6 ms·

Is Internet Addiction a Real Thing?

66 points by pmcpinto 12y ago

trhway 12y ago
well, few minutes ago switched into the browser out from the VNC console of my Linux workstation (where i was doing something productive for almost 20 minutes) to check something on the wiki... i'm still to reach that wiki page tab :)
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
mlrtime 12y ago
A person with addictive tendencies can be addicted to anything. http://www.tlc.com/tv-shows/my-strange-addiction http://www.tlc.com/tv-shows/my-strange-addiction
- bpatrianakos 12y ago
  Depends on your definition of addiction. Addiction is a real medical disease. To be addicted in the medical sense you have to a) have a dependence on the object of your addiction (your body has a negative response when you don't get the thing you're addicted to) and b) it changes your behavior and causes extreme negative consequences in your life. Things like Internet addiction only account for one half of that. I think that if the statement "you can be addicted to anything" can be true then either the definition of addiction your using is too broad or it needs redefining.
  - mlrtime 12y ago
    I didn't read the wiki page before posting but it clearly states that "virtually any activity or substance" has the potential to be addictive. However, psychological dependence may be more accurate for many behaviors.
  - Symmetry 12y ago
    The word "addiction" is usually used for things that fulfill either of those two criteria. That's why you typically talk about physiological dependence or psychological dependence if you're actually treating it.
  - thesteamboat 12y ago
    I'm just going to drop a link to a short essay on what exactly constitutes a disease: http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/diseased_thinking_dissolving_questions_about/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/diseased_thinking_dissolving_que... > Summary > > People commonly debate whether social and mental > conditions are real diseases. This masquerades as a > medical question, but its implications are mainly social > and ethical. We use the concept of disease to decide who > gets sympathy, who gets blame, and who gets treatment. > > Instead of continuing the fruitless "disease" argument, > we should address these questions directly. Taking a > determinist consequentialist position allows us to do so > more effectively. We should blame and stigmatize people > for conditions where blame and stigma are the most useful > methods for curing or preventing the condition, and we > should allow patients to seek treatment whenever it is > available and effective.
  - baddox 12y ago
    How about my dependence on air to breath and food to eat? I think you also need to add the requirement that the dependence is not common, and causes problems for the person that fall outside the norm.
    - garrettgrimsley 12y ago
      Those are innate dependencies, and almost all definitions of a dependence disorder include that the dependence must cause social, occupational, or recreational issues. Check out the DSM4 criteria for substance dependence[1], but note that it has been phased out in the DSM5. They merged it with substance abuse to form "Substance Use Disorder." [1] http://www.buppractice.com/node/454 http://www.buppractice.com/node/454 [2] http://www.buppractice.com/node/4621 http://www.buppractice.com/node/4621
- wcummings 12y ago
  My Strange Addiction is a bit of misnomer, it showcases compulsive behavior, not addiction.
  - peteretep 12y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction > Addiction is a state defined by compulsive engagement in...
georgemcbay 12y ago
Probably, but at the same time (and the article touches upon this a bit) the Internet is somewhat of an all encompassing medium the increasing use of which is not necessarily a sign of negative addiction. I use the Internet a lot, but that is because the Internet has grown to encompass some amount of nearly every aspect of my life, not (in my non-professional opinion) because I have an addictive tendency toward it. I'm a software developer, so clearly Internet use for research/testing/etc is very common; I'm a movie/tv watcher and all of my at-home movie/tv watching has migrated to the Internet; I'm a reader and most of my reading has migrated to the Internet (at the very least for delivery to my Kindle); I'm a gamer and most of the games I play have at least some Internet-based multiplayer component; I'm a hobbyist at various things like photography, quadcopter building/flying, and 3D printing and the Internet is a spectacular way to communicate with like-minded hobbyists, so I do; I'm someone who lives across the country from most of my extended family, and we keep in contact via the Internet (in addition to occasional phone calls and visits, but the contact via the Internet is much more consistent due to the easy time-shifting of leaving messages). I spend hours and hours and hours a day on the Internet, but OTOH I can easily go camping for a week or two and live completely without it with no ill effects. I have IRL friends I spend time with on a weekly basis, I "get out" and do plenty of things not related to the Internet, etc. So while I use it very often on a regular basis, that in and of itself does not signify an addiction, as far as I understand it (again, in my non-professional opinion).
- iandanforth 12y ago
