US Students Suffering From Internet Addiction

PsiCTO writes "American college students are hooked on cellphones, social media and the Internet and showing symptoms similar to drug and alcohol addictions, according to a new study. This probably falls under the no-big-surprise category. CBC Radio 1 played a couple of interviews with students that took part in the study. I especially liked the quote in which the student felt like he had a phantom limb experience with his cell phone."

Comments

No News Affiliation?

[alphatel]

Students in the Maryland study also showed no loyalty to news programs, a news personality or news platform.

Must be why Katie Couric left.

Re:No News Affiliation?

[Amorymeltzer]

The revelation that [paraphrase] "college students have little loyalty to news programs, and rarely watch TV or read a newspaper" is far from it. TV and newspapers are expensive when you're in school, and are often tricky to negotiate in a dorm, which you don't own and are limited in space. What college students DO do a lot of is watch TV programs, but they do it for free on Hulu or network websites or for very cheap through Netflix and iTunes. If people look at the internet and attached devices as enabling a lot more interaction and getting of news, they really can take the place of traditional media sources. Maybe it's of a different type, but choice is a Good Thing.

Re:No News Affiliation?

[MoonBuggy]

If people look at the internet and attached devices as enabling a lot more interaction and getting of news, they really can take the place of traditional media sources. Maybe it's of a different type, but choice is a Good Thing.

I found it particularly odd that TFA states "They maintained a casual relationship to news brands, and rarely distinguished between news and general information." - what is news if not general information? Maybe saying that exposes me as a member of the very generation they're studying, but it's more or less the definition I would provide if asked to describe 'news': information about what's going on around me.

More generally, the sense of hand-wringing by both the authors and the student quoted seems excessive to me. A permanent connection to an information stream (world news, messages from friends, etc. etc.) seems like a wonderful thing to have access to, and I'm glad to live in a time when it's available - is it really surprising that artificially removing it from one person while everyone else remains connected is a somewhat jarring experience?

Re:No News Affiliation?

[camperdave]

Must be why Katie Couric left.

Who?

My neice

[EmagGeek]

At 16, she is horribly addicted to all of these things. We had my dad's 70th b-day party over the weekend and she sulked in the corner the entire time with her face buried in her phone. When her dad tried to take it away so she could, you know, be involved with the family on this momentous occasion, she threw a temper tantrum I've not seen in anyone other than a 5 year old in the candy aisle at the grocery store.

She's like that any time I see her - buried in the phone.

Re:My neice

[Anonymous Coward]

She's 16. She most likely wouldn't be involved regardless of what object was in her hand.

Re:My neice

[rolfwind]

I had a younger cousin around 16 who came to visit from Europe. My friend and next door neighbor suggested that my cousin meet her daughter and another friend and that they go out and have a good time somewhere. Well, the daughter was so buried into her phone texting her friends that she hardly even spoke to my cousin (who knew perfect English) and not even to her other friend. I met her once. I have the feeling that when she is with her friends she texts in real life, she'd bury her head into her phone and start texting someone else.

I think, by allowing us to seek out the ideal people with our exact interests at the moment, the internet allows us to get into the mindset to discount the people around us as less worthwhile to interact with.

Re:My neice

[RogueyWon]

In fairness - I'm in my 30s and have absolutely no interest in my mobile phone, beyond its occasional uses as a tool (I can make £10 of pre-paid credit last 3 months). However, while I'm fine with parents and grandparents, present me with a room full of my extended family and I will find something else - anything else - to be deeply absorbed in. I've made the back of a cereal packet last three hours under those kind of circumstances.

Now, ok, I might just have an unusually repulsive extended family (actually, I'm pretty sure I do), but thinking back to the 16 year old me (in the days before the newly-fangled interweb was much more than a collection of geocities pages with strobe-effect pictures of kittens and hence not worth getting addicted to), nothing horrified me more than the prospect of family parties.

Re:My neice

[MoonBuggy]

Absolutely agreed - the tantrum sounds childish and absolutely unacceptable, but it'd be a rare 16 year old who would particularly want to be involved with a group of people well outside her age group who she more than likely feels herself to have little in common with. The lack of basic politeness sounds unfortunate, but I don't think that's the fault of the tech.

