Priory Hospital to treat text-message addicts

More people are becoming addicted to text-messaging as a way of escaping problems with face-to-face relationships, specialists said yesterday.

The Priory Hospital in Roehampton, south-west London, famous for treating celebrities with alcohol and drug problems, has widened its range of treatment programmes to deal with increasingly complicated addictions. Dr Mark Collins, head of the Priory's addictions unit, said text addicts were just one example of how addiction patterns had changed in recent years.

The increased role of mobile phones and internet technology in our ever more stressful lives has bred a range of new behavioural addictions.

"The main thing is about avoiding reality and living in an artificial reality," he said.