Doctors at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego are attending to a 31-year-old man who has been admitted under the U.S. Navy's Substance Abuse Rehabilitation Program (SARP) since summer for alcoholism treatment. At first, the doctors thought that the withdrawal symptoms exhibited by the patient were purely related to alcohol.
Eventually, they learned that the man was also finding difficulty in adjusting to the situation because of his withdrawal from Google Glass.
According to the patient, whose identity is left anonymous, he would wear the Glass for up to 18 hours each day and would take it off only when he would go to sleep or bathe. The man admitted that the withdrawal symptoms that he gets from the Glass were "much worse" than the ones that he gets from alcohol.
The patient said that he would feel irritable and argumentative when he is not wearing the Glass. He even recalled those times when he was having a dream and could see the dream through the Glass.
"The patient exhibited a notable, nearly involuntary movement of the right hand up to his temple area and tapping it with his forefinger," said the doctors who wrote their report in the Addictive Behaviors journal. "He reported that if he had been prevented from wearing the device while at work, he would become extremely irritable and argumentative."
The doctors noted that when they would ask the man a question, he would display an involuntary movement of tapping the right side of his face using his index finger, similar to how one would turn on the Glass.
The man had successfully completed the 35-day program and follows it up with getting outpatient treatment. During the program, he had shown a notable reduction in behaving irritably, a reduction in exhibiting movements similar to turning on the Glass, improved clarity in processing thoughts and short-term memory improvements.
The man's case is the first reported incident of IAD that involves the troublesome use of Google Glass. It rivals prior cases of individuals who are addicted to PC, online video game and mobile device use.
Dr. Andrew Doan, head of addictions and resilience research at the Navy's SARP and co-author of the paper, says that using Google Glass is not bad in itself.
"It's just that there is very little time between these rushes" says Doan.
Currently, the latest version of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders from the American Psychiatric Association does not include "Internet addiction" in its entries.
However, Doan believes that it actually poses a real malady. As connected devices increase in usage, he expects that more cases of technology-related behavioral disorders would occur. One disorder that everyone should be watchful of is "nomophobia," or simply "no mobile phone" phobia.