Re:My neice

[somersault]

I think, by allowing us to seek out the ideal people with our exact interests at the moment, the internet allows us to get into the mindset to discount the people around us as less worthwhile to interact with.

Yeah, that's an interesting point. I had a long distance relationship with someone who eventually came over to live with me, and for a while I weirdly felt like something was "missing". I'd feel she was a completely different person when chatting online compared to speaking for real.

I even feel like that when speaking to family members, I guess I just joke around more online. So I suppose it's really me who's different when typing than when speaking, even with people I've known all my life.

Re:My neice

[gstoddart]

Well, the daughter was so buried into her phone texting her friends that she hardly even spoke to my cousin (who knew perfect English) and not even to her other friend. I met her once. I have the feeling that when she is with her friends she texts in real life, she'd bury her head into her phone and start texting someone else.

I have witnessed this ... two teenagers who have gone someplace together and are now sitting and texting. I often can't decide if they're texting each other, or third parties.

But, it's usually kind of funny/sad/lame to watch several teenagers, all with their phones out, all with headphones attached to their phones, and all heads down and texting and more or less ignoring one another. It's like self-imposed autism or something, and actually kind of sad to watch.

I think, by allowing us to seek out the ideal people with our exact interests at the moment, the internet allows us to get into the mindset to discount the people around us as less worthwhile to interact with.

And, really, except for the fact that now all of the 'cool' kids are doing it too ... how does this differ from IRC, ICQ, AOL/MSN, Everquest, Second Life and all of the other things which have filled this niche before?

Teenagers have always been withdrawn, moody and sulky ... but now texting seems to basically fill up their day, which makes them look even more withdrawn, moody, and sulky. Some days I'm actually glad I don't have the ability to text on my phone ... it's too reminiscent of MSN or something to me.

Re:My neice

[AntEater]

In many cultures (past and present) a 16 year old is considered an adult and often has learned to demonstrate the maturity and responsibility that goes with that status. It is a sad state when a 16 year old has to be treated like a child and even sadder when they respond at a level even lower than the pathetic expectations of our society. I don't understand why someone in their teens finds it so challenging to interact with other adults regardless of age. Yes, the cell phone had little to do with it.

Re:My neice

[xaxa]

Do you honestly expect a 16 year old to want to be involved in someone's 70th birthday?

I'm almost 10 years older than this girl, so I'm a bit more willing to talk to my grandparents and their siblings. After looking at Google StreetView on my phone of my new house we found that the houses my grandparents/siblings lived in during WWII were still there, and still recognisable. Though they were only children at the time it was interesting to hear about their experiences -- they'd hardly spoken about it before (so mum was especially pleased), but having a map, pictures, and in one case a Wikipedia page for my great-great-great-(great?-)grandad, jogged memories.

Re:My neice

[Rakshasa Taisab]

WTF?... What a fucking low standard we should hold 16 year old's to these days?

Makes me feel old beyond my years to say that I attended multiple birthdays of 'old people' and managed to look like I was sharing the same reality.

Re:My neice

[Quiet_Desperation]

The college age guy in front of me in a food place a couple days ago had to be prompted three times by the woman working the register before he got his attention off the damn phone text.

But, you know, I'm sure he was in contact with a colleague about their imminent breakthrough on a cancer cure.

Re:My neice

[khr]

Do you honestly expect a 16 year old to want to be involved in someone's 70th birthday?

Want? Not necessarily... Participate, yes, and even pretend to be cheerful.

Re:My neice

[Quiet_Desperation]

And, really, except for the fact that now all of the 'cool' kids are doing it too ... how does this differ from IRC, ICQ, AOL/MSN, Everquest, Second Life and all of the other things which have filled this niche before?

Well, for one thing, those others were generally done while at home, and not while walking around or driving or other public activities. That seems to be the problem most people have with it. If they are sitting on a bench minding their own business, that's fine, but with increasing frequency their distraction causes problems for others.

There was a case here in California just recently of another shithead teen wiping out her car because of texting, and another where someone walked right in front of a car because they were so buried in their texting they just wandered into a street. You could argue Darwin Award for the latter, but do you want to be the guy who hit that person? There's still going to be an investigation as to whose fault it was, and, yeah, *that's* a perfect, flawless process, right?

On the other hand, YouTube videos like the woman who texted her way into a mall water fountain are always gold.

