Slashdot Mirror
Computer Addiction or Just Modern Life?
Ant writes to tell us that ABC News has an interesting look at computer addiction and what it might take to be considered addicted in today's society. From the article: "Video games and the Internet have been subject to suspicion since the computer became a household fixture. One complaint: People get sucked into spending enormous amounts of time on the computer, to the detriment of other parts of their life. But are they addicted? The answer depends on what you mean by 'addicted.' Most experts say computers are not addictive in the same sense that drugs are, but they could be on the same level as gambling."
Take over Bos'n!
problem? problem? i don't have a problem...its valentine's day and i got first post, do you think i have a problem?
time is a perception of a being's consciousness
time is your 6th sense, the wierd ones are 7+
There's no link?
Scorta futuere amo!
Note that I am posting this on Valentines day, at 10:30PM instead of spending time with the girlfriend.
Am I addicted? Not in the traditional sense of the word, of course.
Addiction is not necessarily bad.
Just as TV, radio, or telephone.
Is it necessary for survival? Only if the environment forces you to it. The current environment is technologically-driven, so you need to stay connected to have a social life, student life, work life, etc.
The real problem is about people whose life is so miserable that to escape from the world, they use the internet. THEN it becomes an addiction, but I'd say that's the least of their problems.
if it's not "Action News", it's not worth my time.
Someone should do a study into Slash-addiction.
Computers, games, Internet, chat, whatever can be addicting. You can tell because people will do something unproductive to the point of harming themselves. What's unproductivity you ask? Doing something that doesn't endear you to other human beings, and produces no tangible result that you can talk proudly about later with your grandchildren.
Grandchildren are what you have after you find a mate, have children, and raise them well enough that they too have children. I tell you this, because you're a Slashdotter like me, and quite possibly haven't considered the possibility that you can spend enough time away from the keyboard to actually find a mate. It's possible, since married Slashdotters post all the time, and even our great leader (1) Taco is married and proposed on Slashdot. Being Valentine's Day, it's the perfect time to wallow in your single-ness, and motivate yourself to do something tomorrow that will introduce yourself to new people and potentially a mate.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Here's the article: Computer Addiction? Nah, Probably Just Modern Life
How much time do you use your web browser/chat client/im app versus how much time you use other programs like graphics applications or word processors.
Let's see...
Automobile addiction, or just modern life?
Telephone addiction, or just modern life?
Newspaper addiction, or just modern life?
Machine addiction, or just modern life?
Agriculture addiction, or just modern life?
Clothes addiction, or just modern life?
Fire addiction, or just modern life?
Pointy stick addiction, or just modern life?
Hmmmm...
I've used shoes for so long that I'm not sure how well I could live without them. Shaking this addiction would probably cause me physical harm. If I hadn't started using them so much, I probably wouldn't need them so much now.
I'm also psychologically addicted to toothpaste. Even though my body doesn't require it to survive, I don't think I could ever convince myself to stop using it without great pressure.
Computers are a tool, folks. They're used so much because they're a tool for a very wide variety of things. Imagine how much you'd use a car that did fifty other things for you.
I absolutely recognize that it is detrimental to the rest of my life -- I do neglect things that are arguably more important. And I get frustrated sometimes, and seriously consider yanking the cord right out of the wall and throwing the computer in the closet for a few weeks.
It may not be a classic addiction in the physical sense, but I could see it being similar to something like a gambling addiction, as mentioned. I know that I'll sit down at the computer frequently, even when I know there is nothing new to see, because I just looked a few minutes earlier ;). And yet I will do a little surfing anyway.
And that is why I am typing this on Valentine's Day, instead of being out with my non-existent girlfriend.
If someone spends hours and hours and hours a day online, they're "addicted".
If someone spends hours and hours and hours a day watching television, they're just normal Americans.
Does ABC NEWS (you know, the television channel) make note of this odd double standard? Hard to tell, since Slashdot didn't bother to actually provide us the story to read. I guess this is actually a pretty smart move on Slashdot's part. Nobody reads the stories anyway, so now to save on bandwidth they're just omitting the links.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Back at MSU I did research on IAD. Being a computer geek and psych geek I thought it was the perfect independant study. The problem I found, which turned into my thesis, was that the entire psychological community saw IAD as a chance to "exploit" clients. So they wrote the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria to mimic that of other addictions (gambling, sex, drugs, alcohol, etc). I thought that was a horrid idea since the internet - and computer - are merely tools to an end so my thesis went something like, "Internet addiction should not be deemed a disorder in itself but another disorder through a new medium."
