7 ms·

Is Internet Addiction Real?

37 points by vitabenes 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mettamage 5y ago
IMO, yes because addiction can happen as a way to cope with things that otherwise feel unbearable. The internet has so much media, you’ll never feel truly alone. That’s my experience anyway, all anecdata.
mrkramer 5y ago
It is real and it affects those who lack self control the most including me. I can spend endless hours researching the topics of my interest and listen to the music at the same time.
- hughrr 5y ago
  Don’t sweat it. We used to have to go to the library or book shop to do that and buy CDs which was a pain in the ass and expensive. I’d rather be an internet addict than go back to those days.
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    Not me. More energy less overconsumption. Free balance
  - zz865 5y ago
    That was easier to control because you had to get there. Now the internet is the same location as work and hobbies so its hard to avoid.
- chillwaves 5y ago
  I feel like "self control" isn't a helpful framework to describe what is happening. It seems like technology is just exploiting instinctive ways we interact with the world and learn. This matters because it is not an individual problem of low will power etc. We will understand that the way the internet and social media interact with people just fundamentally creates false connections and impressions and generally confuses our unconscious mind.
headmelted 5y ago
Currently giving an Internal Server Error, which given the question asked it doubles pretty well as a performance art piece.
- vitabenes 5y ago
  Ha, will be up in a minute.
  - headmelted 5y ago
    Cool, but I’m definitely having my HTTP 500’s come back with a question mark at the end after this.
    - vitabenes 5y ago
      It's up. Should also load faster, without a problem.
timwaagh 5y ago
The scary thing about this is it talks about an authoritarian measure in China like it's a positive thing to have the government interfere in people's lives to such an extent.
rnd0 5y ago
Of course it's real! If it wasn't, would there be so many people scamming a quick buck to "treat" it? Of course not!
traceroute66 5y ago
I think its a rather stupid concept to claim there is such a thing as internet addiction, because otherwise we would have to roll back time and ask equally stupid questions such as : - Is there such a thing as library addiction ? - Is there such a thing as school / university addiction ? - Is there such a thing as newspaper/book reading addiction ? - Is there such a thing as chess club addiction ? Because as we all know, you can do the above and more on the internet. The internet, just like your personal life, is what you make of it. Its a fabulous resource.
- isitdopamine 5y ago
  Do you feel compelled to go to the library or to the chess club as you are talking to a friend? I am sure the vast majority of people don’t, while so many people feel completed to check something on the Internet. Do you feel uncomfortable if you know in advance you won’t be able to use the library or the chess club for a whole day?
  - traceroute66 5y ago
    > Do you feel compelled to go to the library As someone who is not Gen-Z and remembers what life was before the internet, I can sure say that the internet beats any library I've ever spent time in. The volume, diversity and ease of research ... all at your fingertips. Why would anyone want to spend time trawling obscure library database systems only to find the library doesn't stock the right books or that someone has taken it on loan for an unknown period of time ? Or worse .... microfiche. My god how that's a hellish storage medium I will not miss !
    - cpach 5y ago
      Indeed. I was kinda ”library addicted” when I was young. But one had to work much harder back then to find the really good and interesting stuff. Scanning through shelf after shelf. Finding a librarian to aid me if I wanted to look at a title in the closed archive in the basement. And I couldn’t stay in the library till 11 pm since it would close at 7pm or so. When I was about to head home I couldn’t carry 60 books in my backpack. So it was much less accessible than what the Internet is. The library was good! But it was different both in quality and quantity compared to the Internet.
knaik94 5y ago
I think the world situation has pushed people into escaping with online media. I don't think think most of these dopamine detox/digital addiction framed arguments have the causation the right way around. People aren't feeling bad because of continuous scrolling on news and social media. People are looking for something to take their minds off whatever difficulty they are facing. People should do what they think will help but I don't think the framework of addiction is the right way to approach it. You don't have withdrawal and assuming the compulsion to return is because of the content and not because you want to escape holds you back from addressing the real issues. Doing a "dopamine fast" will also force a person to reevaluate their current situation and not escape using tech. The outcome will be positive but I feel that term addiction should be limited to things that seriously impact your life in a negative way. Bad habits aren't the same as addiction.
- HPsquared 5y ago