  What you're describing is the distinction between addiction and high engagement. The DSM unfortunately doesn't do a good job with this distinction as its criteria for addiction are heavily based on chemical addictions. The DSM works like sorta like this: If you meet 4 out of 6 basic criteria for addiction you're addicted. For behavioral addictions unfortunately they use the wrong criteria (At least they did in DSM-IV). The only things you really care about are the negative consequences (as most people understand intuitively) and not some arbitrary number like "spends more than 60 hours a week involved in this activity."
- emodendroket 12y ago
  But that's also the trouble, isn't it? It's a bit like people who are compulsive overeaters -- the easiest thing to do would be to just totally abstain, like most reformed alcoholics choose to, but you can't just stop eating and you can't just never use the Internet.
grimtrigger 12y ago
I think a better way to look at it is "information addiction" or "social snooping addiction". "Internet addiction" is a silly concept, because the internet is merely the medium. Its like referring to gambling addiction as "casino addiction".
- bushido 12y ago
  That's exactly what I was thinking of posting when I read the article. I know a lot of people who could be classified under the "information addict" category. Two decades ago they would've most likely been regulars at a library, part of book clubs, have all the encyclopedia's they could get their hands on etc. Two decades ago they would've also have been classified as well read, informed and all similar good things. If anything the internet has made it easier for them to understand different perspectives and participate in discussions. Would I call they "information addicts"? Definitely not. But there are some types of addictions that the internet as a , medium has made easier to achieve "social snooping addiction" and "WebMD addiction" would definitely be the big ones. But as OP said, the internet is merely a medium, not the addiction.
  - baddox 12y ago
    Right. If you're going to call those people addicts, you might as well call us all air addicts.
    - garrettgrimsley 12y ago
      >you might as well call us all air addicts. This is a ridiculous dismissal of a serious issue, and frankly it reads like you and the parent commenters didn't bother to RTFA. >through a combination of excessive time spent online and that time interfering with necessary social and professional activities, Internet use would result in either mental distress or clinical impairment, akin to the type of inability to function associated with pathological gambling Does that read like your typical book club member?
      - 12y ago
mgarfias 12y ago
Nah, I’m just really bored.
tjradcliffe 12y ago
What on Earth is a "real thing"? And what does that have to do with the name given it? Concepts are mental activities that identify disparate concretes by ignoring some aspects of their differences. As such, we can unify pretty much anything under a concept. The question is never "is this abstract thing really real for reals?" It is: "Does this way of grouping things give us any useful way of dealing with the underlying reality?" Debates about whether the constellation of phenomena that get united under a named concept constitute a "real thing" are almost always undertaken in more-or-less willful ignorance of this fact. The very way of posing the question--"Is this real?"--obscures the actually interesting and important question: "Is this useful?" Addiction is a fairly well-defined and useful category of pathology. People who are addicted to something have similar symptoms and issues, and treatment of addiction can be usefully studied across groups of addicts, so what is learned about people with alcohol addictions may be useful to people with heroin addictions and so on (or not: simply because two things are grouped under the same concept for a given purpose does not mean they are usefully identical for all purposes, as anyone who has handled a sail boat and a row boat--both members of the abstract category "boat"--knows.) No concept has perfectly crisp edges, and on the borders there are plenty of cases that one person would count as "in" while another would count as "out". If enough such cases start accumulating and impede communication and thought, we create new interstitial concepts. In the case of "Internet addiction" the interesting question is, "Is this enough like other addictions to group it usefully under the came concept, or do we need something intermediate or possibly orthogonal to usefully categorize it?"
- Retra 12y ago
  >Concepts are mental activities that identify disparate concretes by ignoring some aspects of their differences. This is a good intuition for a certain set of topological notions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_axiom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_axiom
- adamconroy 12y ago
  I think you just proved it is a real thing. Nobody but an addict could bothered posting such a well analysed comment on an obscure forum.
- 12y ago
pastycrinkles 12y ago
HN's comments to this article are funny. Most of them read like denials or sidesteppings of the issue.
- bgilroy26 12y ago
  Addiction you say? What is 'addiction'? What is 'disease'? What is 'real'? It recalls Bill Clinton asking for a more precise definition of the word 'is'.
swah 12y ago
No. I've been browsing 10 hours a day for the last 15 years and never got addicted.
adultSwim 12y ago
Yes

