Internet Addicts As Ill As Alcoholics?

suntac writes to mention an article on New Scientist, reporting on a Stanford study of internet addiction. The study finds that the U.S. is 'rife' with internet addicts, who may be as addicted as alcoholics to their sweet sweet net connection. From the article: "Nearly 14% of respondents said they found it difficult to stay away from the internet for several days and 12% admitted that they often remain online longer than expected. More than 8% of those surveyed said they hid internet use from family, friends and employers, and the same percentage confessed to going online to flee from real-world problems. Approximately 6% also said their personal relationships had suffered as a result of excessive internet usage. 'Potential markers of problematic internet use are present in a sizeable portion of the population,' the researchers note." While obviously allowing relationships to suffer so you can surf eBay is a problem, where is the line between relying on the internet for news and information and addiction?

addicted?

i sure hope i'm first post!

Where's the line?

Somewhere a few miles behind me, I'd wager.

Re:Where's the line?

Would everybody quit adding new material so I can get back to work?

The meta-article:

The psychiatric community could be rife with "excuse addicts" who are as clinically ill as alcoholics, according to psychiatrists involved in a nationwide study.
The study, carried out by researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine in California, US, indicates that more than one in eight US shrinks show signs of "problematic blame shifting".
The Stanford researchers interviewed X shrinks in a nationwide survey. Because excuse addiction is not a clinically defined medical condition, the questions used were based on analysis of other blame-oriented disorders.
Most disturbing, according to the study's lead author Elmo Thorkmorton, is the discovery that some shrinks hide their blame-gaming, or go online to cure foul moods - behaviour that mirrors the way alcoholics behave.
"In a sense, they're using the blame to self-medicate," Thorkmorton says. "And, obviously, something is wrong when people go out of their way to hide their blamesmanship."

Never seen before, apparently

While obviously allowing relationships to suffer so you can surf eBay is a problem, where is the line between relying on the internet for news and information and addiction?

My grandfather attributes his 60 year long marriage to spending all evening when he got home from work (and in his retirement, all day) hiding behind a newspaper smoking a pipe.

At least these days your wife can IM you to grab your attention when it's time for dinner.... oh, hang on, it's time for dinner. Catch you all later!

Re:Never seen before, apparently

My grandfather attributes his 60 year long marriage to spending all evening when he got home from work (and in his retirement, all day) hiding behind a newspaper smoking a pipe.

Gramps neglected to tell you that wasn't tobacco in that pipe...

Re:Never seen before, apparently

Maybe he could attribute his marriage's longevity to marrying a woman willing to tolerate someone who spends all his time hiding behind a newspaper smoking a pipe. ;)

III?

Internet Addicts As 3 As Alcoholics?

Methinks I need a new font.

Re:III?

That or /. Finally Stop Using Capitalization of First Letters.

Re:III?

I thought it was a new movie coming out

Oh teh Noes!

So what if you're an alcoholic and internet addicted? Does that mean you have like 12% less freinds? I'm not asking for myself personally, but I have this friend...

No such thing as...

I'm getting pretty sick of all the "Addicted to [insert something here]" articles on Slashdot. As far as I'm concerned they are all dupes of some type or another.

NEWSFLASH TO STORY SUBMITTERS AND EDITORS:

There is no such thing as addicted to the internet, or a video game, or anything except for a chemically addictive substance. There are only addicts. These people have an addictive personality and will be addicted to anything to pass the time. There are no addictions, just addicts. Unless it has something to do with a chemically addictive substance, please stop posting these inane flame bait articles.

I have an idea for a Slashdot post: Slashdot Submitters & Editors Addicted to Posting Pseudo Addiction Stories

Food Addiction

Nearly 14% of respondents said they found it difficult to stay away from food for several days and 12% admitted that they often eat more than expected. More than 8% of those surveyed said they hid snacks from family, friends and employers, and the same percentage confessed to eating to forget real-world problems. Approximately 6% also said their personal relationships had suffered as a result of excessive weight gain. 'Potential markers of problematic eating are present in a sizeable portion of the population,' the researchers note.

worse problems

In a recent survey 100% of respondents said they felt they couldn't enjoy life without breathing at least some oxygen every day. Cheap and widely available, but dangerously chemically reactive, oxygen is a substance known to produce a pleasant feeling of euphoria in the brain and a sense of 'energy' in the body when inhaled. However, users experience severely unpleasant withdrawal symptoms when use is terminated.