  The same can be said about other addictions, especially substances or alcohol: they provide an (unhealthy, dangerous) escape from other stressors in the person's life.
  - helloworld11 5y ago
    Alcohol, tobacco and other narcotics can and often easily do create a certain level of physical dependence on their consistent use, even after what triggered starting with them in the first place has stopped being the case. This is not the same as escaping the need to think about personal difficulties in life by developing a habit of randomly browsing the internet. Some of the motivations behind the two sets of escapist activities are similar but the physiological aspects are very different.
    - skohan 5y ago
      Have you never been at a social event like a dinner or a party, where you are in a good mood and have plenty of nice people to talk to, and felt compelled to check your phone?
MathMonkeyMan 5y ago
I don't know if internet addiction is real, but I know that it's 5:20 AM and I'm on Hacker News. Goodnight...
mola 5y ago
Ofcourse it's real, for me at least. I define addiction as an activity I would like to stop doing, but I find it extremely hard to do for intrinsic reasons. I find my self reaching in my pocket to my smartphone uncounciously and open Facebook/Twitter/HN after countless times I decided to stop doing so because I identified it causes harm to my well being. Given this edvidence, I don't think there's any argument that can challenge my belief about internet addiction. Most argument I see, are semantic arguments that amount to a definition of addiction other than the one I posed above. These usually come from people who make money from this addiction and have a vested interest to muddy the waters about what addiction is. Or from people who confuse addiction with morality. Meaning, they think that if you prove something is addictive, then it means they are addict, which means they are "bad", which causes a defense mechanism that denies the whole concept of addiction. So rest assured, a certain thing can be addictive to some, but not for all. And being an addict doesn't make you morally "bad". No need to make the discussion personal.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ddtaylor 5y ago
Neat ad.
denton-scratch 5y ago
To equate things like "sex addiction" and "internet addiction" with chemical addiction is to diminish the experiences of people who have real chemical addictions. People with chemical addictions face days or weeks of trembling, seizures, hallucinations, physical pain and the risk of death, when they try to withdraw. To compare that kind of experience with (say) withdrawing from Faceache is to imply that physical addiction is just a failure of willpower and self-control. It isn't so. Physical addiction has been stigmatised as a failure of self-control more-or-less forever. It is still thought of that way - even when the addiction was caused by taking drugs prescribed by a physician, for perfectly legitimate reasons. That stigma results in inadequate funding for addiction treatment, loss of jobs, loss of homes etc. I hear the story that "addiction" is at root an addiction to the dopamine hit. I'm sorry, but I don't buy that. The dopamine hit occurs when you do something that gives you pleasure. We all do that; and if we can, we repeat it. But we don't get the shakes when we stop doing it - we just might feel crap, is all. When famous people like Michael Douglas claim that their personal failings are the result of "addiction" to pleasure, they are sidelining/gaslighting people who really are addicted, and making it seem that the problems those real addicts face is equivalent to the problems of a person who lacks self-control. I think that's pretty despicable.
- Dwood023 5y ago
  Would you prefer there be a more precise word to imply addiction that comes with physical withdrawal symptoms, a real risk of death, etc?
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    Yes - but we used to have one. It was "addiction".
- VortexDream 5y ago
  Are you gatekeeping? Really? If you are dependent on something to a degree that it has an adverse effect on your life, it's an addiction. Full stop. The degree or the effects will differ, but it feels like you're dismissing the suffering of one group of people because another group of people has it so much worse. But if both groups of people are suffering, even severely (even if it's "just" Internet addiction), who the fuck are you to decide its not valid suffering or addiction? This isn't a fucking competition. Both groups of people deserve to have their suffering recognized and both groups deserve to be helped in the ways that are necessary. Your comment is despicable and inhumane. Edit: In absolute clarity, obviously physical and psychological addictions are different. Nobody is arguing otherwise. But that doesn't mean psychological addiction isn't an addiction. It just means it has different effects and symptoms. It doesn't mean it isn't real or that the people suffering aren't actually suffering, even if it is suffering of a different kind. So OPs comment is just needlessly critical of psychological addiction, to the point of implying it isn't "real" addiction like people hooked on cocaine. Honestly, it's sickening that people here are so eager to invalidate the suffering of some in favor of others, but HN doesn't surprise me in its lack of empathy for other human beings.