Re:My neice

[ElectricTurtle]

Parents reap what they sow. I think the problem is that helicopter parents coddle their precious snowflakes too much and that encourages the kids to become both brats and ineptly fragile in many dimensions. As counterintuitive as it seems to be for most in society, you shouldn't treat children like babies forever, you need to let them do things on their own, get hurt, make mistakes, learn consequences, etc. Instead I see parents always swooping in and doing things for their kids, leading to the kids never learning anything and feeling entitled to boot, or bailing kids out of even minor difficulties so they don't develop any respect for consequences.

Any parent whose children are not, for most purposes, de facto independent by high school is a failure.

Re:My neice

[Shakrai]

I don't understand why someone in their teens finds it so challenging to interact with other adults regardless of age.

I know people in their 20s and early 30s who don't interact well with other adults unless it's via SMS, Twitter or Facebook. They literally have no concept of how to carry on a face-to-face conservation. No idea of the importance of looking someone in the eye, having a good handshake or listening to someone for more than 140 characters without interrupting them. These same people then proceed to whine about their lack of a social and love life.

Honestly I can't wrap my head around it. I was a child of the internet age and spent my formative years on IRC but I still know how to carry on a face to face conservation. I still understand the importance of eye contact and body language to human communication. How the hell do people make it to their late 20s/early 30s without learning these skills?

Re:My neice

[dreamchaser]

My daughter is now almost 21 and remarkably mature for her age, but if she were 16 and had acted that way I'd have smashed her phone. Parents today are huge enablers of such selfish behavior.

Re:My neice

[gstoddart]

Well, for one thing, those others were generally done while at home, and not while walking around or driving or other public activities.

Only because we didn't have the ability to do them on the hoof. You were tethered to a computer plugged into a wall and a network connection, this is just the logical conclusion. Now, you can be hooked into this kind of stuff 24/7, no matter where you're at.

There was a case here in California just recently of another shithead teen wiping out her car because of texting, and another where someone walked right in front of a car because they were so buried in their texting they just wandered into a street.

Oh, god, don't remind me. Where I live, we passed a law that made it illegal to use a hand-held device while operating a motor vehicle. By the looks of it, it hasn't deterred anybody since I routinely see people still doing it.

I have literally looked in my rear view and seen someone texting on their Blackberry -- while driving the car behind me; both thumbs clearly on the keypad, which leaves no room for driving. Just the other day, I saw a guy with a cell phone in his right hand, and holding his cigarette out the window with his left ... I'm not clear on how he was actually driving.

I'm of the opinion there needs to be fairly steep fines for trying to operate a cell phone while driving -- though, lots of people still insist they can do it effectively.

Re:My neice

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

But, it's usually kind of funny/sad/lame to watch several teenagers, all with their phones out, all with headphones attached to their phones, and all heads down and texting and more or less ignoring one another. It's like self-imposed autism or something, and actually kind of sad to watch.

Does anyone here remember what teenagers did before mobile phones? Did you all have unmissable, action-packed adolescences or something?

I can remember being a teenager and hanging out with other teenagers. They were among the most mind numbingly boring experiences of my life. I can vividly recall spending entire days "hanging out" with groups in towns. Let me give you a typical "fun time".

Six+ hours spent standing outside shops, on street corners, under bridges occassional window browsing, one 40 minute break in a cafe, and all the while everyone talking complete and utter shite about either music, tv, movies or gossip. One continuous topic would typically be what we'd all see in the cinema later on. Eventually, after hours of idle meandering, legs now aching with pain, the group would finally make it to that place, at which point either a) no money would remain for everyone to see the film, so we'd all go home, or b) everyone would go in and talk continuously throughout the entire film. Later, people would either ring their parents for lifts home, or walk the long mile back to their abodes.

It was a special kind of purgatory. It was like going to mass, followed by attending a funeral, and afterwards a lecture in the tanneries of ancient Assyria, all mixed in with waiting in a long queue to fill in forms that made no sense. Imagine if you will Silent Bob without the Jay, standing on a corner _not_ having amazing adventures or experiences. Ah, the heady days of youth!

I'm sure some poster will following this up with tales of their awesome, all-American, action packed teenage socialising. But my experience was that teenagers were as boring as shit. Too old to play, too young to talk, too poor to go anywhere interesting, and too inexperienced to know when their bored.

