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 f

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.