unixhero 5y ago
Hacker News top titles Hacker News check my comments, repliserte and upvotes Softporn ans suggestive content on TikTok Yeah it surely is addictive.
bigger_inside 5y ago
bad, horrible, buzzfeed-y article. you all remember the history, right? It's fabled. The idea that there is "internet addiction" comes from a literal joke. Cypherpunk pioneer Ivan Goldberg, 1994, posts a list of criteria for an addiction diagnosis to a messageboard as a joke. It was not meant to evoke addiction, but was already an ironic commentary on the looseness of addiction criteria, in order to laugh about how involvement and immersion in the messageboards that literally made the internet could fall under these criteria as well. Using these criteria ironically could show how almost any random behavior can be discredited as an addiction if people are passionate enough about it. The wider sociological point is that these are metaphorical uses of the addiction-as-disease concept (there is, after all, nothing entering the body here) that are used, socially, to heap a bit more denigration on socially disfavored activities. You don't get people blabbing on about soccer practice addiction, reading addiction, or tea addiction (on my fourth cup this morning.) Those are not disfavored activities. Also, there is a curiously obvious defense of normalized actions and preferences baked into addiction narratives. The old argument, "they do that rather than spend time with their family!" or "they do that rather than work!" never once questions that maybe that other thing they do.. is something they prefer over spending time with their family or (gasp!) working. It's just assumed that a "healthy" person would keep to social norm, be a good petit bourgie, and love to be productive for capitalism and really enjoys being locked into this model of the nuclear family. For sociologists, "addiction" is unthinkable without a concomitant value judgment that is anything but objective; it reproduced social desirabilities.
hamburgerwah 5y ago
Ask major forum of internet addicts if internet addiction is real...
PartiallyTyped 5y ago
Yes, the lack of a functional and sustained social circle, along with chronic suffering (not using the word 'depression' since I have not been officially diagnosed) has left me repeatedly checking reddit for that orange message button, and hackernews for a delta in karma or replies. This is a consequence of seeking novelty and new experiences, which is promoted by dopamine. I am well aware of it, I am conscious of it when it happens, and yet I feel that I have no control over my actions when I do that. I frequently cold turkey it, or nuke my accounts in an attempt to stop this, but to no avail. I have been addicted to other processes, I know that I can cut them by substituting with other, less unhealthy addictions, at the moment, I am trying to get myself addicted to math books. It seems to be working, I managed to get out of bed with ease. I am currently working through MacDonald's "Linear and Geometric Algebra", and Pinter's "A book of Abstract Algebra". The next books will probably be Mendelson's "Introduction to Topology", and MacDonald's "Linear and Geometric Calculus". By the time I wrote this reply, I have already glanced at my karma - on the upper right corner of my screen - four times, even though I am well aware that it is static and can not change until I reload the page.
toberoni 5y ago
I consider myself a 'functional' internet addict - as long as I keep my habits in check I can use sites like HN. However Reddit, Youtube, Twitter, Medium and most VC-funded social media products are unusable without heavy modifications. Their default settings (endless feeds, notifications, suggestions) are designed to be addictive and often trigger behavior that results in countless wasted hours. My solution is to only use these manipulative sites on my Desktop where I can change the layout etc. Mobile apps are off-limits. This works 80% of the time. Another step is to cut down on hardware - a slower phone, no tablet, less gadgets. In my experience this last step is very effective... but it's not easy because like most people here I love technology and it certainly has its advantages too.
nindalf 5y ago
For a different perspective on this - You Are Not Addicted To Technology (https://www.jasonfeifer.com/episode/you-are-not-addicted-to-technology/ https://www.jasonfeifer.com/episode/you-are-not-addicted-to-...). It’s a podcast with a transcript. Summary - there is a tendency to overuse medicalised terms. Like “I’m a bit OCD” or “I have PTSD” even when it’s clearly a gross exaggeration at best. - Every generation had their own moral panics about addictions of the day. Examples given are “women are addicted to hobbies like bird watching”, radio addiction from the 1920s, telephone addiction from the 70s, television addiction from the 80s, Tetris addiction from the 90s. A lot of this is pathologising normal behaviour - the major change came in 2013 with the publication of the fifth edition of DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). For the first time gambling addiction was grouped with substance addiction. This led to an explosion of research to find other addictive behaviours. Suddenly phones were addictive, internet