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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?
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."
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.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
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.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
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.
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.
Have you read my journal today?
The real question is simple and not answered. Is the addiction detrimental to ones life, health, etc.
:)
You can easily get addicted to anything that you enjoy, from Pot to Sex it is all addicting. There is no real story here.
Just don't let your addictions rule your life and you will be fine
In the 80s, when 900 numbers were at their peak, and you regulary heard and saw reports of people being addicted to paying for phone sex, they never called it "telephone addiction".
I find it really hard to believe that "More than 8% of those surveyed said they hid internet use from family, friends and employers" actually applies to using the internet, but is much more likely that they are hiding what they are using the internet for (porn, video games, downloading music, etc.)
It is this fundamental misunderstanding of the internet as being content rather than the means by which content is conveyed that seems to be the main source of all this mislead reporting and "research".
Worse, it is causing a lot of misdiagnosis of people with real and obvious problems, which is in turn preventing them from getting proper help.
-Tommy
"I got a half gallon of Jack, and 2 dozen Ant Traps. I'm about to get wild." -me
There is a difference between being an alcoholic and being drunk.
*hic cup*
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.
This sounds exactly like that you used to hear "them" saying about T.V. to me. My guess is that anyone who has the perpensity for escapism is going to find themselves a solution no matter what the activity...
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. ;)
Perhaps she is one of those "people" who gets confused trying to send email and you are a professional nerd who can run Unix System V blindfolded with no beeps? Perhaps your relationship flags because she can't grasp technology and technology is your primary interest? The trouble with this whole discussion is that there is no "one" answer that works for everyone. For anything. People may need a different OS, some want a sports car others want a truck, perhaps one want to play tennis and the other wants to go sailing, whatever. I've had people tell me that something I do "is the problem" before, and usually the real problem is a lack of common interests. Especially in relationships. Most start with a "hey you're pretty, let's hump" kind of thinking. After awhile you realize you have little at all in common. So what, get over it. Get an other with the same likes as you. It's not like the "big bad internet" is heroin or something that kills you and makes you feel the need to do sexual favors for a hit. These guys just need girls who like being online too. Then that "addiction" will like as not "strengthen" the relationship.
Say bad words about my book, in cold oatmeal, or I shall sue!
In the case of this study, and in the WoW addiction story the other day, it was only a small population of the people who are addicted. If more people are not addicted than are addicted, then the activity is not addicting, the people are just addicts.
If you take 100 people and give them herion every day for a week, 100 people will be addicted. If you take 100 people and make them smoke a pack a day for a week, they will be addicted. Chemically addicted.
This is NOT the case with the internet and WoW. Not everyone is addicted. Only a small portion of the overall population. So there you have it. The internet is not addicting, the people who overuse it are addicts.
That doesn't make any sense. Not all people get addicted to alcohol, but it is entirely possible to become an alcoholic. And that doesn't mean the person was an addict before they started consuming alcohol.
If you take 100 people and give them herion every day for a week, 100 people will be addicted. If you take 100 people and make them smoke a pack a day for a week, they will be addicted. Chemically addicted.
Do you have the results of that study? I have personally known people who have had heroin every day for a week, and not become addicted, so it seems incorrect. Also, an addiction does not require that everyone exposed to a product will become addicted.
This is NOT the case with the internet and WoW. Not everyone is addicted. Only a small portion of the overall population. So there you have it. The internet is not addicting, the people who overuse it are addicts.
Again, logical fallacy. Just because every user is not addicted, does not mean that the activity cannot be addictive.
... and then they built the supercollider.