Autism?! Autism!!! You think texting on their phones is a form of autism?! Teenagers are intrinsically autistic, monosyllabic, awkward, and uninteresting people. The phones and the internet have nothing to do with it.

Re:My neice

[drinkypoo]

The college age guy in front of me in a food place a couple days ago had to be prompted three times by the woman working the register before he got his attention off the damn phone text.

On the second failed prompt, you step around him.

Don't be an enabler.

Re:My neice

[similar_name]

My daughter is now almost 21 and remarkably mature for her age, but if she were 16 and had acted that way I'd have smashed her phone.

Ok, that's kinda funny isn't it?

Re:My neice

[Antisyzygy]

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

ATTRIBUTION: Attributed to SOCRATES by Plato

Re:My neice

[Antisyzygy]

Whatever. Younger adult's financial independence keeps getting pushed back later and later in life. Thats the fault of the old folks. I wish I could go get a good paying job, pay my taxes, have a couple kids with my wife, but guess what? I can't because old fogey's in positions of power think they deserve more pay than they actually do and think that us young folks deserve less pay than we do. Since the baby boomers are the old folks these days, there's a majority population to try to combat for positions of power and to combat with our votes.

Re:My neice

[Quiet_Desperation]

The problem with the Darwin approach is that they might take you or me out as well, or at the very least do endless thousand of dollars of damage to our cars and millions of dollars of damage to our bodies.

Selection, natural or otherwise, is not best played out with large masses of metal moving at high rates of speed that become very unselective when out of control.

Re:My neice

[feepness]

Right. I'm 20, and I couldn't care less about being involved in my family. Why should I be obligated to care about an arbitrary group of people who I didn't choose to be my family. I'll do what I want to do, not what my grandpa thinks I should do.

Being pleasant to the people who dedicated a good portion of their adult lives shoveling food in one end of your alimentary canal and removing feces from the other while keeping you safe and healthy in general is called being grateful. You don't have to like them. You don't have to do what they think you should do. Caring about them simply means being polite and remotely interested.

Now, if they didn't do that or only did it part way then you owe them less. But someone gave a huge portion of themselves to give you life, and others will be more inclined to like and respect you if you show you are capable of the same.

In short, being polite isn't an obligation. Neither is being likable.

Re:My neice

[HeckRuler]

A 6 year old is happy to be there because there is cake. He don't know any better.
A 16 year old is anxious to get on with their own life. He knows everything.
A 26 year old is happy to get some insight. He knows he doesn't know shit.

Wooo sweeping generalizations! But 16 to 26 is a huge jump and a lot changes in that time frame.

God forbid we get attacked via EMP...

[geekmux]

...mass suicides of students will likely result from the lack of being tethered to their Shitter and Fakebook accounts.

I really feel for the humans who literally live online and nowhere else. It is sad. Very sad.

I'm not addicted!

[captainpanic]

I told myself to go without internet for 1 hour... to prove that I am not addicted. And I am here on Slashdot to tell you all that I'm almost there! 55 min already... ... oh, damn.

Re:I'm not addicted!

[Zandamesh]

That's nothing, I can go without internet 8 hours each day!

Time to be parents again

[LS1 Brains]

I know, it really is easy to "forget" your kids are over-doing something when they're NOT driving you nuts. :) But I digress, as parents, we need to set limits on our kids. Our 12 year old is, like most, always wanting to either be on the 'net on his laptop, on his cell phone texting whoever, watching TV, or playing the Xbox. Guess what - we limit his time with each, and send his butt OUTSIDE! The worst thing we can do as parents is to let them grow up without exploring the world around them, and that includes nature.

Re:Time to be parents again

[ack154]

The article is about college students though... people who are supposed to be responsible for themselves. And while I agree that the parents have a part in this in earlier years, once they're out on their own, there needs to be some self control involved.

I do find it amusing that they felt so disconnected from their friends, yet no one thought to place an actual phone call to try to meet up with their friends? No media, sure... but they could use a phone as a phone, no?

Re:Time to be parents again

[gstoddart]

and seriously, I'd have been better off skipping high school and staying at home coding.

I highly doubt it ... at that age, the last thing you need to be is encouraged to withdraw from further human contact, hide in your basement, and code.