was addictive and so on. - the definition of addiction they propose is “In the case of addiction, where you have a particular substance or behavior that you are obsessed with, you cannot move away from, it preoccupies all your thoughts to the point that it is destroying your occupational or social life. That's a particularly strong set of behaviors, and a particularly unique outcome.” - phone use has increased over time, but the role of phones has changed as well. They are devices used to keep in touch with friends and family. No one is going to argue that those are negative things, or that they are destroying our occupational or social lives - the research into technology addiction was flawed. Many studies used the methodology of previous alcohol addiction studies. So for example a person who couldn’t answer how many times they had drank in the last week - that would be an indication that they’re an alcoholic. But the same thing was used on social media addiction. If you answered “not sure” to “how many times did you check HN in the last week”, you’d be classified as an addict. - the methodology was so flawed that when applied to people’s “addiction” to friends it came back with the same result - people are hopelessly addicted to friends. They prioritise friends over their job, they lose track of time spent with friends, they can’t say how long they spent with friends in the last month, they look forward to their next “hit” of friends as soon as they’re done with one meet-up. - gaming might addictive on it’s own, but it could be a coping strategy by people with other underlying mental health issues. Get help for those and the gaming “addiction” subsides. just like phones, gaming can fulfill basic needs we have, like social affiliation and competition for mastery. - “ the price of living in a world with so many good things in it, is that sometimes we have to learn these new skills, these new behaviors to moderate our use. One surefire way to not do anything, is to believe you are powerless. That's what learned helplessness is all about. By medicalizing an otherwise normal behavior and telling everybody that we're all addicted, well, then what can we do about it? Nothing. Because when you have an addiction, you have a pusher, you have a dealer, you have a substance that controls you, so to speak. And so how can you possibly do something about that? You can't. And this is why you see article saying technology is hijacking your brain and why they love using the word addiction, because addiction denotes a lack of agency.” And that’s the crux of this entire discussion. Every time someone is telling you that you’re powerless to resist Facebook or Netflix or Xbox or HN, you internalise the message and become less likely to take steps to moderate your use. You know who can help? Thought leaders who would be willing to give a talk for modest speaking fees. Politicians who will outlaw compelling products if you’d vote for them. Detox centres who will help you if you pay them.
greatgib 5y ago
If you watch attentively, nowadays everything good and that give pleasure finish by being controlled and limited. It's like that the society does not like when people reach happiness and self satisfaction. You use too much internet that makes you less lonely and bored? Bad. You like to go to the beach or in nature? You are destroying natural space. Bad. You like to travel? Bad. You like to eat? Bad. You like to play video games? Bad. You like to do a specific activity all the time? And it is enough for you? Bad.
skohan 5y ago
Of course the internet is addictive, just like slot machines and cocaine. And it should be regulated as such. Social media, just like a slot machine, or a mobile game which is engineered to rob whales of thousands of their hard earned dollars, is optimized to create the type of reward signal which will result in a behavioral loop which will keep users coming back. Using data collected from the usage patters over billions of sessions, they've been able to test and craft a user experience which affects human psychology in such a way that a huge majority of people will be extremely compelled by it, and many users will not be able to resist falling into this behavior pattern even if they try. Especially children who don't have a fully-developed prefrontal cortex yet. We have a long history of regulating things like this. For instance, it used to be possible to buy cocaine over the pharmacy counter in the US. But at a certain point we realized that this substance was stronger than human will in many cases, that there was a lot of harm being created by it, so we regulated it. The only open question about social media is the harm component. For instance coffee is extremely habit forming, but we don't regulate it because the social harm is negligible. But I would argue the negative externalities caused by social media has already been demonstrated. Social media incentivizes engagement, which is most reliably cultivated by content creating emotionally charged responses, outrage, and conflict. As a result, the rise in social media has led to a decrease in social cohesion, and the rampant spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories. I suspect in 50 years we will look back at unregulated social media the same way we look back at selling cocaine at the pharmacy.