You've got all the traditional fixes online - gambling, power, people, and so on. You can use the internet to get to your fix, it is not a fix on its own.
I don't "spend too much time on my PCs", but I do spend a lot of time editing/processing digital photographs. And editing videos. And writing letters & other documents. And writing/testing programs. And keeping up with world news. And searching for information in many sources. And managing finances. And drawing diagrams.
The fact that all the tools to perform those tasks, and more, happen to be in the same box is incidental.
There are people addicted to socializing and having sex with as many people as possible too.... and THAT'S an addiction.
Food and breathing air can be addicting to. Once you start on that yummy oxygen, you can't really stop!
What were we talking about again?
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Dude, you need to find a 12 step program - along with me. (I promised on another topic that I'd quit to go to bed. But I can quit anytime I want to...It's just that...I dont' wnt to...I wan't to stay up for more hours... here on /....really...I can quit at anytime...no REALLY....don't touch that RJ-45 connector..GET AWAY!.......(Intervention)
OK, Unca Hosie'll help you out. First, general refutation: if the sole criteria for deeming something an "addiction" is that you spend a lot of time doing it so much as to neglect other activities, then why not say *sleep* is addicting? We spend one third of our lives doing it, we're unable to stop (we may try to curtail our sleeping but the "withdrawal symptoms" set in), and we could be doing a lot of more valuable things with our time if we didn't have to spend so much of it sleeping.
Second, if we must categorize computer use as addicting, then it is a relatively benign addiction. Beyond the case of the occasional socially-handicapped geek (rarely reported these days), few detrimental effects are known to stem from excessive computer use. Carpal tunnel syndrome and repetitive stress disorder may affect certain individuals in extreme cases (and may partly be blamed on poor interface design). Beyond that, it neither affects your physical health like drugs nor your financial health like gambling (which I don't classify as an addiction, but rather as a mental disease - based on the denial of the laws of mathematics in the face of an irrational faith in luck). Some psychological damage can be noted in the case of system administrators (read scary-devil-monastery lately?), but as these people encounter their hardships as a result of using computers in a professional capacity, even this evidence is negligible.
The woman's commentary is interesting. she doesn't consider her gaming an addiction because it's not destructive. While she spends less time going out, she feels that she has merely supplanted going out with going online. A transplanted social life.
The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle ground between the two extremes.
As a college student, instant messaging has become a vital form of communication amongst myself and my peers. To lose access to instant messaging would severely restrict my social access. It's a less attention consuming form of contact than a phone conversation and it allows me to converse with multiple friends at the same time rather than being tied down to one at a time. Often my buddies plan to head out somewhere over the ventrilo chat channel. If I'm not at a computer I'd miss out.
We play games together as a group, it's a social activity that has introduced me to the bulk of my hometown friends. It supplants gathering 'round for a football game since only a few of us are even interested in spots.
I didn't grow up immersed in sports, undiagnosed athsma kept me from excelling in sports for a long time and instead video games took its place as a recreational activity.
There was a time when video games seemed to be the sole niche of an underground geek culture. However, as time progressed, the video game industry has blossomed and television advertisements for games have become commonplace. Many geeks would come to wonder when jocks started playing games too. They had probably been playing all along, but since video games have become more prevalent, society has become more accepting of this hobby and more are admitting to the activity.
Humanity has experienced a diverse set of lifestyles. We've tilled fields to scratch out subsistence lives in the countryside and washed ourselves with buckets of water, we've moved into cities and have become accustomed to commuting to work over distances that would have taken a full day of travel, and we are now touching upon an age where computers will become a natural extension of our lives.
How much is too much? This is clearly a question of values. Notably physical health is questioned. Also, mental health may come into question when some choose to completely divorce themselves from reality in order to live out another life they find more comforting. Society will also come to consider how much "real" social contact can be replaced with virtual contact.
(Btw, at some point, we're going to have to figure out a system to properly convey a range of emotions through text if we are going to make virtual contact more like real contact. We might need to upgrade keyboards with emotion keys akin to Caps Lock and make the necessary software changes. The earlier slashdot article on misconstrued posts raises this question already)
Addiction implies the brain has been altered to reinforce the desire to continue use of the addictive stimulant. Powerful addictive substances alter the functioning of the brain and can (at least in some cases) be measured either via chemical imbalance or altered brain scans.
