Surfing Net can be `intoxicating'

Rome - An Italian who had spent the greater part of three days in front of a computer screen surfing the Internet is in hospital…

Rome - An Italian who had spent the greater part of three days in front of a computer screen surfing the Internet is in hospital with hallucinations, La Repubblica newspaper reported yesterday.

The man, suffering from delirium and mental confusion, is being treated for "acute Internet intoxication". Psychiatrist Dr Tonino Cantelmi believes several hundred people had overdosed on the Net in Rome alone.