The neglected baby is crying alone. The young man, suffering from a lack of sleep, threatens suicide. The marriage fails because of the husband’s crazy behavior.

Is this just another story of social breakdown in the modern age? Not really. But they are the effects of a real social problem—Internet Addiction, or, Internet Addiction Disorder.

The addiction is obvious from the popularity of one game alone: “Halo 2”. It’s a first-person shooter developed by Bungie Studios for the Xbox video game console. By early 2005, 1 million players worldwide had clocked up an amazing 100 million hours on the game, among which are 360,000 Chinese players.

China has about 94 million regular Internet users. Of these, a survey suggested, 4.4 million are teenagers who are so addicted to it that they neglect anything else.

Video gamers who have gone too far show symptoms similar to those of alcohol and drug abusers. “The real world meant nothing to me when I was fully involved in online games. I lost track of time, space, hunger, pain, and everything,” explained Liu Pinyi, a 19-year-old college dropout. She has had treatment in Beijing for her addiction.

What makes it similar to drugs is that online game addicts also develop a chemical imbalance in their brains. Gaming stimulates the production of a chemical compound that produces delighted or pleasant feelings. When they’re away from the screen, they suffer feelings of anxiety and headaches.

Experts say young people are attracted to video games partly because they are partly because they are pushed right into the center of the action. This allows them to overcome a lack of confidence which people at that age can often suffer from.