Addictive substances are addictive because they've evolved that way -- they exert some type of control over other creatures (like humans) by stimulating the pleasure centers of the host's brain. It's really a symbiotic (or in some cases, parasitic) relationship between two species. Computers don't fit into this picture.
Are people who read a lot of books addicted to books? What about people who play sports? Or pursue any other hobby for that matter? Just because some people choose to spend a lot of time at the keyboard doesn't mean their brains have been altered to *need* the experience.
For example Maslow would say it is a need, or rather fills a need, that being self actualization. See Maslow thought that the traditonal definition of need, that being the basic things required to sustain life, was too narrow. People seem to need more than that, at least if they are to have a fulfilling life. His thoery was that as you filled more base needs, you moved up to the next level. So physical needs like food and water are first, then shelter and security and so on up. At the very top there is self actualization. That would be anything you find personally fulfilling, be that a something that challenges you, entertains you, enlightens you, whatever.
Well, computers and the Internet sure can do that. Computer games are wonderfully entertaining, at least for some. I find them much more satasfying than TV most of the time. The Internet is an excellent place to get at all sorts of information for no other reason than because you want to.
So I wouldn't say it's an artifical need, it's very real, it's just one that there are many ways to fill, and computers are not a requisite to doing that, just a way of doing it if you like. I don't think they are any less valid than any other method. I don't understand the conception that a family that comes home and watches TV all evening while eating, chatting, etc is "normal" but one that goes and logs on to Warcraft is "addicted".
I'd say computers are just one of the many things we choose to spend time on meeting our highest needs, since our more basic ones are generally quite easily met in rich countries.
I was being distracted from my studies by the computer. My solution? I got e-texts. For example, it was hard to sit down and crack open Nandris' Handbook of Old Church Slavonic, but with the University of Texas' online course, I can position a chat window over a blank portion of the screen and study and talk over IM at the same time. Or, I can keep it in one tab and go back and forth between it and the BBC News website. In fact, I'm amazed at home much I'm getting done of studying, socializing, and keeping up with the news. Computer addiction is keeping me more productive, not less. Granted, I'm in academia, a profession based on soaking up as much knowledge as possible, but there are still millions of people who must be benefitting as much as I am.
I'll bet you a $100 they're not... right after I reach level 45 on WoW...
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
The real question in determining whether an addiction exists is not how much time the person spends on the activity, but rather what happens to the person when they cannot for whatever reason do that activity (say by unexpected circumstance).
If it's 11:20 PM on Valentine's day and you're posting on /. then you're addicted.
-jX
Don't you just love politics? It's like a comedy of errors.
I'm a die-hard, every single day of my life computer and Internet power user. Computers for 22 years, Internet for 16 of those years, spanning quite a few different fields of interest through those years. I don't have a notebook, PDA, or even a cellphone, but every single day I'm immersed in computers. All day at work, and all evening when I get home, until I go to sleep. Not counting work, which is, well, work, what am I doing the rest of the time? Heck, you name it. See a long time ago it stopped being about "being into computers" for me, it's simply the way I get things done that are important to me; like writing, making music, exploring graphic arts, learning things... Basically, stimulating my brain with everything including the kitchen sink. Can I do this without computers? Yeah, most of it, and here's my point: Any given day, I can go on a vacation, have somewhere else to be other than home, maybe all day, maybe for a week in another city somewhere. As I mentioned, I have no portable devices. If I'm not at home, then I don't give a crap about what my computers do for me there. When I'm at home, I'm glued there, because that's the most entertaining and enriching place in the apartment, no big deal. If I'm going to be at home, it's that or watch TV, or read a book. Oh hey, I can do those things on the computer too. Take me out of my home and put me in the mountains somewhere, I'm happy as a clam. There, I'm not thinking about my daily computer existance at all; and on returning home, I'll sink right back into them just as joyfully as I stepped away.
It's just life at this point... I think that the breadth of what one can be into with computers negates the addiction factor. If I was doing just one thing on my computer all the time, like play Evercrack or sit and refresh the front page of Slashdot for hours, every day, that would be an addiction, like sitting in front of the same slot machine all day. An addiction to Evercrack is only involving one particular aspect of the usage of a very versatile tool. I don't think that makes the tool an addiction at all.
