Facts
Online Shopping Addiction Is A Real Mental Health Condition, Experts Claim
One in 20 people suffer from Buying-Shopping Disorder!
Experts and psychotherapist are calling online shopping addiction as BSD, or Buying-Shopping Disorder. While the addiction has long been admitted, it’s not been considered as a serious mental health issue that affects one’s life majorly.
About 1 in 20 people are said to be affected by the disorder where people can’t stop themselves hoarding things from online shops and then drowning themselves in debt as well as losing self-control in other aspects.
Dr. Astrid Müller is a psychotherapist at Hannover Medical School in Germany who urges people to begin to recognize this symptom as a mental health condition. “It really is time to recognize BSD as a separate mental health condition and to accumulate further knowledge about BSD on the Internet,” says the doctor.
In a study with 122 participants published in Comprehensive Psychiatry who seek help with their online shopping addictions proved to have a higher rate of depression and anxiety. It is also affecting about 5% of the population, but is categorized as ‘other specified impulse control disorder’.
Dr. Müller wishes that the research can improve awareness of the prevalent condition and hope that this “will encourage future research addressing the distinct phenomenological characteristics, underlying features, associated comorbidity, and specific treatment concepts.”
