At least someone didn't steal their penises.
There is a lot of that going around in other parts of the world.

Oh so the cure for this addiction is keeping them away from the object of their addiction. How novel.

With all the censorship and restrictions on the net over in China I don't see how you could get addicted.

@Garrison Dean, King Awesome: I know it may come as a shock to you, but there is a whole bunch of stuff on the Internet created by Chinese folks for Chinese folks, and just because they can't read our English-language crap doesn't mean they don't have fun reading their own stuff. Government censorship is very imperfect.

That looks like some sort of emergency room for cat lovers who were just too damn affectionate...

Look - you can even see one poor abused kitty's tail hanging down on the left.

@Annalee Newitz: WHAAA?!! No way they have as much porn.

@Garrison Dean, King Awesome: OK there is probably less porn. I'll grant you that. Unless they are using Tor!

@Annalee Newitz: That's so sad - a world without porn. Makes me proud to be an American where if I want to see Furries getting it on I just have to turn on my computer.

If a few hours a night is addiction, I'd hate to see what they diagnose me with.

Now the question is...will they become addicted to the treatment.

They actually remind me of the rat helmet from 1984 by Orwell.

I am waiting for the moment when they perfect a way to deprogram their populace from enjoying sex.

Tourism will plummet.

Q: Are we not women?
A: We are DEVO

@Annalee Newitz: There's stuff on the internet that's not io9? I find that hard to believe.

If loving Cute Overload is wrong, I don't wanna be right.

I wonder if this is 'government' controlled?

wink..wink..

thats a long time to catch that one. slow day?

Almost every type of mental illness is increasing. Addiction services are going to eat hundreds of billions in tax dollars. And now I'm going to go find an online support group that will help me with my sf addiction. I think it would help if I just had someone to talk to about this stuff, you know?

@BullfightsOnAcid:

oh gosh you're right. "Do it to Julia!!! Not me, Not me!"

Why is one of the helmets different? I mean, three of them look like they started life as laundry baskets, and the other one looks like a superdeformed welding mask, or maybe something made out of a beer keg.

@Jeff-Minor:

I would say; diagnoses of mental illnesses are increasing - partly due (probably) to better screening, partly due (certainly) to a need for more billable hours...

-Kle.

@Klebert L. Hall: That might be part of it. Although I do have a feeling that this emerging culture of ours might push a lot of people over the edge. We'll have to wait and see.

@Jeff-Minor:

I guess. It just seems to me that a lot of what gets diagnosed as mental illness these days, wouldn't have been called that in 1950.

For example, mild depression or anxiety would have resulted in a diagnosis of "that's life, get over it" and ADD would've resulted in a diagnosis of "pay attention, or you'll get the back of my hand".

Thus, these things weren't in the statistics back then. Add them all in, and you get a dramatic increase.
-Kle.

The quack klaxons are in full blare - they're really trying to get people addicted to these helmets before selling them as a new fashion trend. :p