I felt you threw a big bucket of cold water on the over use of electronic communications (facebook, tweeting, and social networking in general) in the Jan. 22 column by editor Bill Christianson.

And then a few days later, my new WIRED magazine arrived, with a cover article featuring Internet Addiction Camps in China. The article described a serious trend among Chinese youth, who spend long hours playing online games, such as World of Warcraft. The WIRED article also mentioned that a new Internet Addiction Treatment Center has opened in Fall City.

The center, called ReSTART, is somewhat ironically located near Redmond, headquarters of Microsoft and a world center of the computer industry.

It opened in July and for $14,000 offers a 45-day program intended to help people wean themselves from pathological computer use, which can include obsessive use of video games, texting, Facebook, eBay, Twitter and any other time-killers brought courtesy of technology.

Also, the WIRED article mentioned that Internet Addiction is now listed in the standard psychiatric book in China and the United States. The

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition, Text Revision, also known as /DSM-IV-TR is a manual published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) that includes all currently recognized mental health disorders.

So the next time you write an opinion piece on our digital world, consider the mental health issues associated with over use of eComm.

Richard Morris, Redmond