Teens who love the Internet hurt themselves

Teens in China who are addicted to the Internet are more likely to harm themselves, a new study has found. Australian and Chinese researchers did a survey of more than 1,600 teens aged 13 to 18 in the Guangdong Province of China. They found that ten per cent of teens there are a bit addicted to the Internet and 0.6 per cent of teens are very addicted. They also found that teens who are addicted to the Internet are almost five times more likely than other teens to pull their own hair, hit, pinch and even burn themselves.

The researchers found that the addicted teens often have problems like nervousness and depression but feel better when they are online. “Many studies have reported associations between Internet addiction, psychiatric symptoms and depression among teens," they say. Experts have considered Internet addiction a mental-health problem since the mid 1990s.