As annoying as it is, some of the socialization you learn in high school and beyond actually do prepare you to interact with people in the real world. Even coders occasionally need to be in meetings with normal humans -- and I've seen a couple of guys who were completely incapable of that kind of interaction and experienced problems with it later on in life.

Hell, I've seen guys in their 30's/40's lose their job because the client more or less looked at them and said to never send them back because they were lousy face to face.

You will almost never be able to survive without learning how to interact; as the old saying goes ... try to be more outgoing, try to stare at the other person's shoes. Maybe even look up from time to time. ;-)

Don't undervalue how useful it will be to be able to interact with new people in a business setting ... it will come up more than you think.

Re:Time to be parents again

[Mascot]

What does he do OUTSIDE? Hang at the local mall or gas station?

My point being, kids differ. When I was 12, I had no interest in sports or any other activities that required me to be outside. Luckily, my parents were ok with my interests being in books and electronics. Didn't mean I was in the house all the time, but when I wasn't I was usually in someone else's. There's no inherent value in being "outside" if that word only means "not in the house". It's what you _do_ outside that matters. Had I been forced outside, I would've just hung at the local mall or whatever. I can't see any decent argument for how a mall trumps a good book. Or even a bad book. "Being social" isn't a valid argument, because that's the people you're with, not where you are.

It's a parent's responsibility to expose their kids to variation, then encourage them in whatever interest the kid chooses. Guide, not force. Unless, of course, the kid's downright endangering themselves.

Olds?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the date of this article, Apr 23 2010.... Olds for nerds indeed.

Re:Olds?

[IB4Student]

Some of us only go on the Internet once a year. Good luck with that addiction of yours :-/

Not just kids

[Xian97]

I have several co-workers I see with their face buried in their phone every time I walk by their cube. Internet usage is monitored where I work (even this post) so they see it as a way to bypass the system. Before they put in Websense the same co-workers were on the web all day - they still are but now it's through their phones. The ones that were Internet addicted all went out and got smart phones when Internet usage started being monitored.

Re:Not just kids

[L4t3r4lu5]

But this in itself is a symptom of something deeper. Somewhere along the line, the system has failed. The employees may not feel valued and slack off as a means of protest. They could be under paid or suffer from toxic leadership, so they perform to expectations and slack off at every opportunity. Worst, the person responsible for hiring could suck at their job and hire idiots who don't know what they're doing.

Either way, this isn't a problem solved by changing internet policy. It needs a much bigger change, much higher up the food chain.

Re:Not just kids

[tophermeyer]

Some of that depends on the culture of the specific organization.

There is lots of literature indicating people become more productive over time if they are allowed to blend personal and work time. Being hunched over a keyboard for 9 hours a day gets a lot of man-hours out of people, but allowing people a little bit of freedom to manage their own time and pursue personal interests during the day can really empower people to approach their jobs more efficiently and professionally.

I would want my team to be held accountable for work output, not just hours worked. If people want to shop or check some geeky news site during the workday and maintain a high level of performance, let them. If they stop producing then you have a problem, but that is true with or without internet.

My name is ___ and...

[Xacid]

I can say I personally went through this. Once I realized what was happening (not going out as much anymore, gaining weight/getting out of shape, neglecting my family, etc) I ended up shedding a lot of these things over the course of about a year. First cable tv went (hell, I only watched 3 channels most of the time and quitting would save me money), then WoW (again, would save me money, and was getting stale).

However, these weren't my biggest addictions in the slightest, but I wasn't quite ready to give up on facebook and similar social networking things. It didn't seem like much at the time. Afterall, I was still being "social" and wasn't becoming reclusive. It was essentially a substitute for hanging out with real people in real life. And besides - a lot of us got together on Fridays for movie night. Thing was - even during these movie nights I'd still be checking facebook despite everyone close to me was right in front of me.

The straw that broke the camel's back was over a benign status I posted: "Aww snap, time for daddy day care!" as my wife was going out with some friends and it was going to be one of my first times watching our baby daughter solo. Two women somehow took offense to this comment and proceeded to man-bash like crazy, nevermind that I'm actually sticking around and being a father. It boiled down to one woman basically calling her husband worthless and both of them saying I was a shitty father ("It's not daycare, it's PARENTING!"). And I know, I know - I should know better than to get riled up over trolling - but these are people I know in real life - straight up being offensive. The only person who could have came to my rescue was my wife. She sees all this when she gets home and is like "wtf is wrong with those bitches?" I reply "well, do something!". I needed help. I was getting attacked by two angry hens!