37 points by vitabenes 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

IMO, yes because addiction can happen as a way to cope with things that otherwise feel unbearable. The internet has so much media, you’ll never feel truly alone. That’s my experience anyway, all anecdata.

mrkramer 5y ago

It is real and it affects those who lack self control the most including me. I can spend endless hours researching the topics of my interest and listen to the music at the same time.

hughrr 5y ago
Don’t sweat it. We used to have to go to the library or book shop to do that and buy CDs which was a pain in the ass and expensive. I’d rather be an internet addict than go back to those days.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  Not me. More energy less overconsumption. Free balance
- zz865 5y ago
  That was easier to control because you had to get there. Now the internet is the same location as work and hobbies so its hard to avoid.
chillwaves 5y ago
I feel like "self control" isn't a helpful framework to describe what is happening. It seems like technology is just exploiting instinctive ways we interact with the world and learn. This matters because it is not an individual problem of low will power etc. We will understand that the way the internet and social media interact with people just fundamentally creates false connections and impressions and generally confuses our unconscious mind.

headmelted 5y ago

Currently giving an Internal Server Error, which given the question asked it doubles pretty well as a performance art piece.

vitabenes 5y ago
Ha, will be up in a minute.
- headmelted 5y ago
  Cool, but I’m definitely having my HTTP 500’s come back with a question mark at the end after this.
  - vitabenes 5y ago
    It's up. Should also load faster, without a problem.

timwaagh 5y ago

The scary thing about this is it talks about an authoritarian measure in China like it's a positive thing to have the government interfere in people's lives to such an extent.

rnd0 5y ago

Of course it's real! If it wasn't, would there be so many people scamming a quick buck to "treat" it? Of course not!

traceroute66 5y ago

I think its a rather stupid concept to claim there is such a thing as internet addiction, because otherwise we would have to roll back time and ask equally stupid questions such as : - Is there such a thing as library addiction ? - Is there such a thing as school / university addiction ? - Is there such a thing as newspaper/book reading addiction ? - Is there such a thing as chess club addiction ? Because as we all know, you can do the above and more on the internet. The internet, just like your personal life, is what you make of it. Its a fabulous resource.

isitdopamine 5y ago
Do you feel compelled to go to the library or to the chess club as you are talking to a friend? I am sure the vast majority of people don’t, while so many people feel completed to check something on the Internet. Do you feel uncomfortable if you know in advance you won’t be able to use the library or the chess club for a whole day?
- traceroute66 5y ago
  > Do you feel compelled to go to the library As someone who is not Gen-Z and remembers what life was before the internet, I can sure say that the internet beats any library I've ever spent time in. The volume, diversity and ease of research ... all at your fingertips. Why would anyone want to spend time trawling obscure library database systems only to find the library doesn't stock the right books or that someone has taken it on loan for an unknown period of time ? Or worse .... microfiche. My god how that's a hellish storage medium I will not miss !
  - cpach 5y ago
    Indeed. I was kinda ”library addicted” when I was young. But one had to work much harder back then to find the really good and interesting stuff. Scanning through shelf after shelf. Finding a librarian to aid me if I wanted to look at a title in the closed archive in the basement. And I couldn’t stay in the library till 11 pm since it would close at 7pm or so. When I was about to head home I couldn’t carry 60 books in my backpack. So it was much less accessible than what the Internet is. The library was good! But it was different both in quality and quantity compared to the Internet.

knaik94 5y ago

I think the world situation has pushed people into escaping with online media. I don't think think most of these dopamine detox/digital addiction framed arguments have the causation the right way around. People aren't feeling bad because of continuous scrolling on news and social media. People are looking for something to take their minds off whatever difficulty they are facing. People should do what they think will help but I don't think the framework of addiction is the right way to approach it. You don't have withdrawal and assuming the compulsion to return is because of the content and not because you want to escape holds you back from addressing the real issues. Doing a "dopamine fast" will also force a person to reevaluate their current situation and not escape using tech. The outcome will be positive but I feel that term addiction should be limited to things that seriously impact your life in a negative way. Bad habits aren't the same as addiction.

