Net can lead to addiction - study

Kimberly Young, a psychologist on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, presented Friday a study that labels excessive Internet use "pathological". The study, examining 396 people who spent 38 hours a week or more online, expands on a 1996 paper, which first put Young in the spotlight. In the paper, Young describes Internet addicts, who included mainly housewives, the disabled, retirees, and students, suffering symptoms similar to nicotine withdrawal when they attempted to quit the Net.