And then there is China. The Chinese government is worried enough to have forced game manufacturers to build disincentives into their games – features to discourage three or more hours of play. Although their data probably overestimates the problem, Chinese researchers have estimated that an astounding 13.9 per cent of their adolescents - some 10m people - have internet addiction. At an international conference in 2007, Tao Ran, the Director of Addiction Treatment at Beijing’s main military hospital, stated that computer games are “making our children stay up all night, sleep all day, and lazy”. Parenthetically, he added: “They are becoming like Americans.”

While enjoying his ability to needle the international audience, he was clearly angered over one game, World of Warcraft. This particular game is a worldwide phenomenon with more than 10m monthly subscribers – more than the population of Ireland and Scotland combined. The researcher, a high official, stated his belief that introducing the game to China represented “the second imperialist invasion of China by the United States”. Never mind that the game is made by a French company.

Internet addiction, or the more accurate and general term Pathological Computer Use (PCU), is not an established diagnosis but one that might be included in the next version of the mental-health diagnostic guidebook, the DSM-V. The manual is due out in 2012 and will define the landscape of mental-health diagnoses for the next several decades. If PCU is real, it is important that it be included in the book. The disorders that get listed get taught and researched.