HPsquared 5y ago
The same can be said about other addictions, especially substances or alcohol: they provide an (unhealthy, dangerous) escape from other stressors in the person's life.
- helloworld11 5y ago
  Alcohol, tobacco and other narcotics can and often easily do create a certain level of physical dependence on their consistent use, even after what triggered starting with them in the first place has stopped being the case. This is not the same as escaping the need to think about personal difficulties in life by developing a habit of randomly browsing the internet. Some of the motivations behind the two sets of escapist activities are similar but the physiological aspects are very different.
  - skohan 5y ago
    Have you never been at a social event like a dinner or a party, where you are in a good mood and have plenty of nice people to talk to, and felt compelled to check your phone?

MathMonkeyMan 5y ago

I don't know if internet addiction is real, but I know that it's 5:20 AM and I'm on Hacker News. Goodnight...

mola 5y ago

Ofcourse it's real, for me at least. I define addiction as an activity I would like to stop doing, but I find it extremely hard to do for intrinsic reasons. I find my self reaching in my pocket to my smartphone uncounciously and open Facebook/Twitter/HN after countless times I decided to stop doing so because I identified it causes harm to my well being. Given this edvidence, I don't think there's any argument that can challenge my belief about internet addiction. Most argument I see, are semantic arguments that amount to a definition of addiction other than the one I posed above. These usually come from people who make money from this addiction and have a vested interest to muddy the waters about what addiction is. Or from people who confuse addiction with morality. Meaning, they think that if you prove something is addictive, then it means they are addict, which means they are "bad", which causes a defense mechanism that denies the whole concept of addiction. So rest assured, a certain thing can be addictive to some, but not for all. And being an addict doesn't make you morally "bad". No need to make the discussion personal.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

ddtaylor 5y ago

Neat ad.

denton-scratch 5y ago

To equate things like "sex addiction" and "internet addiction" with chemical addiction is to diminish the experiences of people who have real chemical addictions. People with chemical addictions face days or weeks of trembling, seizures, hallucinations, physical pain and the risk of death, when they try to withdraw. To compare that kind of experience with (say) withdrawing from Faceache is to imply that physical addiction is just a failure of willpower and self-control. It isn't so. Physical addiction has been stigmatised as a failure of self-control more-or-less forever. It is still thought of that way - even when the addiction was caused by taking drugs prescribed by a physician, for perfectly legitimate reasons. That stigma results in inadequate funding for addiction treatment, loss of jobs, loss of homes etc. I hear the story that "addiction" is at root an addiction to the dopamine hit. I'm sorry, but I don't buy that. The dopamine hit occurs when you do something that gives you pleasure. We all do that; and if we can, we repeat it. But we don't get the shakes when we stop doing it - we just might feel crap, is all. When famous people like Michael Douglas claim that their personal failings are the result of "addiction" to pleasure, they are sidelining/gaslighting people who really are addicted, and making it seem that the problems those real addicts face is equivalent to the problems of a person who lacks self-control. I think that's pretty despicable.

Dwood023 5y ago
Would you prefer there be a more precise word to imply addiction that comes with physical withdrawal symptoms, a real risk of death, etc?
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  Yes - but we used to have one. It was "addiction".
VortexDream 5y ago
Are you gatekeeping? Really? If you are dependent on something to a degree that it has an adverse effect on your life, it's an addiction. Full stop. The degree or the effects will differ, but it feels like you're dismissing the suffering of one group of people because another group of people has it so much worse. But if both groups of people are suffering, even severely (even if it's "just" Internet addiction), who the fuck are you to decide its not valid suffering or addiction? This isn't a fucking competition. Both groups of people deserve to have their suffering recognized and both groups deserve to be helped in the ways that are necessary. Your comment is despicable and inhumane. Edit: In absolute clarity, obviously physical and psychological addictions are different. Nobody is arguing otherwise. But that doesn't mean psychological addiction isn't an addiction. It just means it has different effects and symptoms. It doesn't mean it isn't real or that the people suffering aren't actually suffering, even if it is suffering of a different kind. So OPs comment is just needlessly critical of psychological addiction, to the point of implying it isn't "real" addiction like people hooked on cocaine. Honestly, it's sickening that people here are so eager to invalidate the suffering of some in favor of others, but HN doesn't surprise me in its lack of empathy for other human beings.