An addiction? Nope. It is the perfect medium for me to see what my ex girlfriend is doing - I check her away messages on aim all the time. Right now she is on a Valentines date with her new boyfriend. I can't wait until she comes to her senses and we get back together, this is SO us! *cries* /goes back to tech-report.
Back in the 60's newspapers were accusing television of being a "vast wasteland", and plenty of other harsh sentaments. Now TV has been losing traction to video games and the internet and periodically throws out puff-pieces about "internet addiction" and "the cult of the video game".
Without getting sidetracked on the sheer coolness of being around for the creation of 2 distinct forms of media in my lifetime (which I can go on about for say 20 pages), the fact remains that my cable bill is for internet only as my income and free time are now net-centric and the tv itself is regulated to being "just another monitor" for my movie and gamining pastimes for the couch position instead of the office chair positon.
This type of use of the TV scares the crap out of media companies far more than TV scared the crap out of hollywood and the publishing industries as seen by the scramble for downloadable content.
But the fact remains. Apart from my work and about 3 side projects involving art, animation and special-event decorating, I don't have time for TV as I did when I was in school - I'm too busy with other things now. Amusing that "tee-vee" might be screaming "addiction" for those who are tuning out and into other things. It's beyond irony - it's something approaching "media-pathos".
And for the record - this is probably the most insane use of quotation marks I've used in a post in weeks if not months.
Personally, I think online games have a higher risk of abuse than most other typical activities, and I think the biggest factor is that they never end, MORPGs in particular, since most people are naturally driven to finish what they start. It's sort of like gambling, in that most people don't have specified rules as to when they'll stop, therefore they simply continue to play indefinately. In a sense, MORPGs are even more conducive to continued play because the only resource the player can run out of is time.
Internet addiction also shares common ground with eating addictions, in that some use is a de facto requirement of life in the modern world. Most people control their eating acceptably well (although recent health trends arguably demonstrate otherwise), but a few take it to excess. With food, especially unhealthy food, becoming increasingly cheap, the only limit is self control. While everyone likes to think of themselves as having great self control, nature has conditioned us to do the opposite due to scarcity. Part of addictive behavior may well be attributed to that instinct.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I'm reading comments here while also sitting at two tables playing Texas Hold'Em on-line. Why distinguish between Internet and gambling addictions when you can have both?
ScuttleMonkey messed up my submission! I submitted as:
This three page ABC News story asks millions of people worldwide spend enormous amounts of time online, but are they addicted? Video games and the Internet have been subject to suspicion since the computer became a household fixture. One complaint: People get sucked into spending enormous amounts of time on the computer, to the detriment of other parts of their life.
But are they addicted? The answer depends on what you mean by "addicted." Most experts say computers are not addictive in the same sense that drugs are, but they could be on the same level as gambling...
Seen on Blue's News.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
the things don't make you addicted to them.
one will crave what others passes by.
the addiction comes out of the person,
not the thing.
j
A competent hypnotist I know says 'addictive' things are the ones where you die if it's taken away, or at least get some serious withdrawal symptoms. If there's no physical dependancy, it's not a "real" addiction.
You might get a few jitters if you quit your internet habit cold-turkey, but you'll be okay. "Addiction Medicine" specialists deal with people who've developed chemical dependancies. Good hypnotists help deal with the psychological aspects of an addiction, but they need to work with a doctor-type to keep an addict's withdrawal symptoms under control.
No, what you & I share is an internet compulsion. I was doing pretty well getting mine under control, with the help of a capable cranial osteopath (one who utilizes the 'biodynamic' contribution. Biodynamic Cranio-Sacral Therapists also seem to be good, but my experience is that the Osteopathic vision prescription is important too, and therapists can't do that).
Then I went to a giant used booksale this weekend, and strained my poor shoulders carrying 50+ lbs of books back to the car (in the free parking, 3/4 mile away. Yah, 50lbs isn't a whole lot, but I gave up the wheel and rubber band training when they didn't do jack for my typing problem. Ended up going to the Osteopath for that, and am finding that my compulsive behaviors are going away too. Sweet!).
