Internet Addiction - Compulsive Disorder or a Weak Mind?



Everyone has their poison and is entitled to be obsessive about something. Bill Gates would never have successfully created the DOS operating system, screwed IBM and dominated the personal computer market if he was not obsessed with hacking out computer systems in his garage using off the shelf printed circuit boards, a few silicon chips, a soldering iron and a brain


Percy Shaw would never have invented motorway cats eyes if he was not the type of quiet obsessive who whiled away the hours in his garden shed in Halifax, West Yorkshire all those years ago. So maybe we should go light on people's obsessions. To an extent that is


Internet addiction is classified as a compulsive control disorder comparable to pathological gambling and in some countries it has become a serious public health concern. Multi-User Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) are one of the fastest growing forms of internet addiction among teenagers and they use it as a means of psychological escape. It might be easy to spot a moody teen who is withdrawing and using his laptop too often but what about adults in the workplace? According to a ZDNet article one in four workers has a serious web habit where three of the most popular activities involve visiting news, shopping and porn sites. It also states that 25 to 50 percent of net addiction happens at work. This is pretty shocking


I am glad I grew up in an age when you only saw computers in the movies because all this technology is turning people into bland robots who are false and so politically correct that it makes you want to reach for the bucket. If that is not a big enough issue then into the mix you can throw the fact that internet addiction is now such a serious social problem that is causing the real life break up of marriages and once loving personal relationships


Characteristics of internet addiction


There is even a website for internet addicts. The tagline for the website netaddiction.com soberly states "The Center for Internet Addiction - your resource since 1995". Only research scientists used the internet in 1995 but that is besides the point. The fact that psychology undergraduates and post-graduates are now choosing internet addiction as the subject for their projects and theses is interesting. They are creating a whole new internet addiction counseling industry overnight. Apparently it is the new thing to admit you are a net addict and sign yourself up for some serious therapy. Come off it you may say but the links are at the bottom of this page if you want to check it out for yourself


Being a computer head I am always doing something productive or learning a new skill which means I need to use the net more than most people. If I am 'officially' classed as a net addict then that is fine with me because I tend to be productive, it educates me and it gives me a chance to share my thoughts with the world. Again, it is no big deal and I laugh at the idea that I might need therapy. On my desk I keep a single sheet of paper and take notes of my surfing sessions and this sheet of paper is my co-pilot. After each session I can look at the sheet of paper and tell how much work I really got done and how much time I spent pissing about. This forces you to be honest with yourself because the paper never lies. It is a good way to stay focused and get the balance right


I take notes of links, websites and resources that I intend to visit the next time I go online and this means that the next time I do sit down at my pc I have a list of useful tasks to perform. It gives me a purpose for going online. If I am doing research then I open my diary - a nifty little free personal organizer called Zim - and create a new page for taking notes on the topic I am researching. As time goes on the diary fills up and I have lots of useful material on the topics i study - sites, links, articles, software, you name it. I am quite obsessive about taking good notes and when I look at the diary I can forgive myself for any hours of time I have spent messing around in the past. The diary becomes a source of raw material for new articles and means I have something to show for the time I spend online. This killing two birds with one stone habit is something I picked up when learning to become a programmer and I now apply the same thinking in other areas of my life


How to control your surfing habits


Putting an internet addiction to good use

There was never any doubt in my mind that people could become addicted to the internet because for the duration of my computing degree I used a computer every day for 4 years. We were always working on heavy programming assignments and did not have time for messing about on the net, playing games, social networking and all that malarky. When I finished the degree I was clueless about the web and didn't even know how to use it intelligently. I could see that the web was the future and knew that it would take me a good three years to be able to do some of the things I can do now but, hey that's life


Living on the arse end of the continent where there nothing to do is a challenge. Internet technologies make a difference to people like me and allow us to participate. If there was no internet I would be living in a city just to be near people but as it stands I use all this time to do things that are useful. I write about it and share it. There is no point in being obsessive about computers if you are not having fun. If your obsession is useful, productive and does not affect any one else then you don't have much to worry about


Resources

Net Addiction - Online gambling, gaming, affairs and other internet disorders

Helpguide - Signs, Symptoms, Treatment, and Self-Help

Test yourself - Free self help tests