clinical psychology, Nimhans, who heads the SHUT clinic, says the number of people approaching them to fight mental ailments which can be traced back to the Internet is on the rise. Those addicted to online gaming form a chunk of these.
When they set up the clinic — it specialises in treating technology-related medical conditions — in 2014, they received two cases a week. This year, the number of gaming addiction complaints has risen to eight a week. In June this year, the World Health Organization added gaming disorder to its compendium of International Classification of Diseases.
Streaming services, in which a show’s entire season can be viewed on any device at one go, raise viewers’ vulnerability to binge watching. People tend to stimulate the reward centre of the brain when they get to know what is happening next in their favourite show, say psychiatrists. This releases chemicals that trigger a mix of satiety and pleasure. The treatment modalities to fight addiction to gaming and streaming platforms run on similar lines. In the case of the streaming platforms addict, the doctors at Nimhans are deploying a mix of therapy and inducing behavioural changes which could wean him away from his addiction. Delhi-based psychiatrist, Samir Parekh, director of mental health and behavioural sciences, Fortis Healthcare, prescribes reserving four hours of screen-free time once a week to those addicted to the Net. The bottom line is to offset the imbalance that addiction to gadgets has introduced into their routines.