In an article that was the cover story of the July 16 issue of Newsweek, NARSAD Grantee Peter C. Whybrow, M.D., Director of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California in Los Angeles, was quoted in the feature 'Is the Web Driving Us Mad?' The premise of the article is that the internet is making people “not only lonelier and dumber "but more depressed and anxious, prone to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and attention-deficit disorders and in rare instances even psychotic."

When the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) is released next year, “Internet Addiction Disorder” will be listed as a mental illness for the first time. Dr. Whybrow, an international authority on depression and bipolar disorder, has studied the effects of the thyroid hormone on the brain and human behavior. Dr. Whybrow is a NARSAD Distinguished Investigator Grantee and comments in the article that "the computer is like electronic cocaine” and notes that it fuels cycles of mania, a symptom of bipolar disorder, that are followed by depressive episodes.

Read The Newsweek Article 'Is The Web Driving Us Mad?'