Web Junkies and internet addicts

Guests: Hilla Mealia, Patrick Markey, Marc Potenza

China is the first country to classify Internet addiction as a disease. The documentary “Web Junkie” follows Chinese teens in an Internet addiction treatment center airs tonight on PBS. In the film we watch young patients struggle through military-style drills and talk therapy. But how understood is Internet addiction in the United States? And what do we know about the health effects of screen overuse, especially on young minds? We start off the hour talking with the co-director of “Web Junkie,” HILLA MEDALIA. Then, MARC POTENZA, a professor of psychiatry, child study, and neurobiology at the Yale School of Medicine, and PATRICK MARKEY, professor of psychology and the director of the Interpersonal Research Laboratory at Villanova University.