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Psychologists have warned that hypochondria among healthy patients is reaching new levels due to the growing use of the Internet. Researchers have uncovered that millions of Britons choose to seek answers online rather than visit their doctors, an act that could lead to misdiagnosis and potentially pose a risk to health.

A study conducted by Dr Thomas Fergus (of Baylor University in Waco, Texas) surveyed 512 healthy people to analyse how using the Internet in this way affected their anxiety. Dr Fergus says through his study he found that fearing a disease or illness, unfounded or not, can trigger worries about job loss, medical bills and disability. All of these anxieties can then lead to even more searching on the Internet, causing potentially unnecessary distress.

He adds that cyberchondria can be a more harmful than the traditional version of hypochondria as there is so much information on the Internet, not all of which is accurate. These medical looking sites then...

Researchers from the University of Michigan say the longer people spend browsing on the social networking site, the worse they feel and the lower they rate their life satisfaction.

More than a billion people are signed up to Facebook and over half of those log in to check their accounts every day. With such widespread and frequent usage, there are understandably increasing concerns about what Facebook is doing to people’s mental health and quality of life.

The latest U.S study is one of many looking at the psychological consequences of social networking. It involved tracking participants for two weeks to monitor their feelings in relation to their Facebook usage.

Five times a day participants were texted links to surveys which asked them how they felt, how worried they were, how lonely they felt and how much they had used Facebook...

Last week the Telegraph published an article about a four-year-old ‘iPad addict’ who developed an obsession with the device after using it for up to four hours a day. The little girl’s mother said she would beg constantly to use it and show distress and agitation if the device was taken away from her.

Dr. Richard Graham, who treated the young girl, believes that the more parents allow children to use tablet devices, the more common this kind of addiction will become and the more serious the outcome will be for society in general. He also claims to have developed the world’s first technology addiction programme for young children.

“Children have access to the internet almost from birth now,” he told journalists. “They see their parents playing on their mobile devices...

Other problems associated with sitting still using technology for long periods of time include diabetes, stroke and heart disease.

Psychologists predict that by the time a child born today reaches the age of seven, he or she will have spent a whole year glued to their parents’ laptops, phones and television screens.

Dr Aric Sigman has warned of the detrimental effects of ‘screen-time’ on cognitive development in children. Watching a screen for long periods of time is thought to increase the risk of mental health problems such as addiction and depression. The American Academy of Pediatrics found that when young people spent too much time on...

The results come from a 2010 government survey investigating the effects of Internet use on the South Korean population.

Although developed nations, including the U.S and UK, are rushing to catch up with South Korea’s advanced technology, experts question whether being constantly connected to our gadgets is really such a good thing after all.

Internet and gaming addiction are not currently listed in the official Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the generally accepted manual for all medically accepted mental health disorders.

The American Psychiatric Association has revealed that the next DSM revision will include ‘Internet Use Disorder’ as an area warranting further...

The experts based in China conducted brain scans of 17 young internet addicts and found that some significant changes occurred in their white matter.

White matter is the area of the brain that contains nerve fibers. According to the results, the scans which were taken indicated that there was evidence of disruption to connections in nerve fibres involved in decision-making, control and emotions.

Writing in Plos One, expert Dr Hao Lei said: “Overall, our findings indicate that IAD has abnormal white matter integrity in brain regions involving emotional generation and processing, executive attention, decision making and cognitive control.”

He went on to say that the results also suggest that web addiction may share certain psychological...

The study, which was conducted at Queen’s University in Canada, has found that young adults who racked up the most hours spent logged onto their computers were 50 per cent more likely to be involved in six ‘multi-risk behaviours’.

The behaviours included having unprotected sex, not wearing a seat belt, cannabis and illegal drug use, smoking and drunkenness.

Study author Valerie Carson commented that the research is based upon the social cognitive theory, which suggests that seeing people engage in risky behaviour is actually a way of learning it.

‘Since adolescents are exposed to considerable screen time – over 4.5 hours on average each day – they’re constantly seeing images of behaviours they can then potentially adopt.’ She said.

Carson believes that one of the...