就在專家們開始組織編排下一版《心理疾病的診斷統計手冊》的時候，有關是否把網癮包括在最新的心理疾病中來的爭論也已經開始了。

    Internet Addiction?

    A quiet restaurant. Good wine. An animated conversation. Then, mid-sentence, you catch him steal a quick sideways downward glance at his BlackBerry. And the nickname CrackBerry comes to mind. You might think: for some, the Internet is an addiction.

    Well as psychology experts ramp up to publish the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a debate has begun on whether to include Internet addiction in the next big book of mental illness. This month the Canadian Medical Association Journal published an article weighing both sides.

    Kimberly Young, director of The Center for Internet Addiction, says that while it might not be a well-defined illness, those who spend excessive amounts of time online suffer the same issues as other addicts, including lost jobs, broken marriages, or financial problems. Young says if it's the cause of major issues in your life, then you have a problem.

    But Vaughan Bell, at the department of neuroscience at King's College London, says that the Internet is not an activity and so can't be an addiction. He acknowledges that people can spend excessive time online, perhaps as an escape from depressionor anxiety, but to label the use of the Web as the central problem or an addiction does a disservice. His concern is that the focus needs to be on the real illness, not on the "medium of communication."

    Of course, maybe some thought needs to be turned the many different activities one can do on the Web. Pornography and gambling, for instance, are well-known addictions.

    In any event both Young and Bell admit that research on Internet addiction is limited and inconsistent, so far. And for that reason Bell says it will be tough to support its addition to the list of new afflictions.

    網癮是病嗎？

    在一個安靜餐館里，你和朋友喝著上好的葡萄酒，交談也非常投機。說話之中，你發現他悄悄地瞟了一眼他的黑莓手機（BlackBerry）.這讓你想起了一 個昵稱"CrackBerry"（Crack有"毒品"的意思，CrackBerry 指用黑莓手機上癮的人）.你可能會想：對某些人來說，上網是一種癮。

    就在心理學家們緊鑼密鼓準備出版下一版《心理疾病的診斷統計手冊》的時候，有關是否把網癮包括到心理疾病來的爭論也已經開始了。本月發表在《加拿大醫學會 雜志》（Canadian Medical Association Journal ）上的一篇文章對這個問題的正反兩個方面都進行了討論。

    Kimberly Young是網癮研究中心（The Center for Internet Addiction）的主任，他說雖然網癮可能還不是一種界定清晰的疾病，但是那些在網絡上消耗大量時間的人與其他的"癮君子"受到同樣問題的折磨，這些 問題包括失業、婚姻破裂、或是經濟問題。Young說如果網癮是你生活種主要問題產生的原因的話，那么你肯定有問題。

    不過來自倫敦國王學院（King's College London）神經科學系的Vaughan Bell說，網絡不是一項活動，因此不能成為一種癮。他承認，或許作為一種抑郁性焦慮的逃避，人們可能會在網絡上花過多的時間，但是把使用網絡認定為"主 要問題"或者是一種"癮",這會帶來損害。他關心的問題是，人們應該把焦點放在真正的疾病上，而不是放在"交流的媒介"上。

    當然，或許有些人認為，我們能在網上做的許多不同活動需要改變。比如，觀看淫穢作品和賭博是眾所周知的上癮行為。

    不管怎樣，Young和Bell都承認，到目前為止有關網癮的研究還很有限，而且結論也不一致。鑒于此，Bell說，支持把網癮加入到新的心理疾病名單將會很困難。

    Vocabulary:

    Diagnostic:診斷的

    Statistical:統計的

    Disorder:紊亂；疾病

    Addiction:上癮

    Affliction:折磨；痛苦

    Psychology:心理學

    Ramp up:加強；增加

    Well-defined:定義明確的

    Excessive:過度的

    Neuroscience:神經科學

    Depressionor: 抑郁的

    Anxiety:焦慮

    Disservice:損害；傷害

    Pornography:淫穢作品

    Inconsistent:不一致的