My upper spine is now totally jacked (strains in the muscle & facial tissue pulling the vertebrae out of place), and I went straight for the internet vices I thought I'd kicked (2 weeks without internet porn). Oh well... I've tasted freedom, and I LIKE IT. Guess I ought to move up my next appointment.
I was done with this post, but since it is Valentine's day... One of the things my doctor said after 8 or 12 sessions was that my head was finally working right, and that I'd be making all sorts of snappy comebacks to people (I took a knock to the chin 7+ years ago; slight bleeding on the brain, don't remember 2 weeks, misshapen head [my experience is that cranial bones don't fuse, and are slightly mobile], years later followed with an RSI, TMJ, etc.). True enough, later that week I shot back at my mom, insteading of taking it on the chin like I had before.
While I'm currently single (had a girl friend once, last few months of high school, years ago), part of my problem talking with the ladies has been that I'd always been tongue tied in their presence. But now that's going away too, and I know it's the Osteopathic treatments. You can study all the seduction technique in the world, but you still won't get laid if you freeze up around the opposite sex.
(note to moderators: some of you don't believe in what's been slanderously labeled as "alternative medicine", and will waste your modpoints knocking this down. This post is not "ra-ra" cheerleading for hokey 'therapies', but simply sharing my experience with health technologies that are working for me. Hence the italics. It's more than a placebo effect, because the first 3-5 placebos didn't do anything. If you don't agree for whatever reason, please share your experience in a post. Thanks.)
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
But of course, they're a TV network, aren't they? Wonder if they're begining to feel the heat with people turning off TV which is a one-way medium, and turning on their computers where they get to interact with other people?
Personally I'd rather have people on Computers than TV, computing is far more social, and (hopefully!) intellectually stimulating than the drivel that constitutes as network programming these days!!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I used to play an Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) and I was, in hindsight, developing an addiction to it...
When I started playing, I was working in a Net Café so I played while I worked, interrupted only by customers (who needed only logging on and charging for usage) and customorons (who would swear on anything that a password was not needed to access their AOL Mail...EVER)
When I finished work, I'd go home and play some more
Eventually, I'd need sleep so I'd go to bed, thinking of the game while waiting for unconsciousness.
Once asleep, I would, no kidding, have dreams which took place in or were heavily influenced by the game.
In one obsessively driven period I stayed awake for 8 days (192 hours), sleeping a grand total of 14 hours (mostly at/on my keyboard)
I quit the game a couple of years ago (which included a very difficult period of withdrawal) and have avoided such intensive game addiction since....
Nowadays, I work late at night (start at 1900, finish at 0530) and even though I don't often play RPG's anymore, I still sit up, frittering away many an hour browsing and peregrinating around the Net, long after I should be sleeping (e.g. yesterday (Tuesday), I went to sleep around 1430).
Computer addiction and Gaming addiction, both grossly underestimated, have been a problem for years. The growth of easily-accesible, high-speed, affordable Net Access amplifies this problem.
If you don't believe me, just try and imagine how you would feel if Internet access was, involuntarily, unavailable for a week...or a month....
Or how about this....It's December 23rd and your computer is Fubarred...
Painful? Agonising? Torturous?
Internet Addiction is too often ignored or discredited. Surely, by now, it should be included in the DSM???
If no-one else, I reckon this guy would agree
You have moved your mouse. You must restart Windows for these changes to take effect.
in the 90's I was in college and had access to mainframe terminals all over campus. (VMS Vax) The internet was just getting off the ground. Mozilla was the only web browser and only on the macs, and Lynx was still more popular. The only online games were called "muds". (Multi User Dungens) These were text based multiuser games, a bit like Zork if you can remember that game.
I got involved in a popular mud of the day, and soon found I was spending hours a day playing the game. I'd made quite a few friends in the game and was well known among the major players. Muds penalized you for logging out because any inventory or money you had on your character when you logged out, you lost. This included equipment. (armor, weapons, etc) You'd spend the next hour when you logged back in getting decent equipment to continue your gaming. So it was to your advantage to play for the longest possible continuous sessions. There were people that appeared to spend their entire day, most every day, playing the mud, because you could login at almost any time of day and find certain people always there in game.
I didn't have the greatest motivation at the time to go to certain classes, and found myself skipping some class to play the muds when I didn't feel like going to class. One day I arrived in the lab at 8am and left the lab at 4pm, having skipped all my classes that day. Then it just hit me like a lightning strike.... this was not good for me. So I signed back on, said my good-byes, and logged out. I have not played a mud since that day. (I guess you could say I quit cold turkey?)
