The Corliss Group - TCG

The morning's topic glowed on a big screen: "Social Media Burn-out." Strange, but the 70 hash-tag junkies who attended the August breakfast for Kansas City's Social Media Club appeared mostly fit and happy. Joking, checking their phones, tweeting here and there, munching fruit and whole-grain bagels. They didn't look sick. Yet consider the terminology many therapists and researchers use to describe our tight embrace of new technologies: Internet addiction. Or IA, for short. Mental health experts debate the breadth and meaning of the term - if such a malady even exists. Some contend that excessive computer time leads to insufficient outdoor time, or "nature deficit disorder." The worst sufferers, perhaps, could benefit from digital detox, a getaway from the gadgets that can hook us. The American Psychiatric Association recently recommended further research into a condition it labeled Internet Gaming Disorder. In the latest version of the APA's diagnostic manual released in May, the group pointed to warning signs in Asia, where too much gaming has landed kids in hospitals. Can online, all the time, really make you ill? Try Googling "cyberpsychology." The verdict is split. One speaker at the burnout breakfast - Brooke Beason, who specializes in social media for an ad agency - recalled the withdrawal symptoms she experienced when giving up Facebook for Lent. For "40 days and 40 nights," Beason said, she fought the impulse to reach for her phone and post at all hours. "There were a couple of occurrences where I could feel my blood pressure rise," she told the crowd. But over time she felt a greater sense of self-control. Ramsey Mohsen spoke next. Director of social media at the digital marketing group DEG in Overland Park, Kan., Mohsen challenged the thinking that a well-wired geek must, on occasion, go cold turkey. His advice: Stay connected, but do not become a servant to gadgetry. "You control the technology - not the other way around," he insisted. Mohsen

A U.S.-style financial crisis brewing in China threatens to cut both private and public spending there, potentially tanking an economy that many American corporations dearly need to be healthy now. Without the grand economic growth China has provided in recent years, expect some version of the warning "lower due to a slowdown in China" to show up prominently in U.S. earnings reports this year. There are many likely sufferers. Rumblings about an economic slowdown in Chinese have been heard for months, fueled by signs of a nascent credit crunch as well as a real estate boom that's led to a massive amount of empty space. The warnings have taken on more authority in recent days as investors watched a drop in China's stock market help bring down U.S. stocks. For a fuller exploration of China's looming economic problems, see Jonathan Laing's excellent article in Barron's. Plenty of U.S. companies could miss growth targets if Chinese consumers cut back on their spending - an inevitability if an economic crises fully presents. The core component of Yum Brands YUM -1.46%' (YUM) growth plan is building more KFC's and Pizza Hut fast food joints in China, where it already operates some 4,200 restaurants. Apple AAPL -1.76% (AAPL), which got 15% of its sales from China last year, is planning on expanding its bigger market share there with a phone that costs more than those of competitors. Starbucks SBUX -1.96% (SBUX) is on course to have 1,000 stores in Mainland China. The Macau (China) operations for Wynn Resorts WYNN -1.28% (WYNN) contributed 72% of the casino company's total net revenue last quarter. General Motors GM -0.41% (GM) sells more vehicles in China than any other automaker, and investing in its joint ventures there is a key part of its growth strategy. You can use the YCharts Stock Screener to, say, track all the China-sensitive stocks mentioned in this article, or another list of stocks, and analyze their vulnerability in more depth. Worrie