Louise Nadeau, from Universite de Montreal's Department of Psychology,is now investigating this newly found compulsive affliction

Louise Nadeau, from Universite de Montreal's Department of Psychology,is now investigating this newly found compulsive affliction, in which large number of people are continuously hooked on to the Internet for hours. new finding will make mental health professionals face a new affliction, besides compulsive gambling or even the 'age-old' smoking and drug addiction. "The problem isn't widespread but we know of serious cases in which teenagers don't leave the house, don't have interpersonal relationships, and have been isolated in front of their computer screen for the past two or three years, and only speak in the language of the characters they play with in network video games," said Louise Nadeau, a professor at the Université de Montréal's Department of Psychology. He added: "In a few years we'll have couples in therapy because the Internet will have become their main occupation." Nadeau is director of the new university institute on addiction that conducts epidemiological studies on addiction, evaluate the services available to patients, guarantee state-of-the-art practices, and document new forms of addiction.