She replies "LOL" in the facebook thread.

I fucking LOST it.

I counted on the one person who could get me out of this mess - save my name on the internets - and she didn't pull through. How dare she? ...

The next morning I felt like such a goddamned tool once I put all this into perspective. I came to the conclusion that I was far too invested in things like facebook and virtual people that I promptly initiated the processes for deleting most of my online identity.

Around the same time I was reading a book (How Pleasure Works by Paul Bloom) that really forces you to think about how you put value into the things around you. So I had to ask "does x add value to my life?" As a result, here I am still on slashdot, still have my cellphone, but I'm outside damned near everyday, starting getting back into playing hockey and taking it more seriously, seeing more of family, and in way better shape than I was.

Overall, I'm much happier and feel like I've gained a much higher quality of life. I'd say anyone thinking about the same - go for it and never look back.

Re:My name is ___ and...

[Xacid]

"It's a pretty telling example that you can't explain to people what you meant with daddy daycare, and if they can't except it, stop communicating with them. I doubt your response was duo to facebook more then it was do to you not controlling your anger."

There actually wasn't any anger involved with this particular thread (which, I'll admit, is unusual for me - but these were a couple individuals I respected before all this went down). I pretty much said the initial post, let them rant for about 10 exchanges, interjected with "hey guys, not cool, you're getting borderline offensive here", was pretty much ignored and was continued to be flamed.

If it'd just been some random person I probably would have simply blocked/deleted them. One was actually a really good friend of my wife's (and to her credit she's still a great friend to my wife) and the other was actually a mutual friend I had with someone else who I'd debate with often and respected intellectually.

"I was miserable and changed my life, there fore everyone else doing what I was doing is miserable and should also change"

That's not really what I said at all. I essentially said if you're considering the change then by all means go for it. If you're doing fine balancing it with real life - then rock on, brotha. Compare it to people who can drink socially vs. full-out alcoholics.

"I just hate it when people fall into what I like to call "Hindsight is a lying bitch" syndrome."

This I'm unfamiliar with - care to clarify?

Re:New culture perhaps?

[icebrain]

It's one thing to use technology extensively. It's another thing entirely when use of that technology becomes such a fixture or priority in someone's life that they wind up neglecting other important things in their lives--work, school, family, health, sleep, etc. When checking Facebook or Twitter or whatever becomes more important to you than anything else, when you manifest the same behaviors seen in alcoholics and drug addicts (anxiety from not being able to get your "fix", irrational or dangerous behavior to try and get access again, etc), that's when it becomes a problem.

mental addiction is by mentally stupid people, no?

[Nyder]

Look. Mental addiction is just mental. It's bullshit. You bitch slap the person till the get in fucking line.

I was a herion addict for 15 years or so of my life. I find that someone considers even comparing drug addiction to cell phone addiction to be very fucking insulting.

For example, when I would get put in jail (and i would, on occasion, because thats where real addiction can land you), I would get physically sick without my dope. I'd end up puking, having the runs, not able to eat, wishing i was dead, or better, that i could get well (which I didn't realize at the time, i was getting well, by not using!).

Anyways, this is bullshit, and insult to anyone who's built their life back up after losing it to a truelly addictive thing.

Re:sheesh!

[matt_lethargic]

NO. Addiction is not a disease! If it were it would be called a disease and not an addiction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction

Anyone else remembering Childhood's End

[calmofthestorm]

by Arthur C. Clarke? Not so much in what is happening, but by the older generation's bemoaning thereof.

Re:mental addiction is by mentally stupid people,

[Max Romantschuk]

Look. Mental addiction is just mental. It's bullshit. You bitch slap the person till the get in fucking line.

Go study some brain chemistry and come back to us with an educated claim. Addiction can have triggers that are not due to chemicals introduced into the blood stream. That does not mean that the addiction cannot cause actual physiological symptoms and be a serious hurdle to overcome.

Judging the hardships of others purely based on your own experience is simply arrogant. With your logic no one on this planet should commit suicide since there is no chemical messing with their brain.