Ask Stanford Med about Internet addiction

To further explore how excessive Internet use may be harmful to our health, the SCOPE blog asked ELIAS ABOUJAOUDE, director of the Impulse Control Disorders Clinic and the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Clinic at Stanford Medical School, to respond to your questions on the topic for this month’s Ask Stanford Med.

Aboujaoude’s work focuses on obsessive compulsive disorders and behavioral addictions, including problematic Internet use. He was lead author of a 2006 paper that laid the groundwork to determine if compulsive online activity warranted a medical diagnosis. In his latest book, Virtually You: The Dangerous Powers of the E-Personality, Aboujaoude explores how our online traits are unconsciously being imported into our offline lives.

Questions can be submitted to Aboujaoude by either sending a tweet that includes the hashtag #AskSUMed or posting your question in the comments section of the original post. The SCOPE blog will collect questions until Tuesday, Aug. 14, at 5 p.m.

For more information about Aboujaoude’s work and the ground rules for posting questions, visit LIA STEAKLEY’s SCOPE blog post.