Spending too much time browsing the Web should be considered an extreme addictive disorder, according to one Israeli psychiatrist. The assertion comes from Dr. Pinhas Dannon at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University.

Internet addiction is considered an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder by the mental health establishment. Obsessive Compulsive Disorders are characterized by urges that cause an individual to have ritualistic thoughts and behavior, according to a United Press International report.

Dannon, however, believes Internet addiction crosses a line into even more dangerous territory.

“Internet addiction is not manifesting itself as an ‘urge,’” he said in a statement on Friday. “It’s more than that. It’s a deep ‘craving.’ And if we don’t make the change in the way we classify Internet addiction, we won’t be able to treat it in the proper way.”

Dannon says the malady should instead be classified alongside gambling, sex addiction, kleptomania and other extreme addictive disorders.

He says that 10 percent of Internet users have “Internet addiction disorder,” which can cause anxiety and severe depression, and those most at risk include teenagers and adults in their mid-50s who are lonely after their children leave the house.

A report in the International Journal of Neuropsychiatric Medicine in late 2006 described those who are afflicted with Internet addiction as spending 30 hours a week on non-essential Internet use.

More than one in eight American adults exhibit signs of Internet addiction including spending an inordinate amount of time on non-work-related Internet use, hiding use from a partner, and using the Web as a form of escape, according to the 2006 study.

For more on this subject, read “The Cyberspace Game of Life.”