31-year-old Google Glass addict checks into rehab

Here's a first 'Internet addiction disorder'. A 31-year-old American has checked into the US Navy Substance Abuse Program for wearing his Google Glass for up to 18 hours a day, removing it only to wash and sleep. It isn't as though he escaped the addiction even then; the patient complained that he saw his dreams within the little grey window of the Glass.

Doctors in San Diego noted that the man had an almost "involuntary movement of the right hand up to his temple, tapping it with the forefinger", even when he did not have the wearable device on.

The unnamed navy serviceman began using Google Glass for his work, to do the inventory of work, to do the inventor convoy vehicles. Soon enough, he began using the device almost nonstop and realised that he would be irritable, argumentative and had extreme mood swings when he was not wearing the spectacles. The patient was admitted into a 35-day program to beat the addiction.

Doctors have pointed out that while there is nothing inherently bad about Google Glass, constant use can lead to a mental shift, especially in those people who are searching for ways to escape the real world into the virtual.

The debate is still out on whether "internet addiction" to smartphones, tablets and computers is actually a clinical disorder. It was omitted from the 2013 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, often called the psychiatrist's Bible.