unixhero 5y ago

Hacker News top titles Hacker News check my comments, repliserte and upvotes Softporn ans suggestive content on TikTok Yeah it surely is addictive.

bigger_inside 5y ago

bad, horrible, buzzfeed-y article. you all remember the history, right? It's fabled. The idea that there is "internet addiction" comes from a literal joke. Cypherpunk pioneer Ivan Goldberg, 1994, posts a list of criteria for an addiction diagnosis to a messageboard as a joke. It was not meant to evoke addiction, but was already an ironic commentary on the looseness of addiction criteria, in order to laugh about how involvement and immersion in the messageboards that literally made the internet could fall under these criteria as well. Using these criteria ironically could show how almost any random behavior can be discredited as an addiction if people are passionate enough about it. The wider sociological point is that these are metaphorical uses of the addiction-as-disease concept (there is, after all, nothing entering the body here) that are used, socially, to heap a bit more denigration on socially disfavored activities. You don't get people blabbing on about soccer practice addiction, reading addiction, or tea addiction (on my fourth cup this morning.) Those are not disfavored activities. Also, there is a curiously obvious defense of normalized actions and preferences baked into addiction narratives. The old argument, "they do that rather than spend time with their family!" or "they do that rather than work!" never once questions that maybe that other thing they do.. is something they prefer over spending time with their family or (gasp!) working. It's just assumed that a "healthy" person would keep to social norm, be a good petit bourgie, and love to be productive for capitalism and really enjoys being locked into this model of the nuclear family. For sociologists, "addiction" is unthinkable without a concomitant value judgment that is anything but objective; it reproduced social desirabilities.

hamburgerwah 5y ago

Ask major forum of internet addicts if internet addiction is real...

PartiallyTyped 5y ago

Yes, the lack of a functional and sustained social circle, along with chronic suffering (not using the word 'depression' since I have not been officially diagnosed) has left me repeatedly checking reddit for that orange message button, and hackernews for a delta in karma or replies. This is a consequence of seeking novelty and new experiences, which is promoted by dopamine. I am well aware of it, I am conscious of it when it happens, and yet I feel that I have no control over my actions when I do that. I frequently cold turkey it, or nuke my accounts in an attempt to stop this, but to no avail. I have been addicted to other processes, I know that I can cut them by substituting with other, less unhealthy addictions, at the moment, I am trying to get myself addicted to math books. It seems to be working, I managed to get out of bed with ease. I am currently working through MacDonald's "Linear and Geometric Algebra", and Pinter's "A book of Abstract Algebra". The next books will probably be Mendelson's "Introduction to Topology", and MacDonald's "Linear and Geometric Calculus". By the time I wrote this reply, I have already glanced at my karma - on the upper right corner of my screen - four times, even though I am well aware that it is static and can not change until I reload the page.

toberoni 5y ago

I consider myself a 'functional' internet addict - as long as I keep my habits in check I can use sites like HN. However Reddit, Youtube, Twitter, Medium and most VC-funded social media products are unusable without heavy modifications. Their default settings (endless feeds, notifications, suggestions) are designed to be addictive and often trigger behavior that results in countless wasted hours. My solution is to only use these manipulative sites on my Desktop where I can change the layout etc. Mobile apps are off-limits. This works 80% of the time. Another step is to cut down on hardware - a slower phone, no tablet, less gadgets. In my experience this last step is very effective... but it's not easy because like most people here I love technology and it certainly has its advantages too.

