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Parents have every right to be alarmed by the case of a 15-year-old Ontario boy, apparently hooked on an online game, who ran away from home and is now the subject of a national search. The problem of a pathological dependency on the Internet, or on gaming, has developed worldwide, and under the very noses of parents, who should not be judged as failures or lacking in some way. Just saying no to children's excessive computer use, as the old drug-war cliché had it, is no more successful a strategy than it is for any other vice.

The problem is more insidious in some ways than drugs or alcohol because society approves of the basic activity. Parents don't bring home a case of beer or a vial of cocaine for their children but they do buy the computers that their children use. Schools demand that students use computers for their homework assignments. And the myriad of constructive uses – research, social contact, even games – support the technological literacy that young people will need in the economy of the future.

The severity of the dependency seems similar to that engendered by drugs or alcohol. The parents of Brandon Crisp, the 15-year-old who ran away from home, would wake in the middle of the night to hear him speaking on his headset while playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Many times they had tried to enforce a cold-turkey withdrawal. “It has been a constant battle for the last two years,” his mother said. Jerald Block, a U.S. psychiatrist, wrote in the American Journal of Psychiatry that Internet addiction “is resistant to treatment, entails significant risks and has high relapse rates.” Social isolation, school failure, anger, lying, stealing of parents' credit cards – these are some of the effects of the addiction. Dr. Block wants the disorder included in the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

The extreme manifestations of Internet addiction in Asia reveal how all-consuming the problem can become if left unchecked. In South Korea, 10 people have sat so long in Internet cafés they died of blood clotting, and there was a gaming-related murder. Internet or gaming dependency is now seen as a major public-health issue; prevention programs are being put into schools, and many addicts have been hospitalized or prescribed psychotropic drugs. A good sign is that it is beginning to be taken seriously in this country. Well-known hospitals such as the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto have set up treatment programs.

Recognition that the problem exists is the first step in combatting it. There are simple do's and don'ts – do keep computers in open areas, not in bedrooms – but the problem can hide in plain sight, too. Children will deny they have a problem, but parents need to be hardheaded: Some children are simply overmatched by the computer's pull. They need to catch excessive use before it veers into dependency, and if dependency occurs they need to be aware of the seriousness, and to seek treatment.