Many things have changed since then, but many things are still the same. The muti user online games can be very addictive and provide a tempting escape from reality for a few hours a day. Those that lack the willpower to self-regulate their activities will probably find themselves in the same situation I put myself in so many years ago.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
First (and I'm really, REALLY tired of making this correction) there are no criteria for "addiction" because that's not a diagnosis.
The diagnoses are "abuse" or "dependence". Addiction isn't a term used by professionals anymore, but is still used in the vernacular. I wish it wasn't.
But, because I have them handy, here are the criteria for "substance abuse" and "substance dependence" as well as "pathological gambling".
DEPENDENCE
"Diagnostic and Statistical Manual - IV
A maladaptive pattern of substance use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress as manifested by three (or more) of the following, occurring at any time in the same 12-month period:
* Substance is often taken in larger amounts or over longer period than intended
* Persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control substance use
* A great deal of time is spent in activities necessary to obtain the substance (e.g., visiting multiple doctors or driving long distances), use the substance (e.g., chain smoking), or recover from its effects
* Important social, occupational, or recreational activities given up or reduced because of substance abuse
* Continued substance use despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent psychological, or physical problem that is caused or exacerbated by use of the substance
* Tolerance, as defined by either:
1. need for read amounts of the substance in order to achieve intoxication or desired effect; or
2. markedly diminished effect with continued use of the same amount
* Withdrawal, as manifested by either:
1. characteristic withdrawal syndrome for the substance; or
2. the same (or closely related) substance is taken to relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms"
ABUSE
"Criteria for Substance Abuse
A. A maladaptive pattern of substance use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress, as manifested by one (or more) of the following, occurring within a 12-month period:
(1) recurrent substance use resulting in a failure to fulfill major role obligations at work, school, or home (e.g., repeated absences or poor work performance related to substance use; substance-related absences, suspensions, or expulsions from school; neglect of children or household)
(2) recurrent substance use in situations in which it is physically hazardous (e.g., driving an automobile or operating a machine when impaired by substance use)
(3) recurrent substance-related legal problems (e.g., arrests for substance-related disorderly conduct)
(4) continued substance use despite having persistent or recurrent social or interpersonal problems caused or exacerbated by the effects of the substance (e.g., arguments with spouse about consequences of Intoxication, physical fights)
B. The symptoms have never met the criteria for Substance Dependence for this class of substance."
PATHOLOGICAL GAMBLING
"A. Persistent and recurrent maladaptive gambling behavior as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
(1) is preoccupied with gambling (e.g., preoccupied with reliving past gambling experiences, handicapping or planning the next venture, or thinking of ways to get money with which to gamble)
(2) needs to gamble with increasing amounts of money in order to achieve the desired excitement
(3) has repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop gambling
(4) is restless or irritable when attempting to cut dow
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
I'm sure it will stop being considered an "addiction" by the mass media companies (ahem, I mean "objective news organizations" of course) as soon as they can figure out a way to (re)capture those eyeballs reliably for advertising revenue.
You mean someone has given up their 8-hour-a-day TV watching in favor of a 8-hour-a-day internet experience? They MUST be addicted.
-Styopa
I'm sure for some people computers are an addiction in the sense that they really do get very nervous if they can't get on a computer for their daily fix, whether the fix be email, internet, games whatever.
But for vast majority of people the internet is just like TV, another form of passive entertainment. TV gives us many dumb sitcoms but it also gives us sports, news talk shows, educational shows. They're all entertainment for various audiences. And people will get more back out of some than others.
My complaint about computers, which happen to be my job by the way, is that they're still pretty much a passive form of entertainment just like TV. So I get more out of reading a book than watching a movie, building a table than watching Norm Abrams show me how to build one, or going out birdwatching rather than watching a PBS show on it. In my experience active entertainment is always more rewarding than passive entertainment.
Though there are times when I don't really have the energy for active entertainment and passive entertainment is just what I need. But the problem with passive entertainment, whether it's computers or tv, is that it's very easy to choose more of it rather than get up and get involved with active entertaiment. Sort of like "you can't eat just one of them" in an old snack commercial. That gets a bit close to "addiction."