Over 80% of survey respondents also reported a psychological and almost physical need to 'do' more of the substance when under stress. Nearly all respondents expressed great anger at and rejected any suggestion that they consider quitting or cutting back on their use, and some threatened to become physically violent if any attempt was made to reduce their access.

Television Addicts

So where are the reports for people who can't do without the Tee Vee?

Oh wait, right here [sciam.com].

Could it be that people are addicted to inactivity itself? I dunno, just a thought. Are there book addicts? If so, is it regarded as a problem?

What's wrong non-essential Internet use?

The article seems to say that non-essential Internet use is bad.

My goal is to spend as much time as possible doing non-essential things. It's called relaxing, and is a fine alternative to working.

Moo

Is it an addiction, or is it where people want to be?

Alcohol has a similar case. Some people are addicted, in that a lack of alcohol, and the body wants more and more of it. Other people simple enjoy the stupor and dullness to the pains of life. While both cases may have a physical addiction, addressing these cases are different. The first is more physical, the second psycological.

Internet addiction can also be broken up similarly. Some addiction are activities that the Internet allow for. Buying things, purient interests, gambling, or rather, actions that can be done in the real world--and indeed are--but the Internet makes it easier. These people are not addicted to the Internet. They are addicted to activities, and the Internet just made it easier, convenient, or maybe just plain possible.

However, there is a second form of Internet addiction. That is gaming (as in WoW), socializing, garnering information, blogging, etc.. The main point here is not always the activities, rather it is created a second world, perhaps even a form of Avoidance Behavior. (This can be broken down further as to whether Internet usage is the cause or the affect.)

Even then, Extraverts who spend their time on the Internet probably have a problem. Introvets, not as much. They like being alone, and grow by being alone. Excessive Internet usage may be one-sidedness, not an addiction.

Overall, usage of the Internet is not an indicator of addiction. Personality and intent are. And even then, i would wonder what the real dangers were.

The Line

Where your bank account goes from black to red.

Here's a different scenario. Over 90% of the adult population is addicted to work. Why? They do it every day. They have to do it every day. If they don't do it every day, it becomes a problem. Questions are asked, finances are in jeopardy, relationships are endangered.

Kinda fucked up, isn't it? Why isn't work an "addiction"? It keeps the bank account in the black and the population as a whole in a constrained environment with significantly limited freedoms (by narrowly defining what you can do and requiring you to invest most of your time and energy in it). But you just watch people come unglued if they unplug from work. Yep.

There's your line.

Vice != Addiction

I get tired of every bad habit or vice being called an addiction. If you've ever experienced a true addiction involving a chemical with a biological component you understand the difference between an addiction and a bad habit.

You might feel uncomfortable when you try to change a bad habit. You might even fail to change it, deciding instead it's easier to indulge your vice than to change.

An addiction is a totally different animal. When you kick heroin or cocaine or alcohol you become physically sick. Not just emotionally uncomfortable, but physically ill: sweats, vomiting, dizziness, blood pressure fluctuations, etc, etc. When you are addicted you are physically compelled to seek out your chemical. Every waking moment is dedicated to procuring your next fix. You look for it like you look for your next breath. It's hard to convey, but try to imagine giving up breathing.

All your willpower to quit and all your effort to clean up can be at your disposal, you tell yourself, "No, not ever again," even as you reach for the needle. You weep as you consciously choose a chemical over family, job, home, self-respect, everything.

Yeah, if I try to give up coffee I might be uncomfortable for a few days. If I stop playing video games I might miss it for a while. But I won't throw up and have cold sweats for three days. Video games and internet and such can't be addictions, not without some serious pre-existing personality disorder.

