Children, 12 and 13, treated for addiction to mobile phones

Two Spanish children are being treated for addiction to mobile phones, in what is thought to be first case of its kind in the country. The children, 12 and 13, were admitted to a mental health clinic by their parents because they could not carry out normal activities without their phones.

The children were failing at school and, behind their parents' backs, were deceiving relatives to try to get money to pay for the phone cards. Both spent an average of six hours a day on the phone, talking, texting or playing video games.

Dr Maite Utgès, director of the Child and Youth Mental Health Centre in Lleida, north-east Spain, where the children are being treated, said: "It is the first time we have used a specific treatment to cure a dependence on the mobile phone.

"They both showed disturbed behaviour and this exhibited itself in failure at school. They both had serious difficulties leading normal lives." She added: "When it reaches such a level of dependency it is not easy for children of this age to suddenly stop using the phone."

The children have been learning to live without their phones for the past three months, but Utgès, a child psychiatrist, said they might need at least a year of treatment to get them off the "drug".

Dr José Martìnez-Raga, an expert in addictions at a centre near Valencia, said the cases may be the "tip of the iceberg".