He said the Google Glass withdrawal was greater than the alcohol withdrawal he was experiencing.
— Dr. Andrew Doan, head of addictions and resilience research at the U.S. Navy s Substance Abuse and Recovery Program (SARP), on a patient thought to be the first treated for Google Glass addiction. Is addiction to technology really a thing? Some will say no despite the ongoing research in addiction to the Internet or to games, but Doan told the Guardian: People used to believe alcoholism wasn t a problem – they blamed the person or the people around them. It s just going to take a while for us to realize that this is real. The Guardian says the patient was a 31-year-old Navy serviceman who used Glass for taking inventory of convoy vehicles, and that eventually he suffered from involuntary movements (to his temple, as if turning on Glass), cravings, memory problems and dreaming as if he was wearing the glasses. When he was not wearing them he felt irritable and argumentative. After more than a month in SARP, the patient reported fewer problems, according to the article.
Photo: A visitor of the NEXT Berlin conference tries out Google Glass on April 24, 2013 in Berlin. (Ole Spata/AFP/Getty Images)