Based on this study ... other addictions

"Nearly 14% of respondents said they found it difficult to stay away from the internet for several days"

Based on this same logic, we'd almost all be addicted to: driving, eating, refrigerators, using the toilet, showering, sleeping, and drinking. Sounds like we have a national epidemic brewing. If we can't figure out a way to get the 95% of the people who can't use the toilet for more than a few days outside doing something more productive, we may fall behind the rest of the industrialized world in technological and sociological accomplishments.

OK, on a more serious note, I think the article fails to drill down to the heart of the addiction - porn and games. The 6% of respondants who said the internet ruins their relationships are likely staring at photoshop enhanced boobies or playing WOW for 16 hours a day ... not clicking refresh every 5 minutes on the CNN homepage (although I'm sure those people exist too). I don't feel like the internet itself is an addiction, but rather a easy medium for addicts to gain access to their vice.

Just Imagine

What if you're an Internet addicted alcoholic?

I'll admit it quite openly

If my net connection goes for more than probably four hours, I psychologically cease to function more or less entirely. Although that said, it still didn't stop me getting into a long term relationship, and although my girlfriend is a heavy net user herself, we still eat and do various other things together.

There are reasons why my life is so net-centric, though:-

• Before I first started using the net in around 1994, my life was pretty much completely devoid of purpose. I'd dropped out of school a year earlier with a ninth grade education, and at the time felt like a social outcast, though later realised that I hadn't been anywhere near as much as I'd thought. Once I got online, I started learning about Web development, Linux, and IRC scripting...Unlike at school, where I'd felt like a constant failure, (my marks were consistently terrible) I was finding things that I could actually feel that I was good at. The education system isn't designed to actually benefit people...it's primarily designed to psychospiritually break children so that as adults they become subservient to the society that exists at the time. Any genuine education that you might happen to get during that process is entirely incidental.
  
  
• For reasons I don't understand, with the sole exception of my girlfriend, pretty much every offline friend I've had has at one point or another stabbed me in the back, and that's included genetic family members. My father booted me out of home completely without warning, and one of my cousins stole from me incessantly. Communicating with people online means that while I get some form of socialisation, people aren't able to get close enough to me to be able to harm me...which I've found that tragically, they inevitably do if they are allowed to get close enough.
  
  
• Offline contemporary reality, to put it simply, just isn't very nice. Australia, England, and America currently all have fascist governments to varying degrees...liberalism and the health of democracy in these countries is at an all time low. Our leaders are absolute monsters, and it doesn't matter how much we complain or protest about the way they are treating us and other people...they don't care. The environment is in the toilet...A cousin of mine got back from visiting China not long ago and said she'd found out that there are no birds in Beijing because the air pollution is so bad...Makes me wonder what that's doing to the humans that are living there. We also can't travel anywhere unless we find the idea of being killed by some nutcase vainly trying to protest our governments appealing, who probably actually feels fairly similarly towards our governments to the way we ourselves do, truth be told.
  
  I realise that in light of that, simply advocating moving online in a wholesale sense might sound like the proverbial ostrich maneuvre...but if I knew of something I actually *could* do to change the political situation, I'd possibly do it...there just doesn't seem to be anything that can be done. I actually feel as though the only thing I really can do about the offline situation is to keep my head down as much as possible...and the net means I can at least construct some semblance of a life for myself while I'm doing that.

"Comparable" my ass

Someone close to me is an alcoholic, and now that their sober, probably spends as much time on the web as they did drinking.

Substitute the Internet for alcohol? Probably.

Internet as damaging as alcohol? Are the effin nuts?

There's addiction, and then there's addiction. The medical establishment trying to make all addictions equally bad is a ploy to scare up more patients.

internet addict, or workaholic?

only 6% said their personal relationships had suffered as a result of excessive internet usage?

So if internet-related tasks are part of your job, what's the difference between being an "internet addict" and a workaholic?

Re:only 6% ? let me just ask my friends

only 6% said their personal relationships had suffered as a result of excessive internet usage? I am surprised it is not much, MUCH higher. I know it certainly is in my circle of friends and people I know.

I tried to ask all my friends, but when I emailed them and posted it on my web journal, they all said I'm not addicted to it.

What gets me is that out of 20 friends, only one of them didn't reply within 30 seconds to my email ... he must be in the bathroom.