nindalf 5y ago

For a different perspective on this - You Are Not Addicted To Technology (https://www.jasonfeifer.com/episode/you-are-not-addicted-to-technology/ https://www.jasonfeifer.com/episode/you-are-not-addicted-to-...). It’s a podcast with a transcript. Summary - there is a tendency to overuse medicalised terms. Like “I’m a bit OCD” or “I have PTSD” even when it’s clearly a gross exaggeration at best. - Every generation had their own moral panics about addictions of the day. Examples given are “women are addicted to hobbies like bird watching”, radio addiction from the 1920s, telephone addiction from the 70s, television addiction from the 80s, Tetris addiction from the 90s. A lot of this is pathologising normal behaviour - the major change came in 2013 with the publication of the fifth edition of DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). For the first time gambling addiction was grouped with substance addiction. This led to an explosion of research to find other addictive behaviours. Suddenly phones were addictive, internet was addictive and so on. - the definition of addiction they propose is “In the case of addiction, where you have a particular substance or behavior that you are obsessed with, you cannot move away from, it preoccupies all your thoughts to the point that it is destroying your occupational or social life. That's a particularly strong set of behaviors, and a particularly unique outcome.” - phone use has increased over time, but the role of phones has changed as well. They are devices used to keep in touch with friends and family. No one is going to argue that those are negative things, or that they are destroying our occupational or social lives - the research into technology addiction was flawed. Many studies used the methodology of previous alcohol addiction studies. So for example a person who couldn’t answer how many times they had drank in the last week - that would be an indication that they’re an alcoholic. But the same thing was used on social media addiction. If you answered “not sure” to “how many times did you check HN in the last week”, you’d be classified as an addict. - the methodology was so flawed that when applied to people’s “addiction” to friends it came back with the same result - people are hopelessly addicted to friends. They prioritise friends over their job, they lose track of time spent with friends, they can’t say how long they spent with friends in the last month, they look forward to their next “hit” of friends as soon as they’re done with one meet-up. - gaming might addictive on it’s own, but it could be a coping strategy by people with other underlying mental health issues. Get help for those and the gaming “addiction” subsides. just like phones, gaming can fulfill basic needs we have, like social affiliation and competition for mastery. - “ the price of living in a world with so many good things in it, is that sometimes we have to learn these new skills, these new behaviors to moderate our use. One surefire way to not do anything, is to believe you are powerless. That's what learned helplessness is all about. By medicalizing an otherwise normal behavior and telling everybody that we're all addicted, well, then what can we do about it? Nothing. Because when you have an addiction, you have a pusher, you have a dealer, you have a substance that controls you, so to speak. And so how can you possibly do something about that? You can't. And this is why you see article saying technology is hijacking your brain and why they love using the word addiction, because addiction denotes a lack of agency.” And that’s the crux of this entire discussion. Every time someone is telling you that you’re powerless to resist Facebook or Netflix or Xbox or HN, you internalise the message and become less likely to take steps to moderate your use. You know who can help? Thought leaders who would be willing to give a talk for modest speaking fees. Politicians who will outlaw compelling products if you’d vote for them. Detox centres who will help you if you pay them.

greatgib 5y ago

If you watch attentively, nowadays everything good and that give pleasure finish by being controlled and limited. It's like that the society does not like when people reach happiness and self satisfaction. You use too much internet that makes you less lonely and bored? Bad. You like to go to the beach or in nature? You are destroying natural space. Bad. You like to travel? Bad. You like to eat? Bad. You like to play video games? Bad. You like to do a specific activity all the time? And it is enough for you? Bad.

skohan 5y ago

Of course the internet is addictive, just like slot machines and cocaine. And it should be regulated as such. Social media, just like a slot machine, or a mobile game which is engineered to rob whales of thousands of their hard earned dollars, is optimized to create the type of reward signal which will result in a behavioral loop which will keep users coming back. Using data collected from the usage patters over billions of sessions, they've been able to test and craft a user experience which affects human psychology in such a way that a huge majority of people will be extremely compelled by it, and many users will not be able to resist falling into this behavior pattern even if they try. Especially children who don't have a fully-developed prefrontal cortex yet. We have a long history of regulating things like this. For instance, it used to be possible to buy cocaine over the pharmacy counter in the US. But at a certain point we realized that this substance was stronger than human will in many cases, that there was a lot of harm being created by it, so we regulated it. The only open question about social media is the harm component. For instance coffee is extremely habit forming, but we don't regulate it because the social harm is negligible. But I would argue the negative externalities caused by social media has already been demonstrated. Social media incentivizes engagement, which is most reliably cultivated by content creating emotionally charged responses, outrage, and conflict. As a result, the rise in social media has led to a decrease in social cohesion, and the rampant spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories. I suspect in 50 years we will look back at unregulated social media the same way we look back at selling cocaine at the pharmacy.