66 points by pmcpinto 12y ago

well, few minutes ago switched into the browser out from the VNC console of my Linux workstation (where i was doing something productive for almost 20 minutes) to check something on the wiki... i'm still to reach that wiki page tab :)

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

mlrtime 12y ago

A person with addictive tendencies can be addicted to anything. http://www.tlc.com/tv-shows/my-strange-addiction http://www.tlc.com/tv-shows/my-strange-addiction

bpatrianakos 12y ago
Depends on your definition of addiction. Addiction is a real medical disease. To be addicted in the medical sense you have to a) have a dependence on the object of your addiction (your body has a negative response when you don't get the thing you're addicted to) and b) it changes your behavior and causes extreme negative consequences in your life. Things like Internet addiction only account for one half of that. I think that if the statement "you can be addicted to anything" can be true then either the definition of addiction your using is too broad or it needs redefining.
- mlrtime 12y ago
  I didn't read the wiki page before posting but it clearly states that "virtually any activity or substance" has the potential to be addictive. However, psychological dependence may be more accurate for many behaviors.
- Symmetry 12y ago
  The word "addiction" is usually used for things that fulfill either of those two criteria. That's why you typically talk about physiological dependence or psychological dependence if you're actually treating it.
- thesteamboat 12y ago
  I'm just going to drop a link to a short essay on what exactly constitutes a disease: http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/diseased_thinking_dissolving_questions_about/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/diseased_thinking_dissolving_que... > Summary > > People commonly debate whether social and mental > conditions are real diseases. This masquerades as a > medical question, but its implications are mainly social > and ethical. We use the concept of disease to decide who > gets sympathy, who gets blame, and who gets treatment. > > Instead of continuing the fruitless "disease" argument, > we should address these questions directly. Taking a > determinist consequentialist position allows us to do so > more effectively. We should blame and stigmatize people > for conditions where blame and stigma are the most useful > methods for curing or preventing the condition, and we > should allow patients to seek treatment whenever it is > available and effective.
- baddox 12y ago
  How about my dependence on air to breath and food to eat? I think you also need to add the requirement that the dependence is not common, and causes problems for the person that fall outside the norm.
  - garrettgrimsley 12y ago
    Those are innate dependencies, and almost all definitions of a dependence disorder include that the dependence must cause social, occupational, or recreational issues. Check out the DSM4 criteria for substance dependence[1], but note that it has been phased out in the DSM5. They merged it with substance abuse to form "Substance Use Disorder." [1] http://www.buppractice.com/node/454 http://www.buppractice.com/node/454 [2] http://www.buppractice.com/node/4621 http://www.buppractice.com/node/4621
wcummings 12y ago
My Strange Addiction is a bit of misnomer, it showcases compulsive behavior, not addiction.
- peteretep 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction > Addiction is a state defined by compulsive engagement in...

georgemcbay 12y ago

Probably, but at the same time (and the article touches upon this a bit) the Internet is somewhat of an all encompassing medium the increasing use of which is not necessarily a sign of negative addiction. I use the Internet a lot, but that is because the Internet has grown to encompass some amount of nearly every aspect of my life, not (in my non-professional opinion) because I have an addictive tendency toward it. I'm a software developer, so clearly Internet use for research/testing/etc is very common; I'm a movie/tv watcher and all of my at-home movie/tv watching has migrated to the Internet; I'm a reader and most of my reading has migrated to the Internet (at the very least for delivery to my Kindle); I'm a gamer and most of the games I play have at least some Internet-based multiplayer component; I'm a hobbyist at various things like photography, quadcopter building/flying, and 3D printing and the Internet is a spectacular way to communicate with like-minded hobbyists, so I do; I'm someone who lives across the country from most of my extended family, and we keep in contact via the Internet (in addition to occasional phone calls and visits, but the contact via the Internet is much more consistent due to the easy time-shifting of leaving messages). I spend hours and hours and hours a day on the Internet, but OTOH I can easily go camping for a week or two and live completely without it with no ill effects. I have IRL friends I spend time with on a weekly basis, I "get out" and do plenty of things not related to the Internet, etc. So while I use it very often on a regular basis, that in and of itself does not signify an addiction, as far as I understand it (again, in my non-professional opinion).

iandanforth 12y ago
What you're describing is the distinction between addiction and high engagement. The DSM unfortunately doesn't do a good job with this distinction as its criteria for addiction are heavily based on chemical addictions. The DSM works like sorta like this: If you meet 4 out of 6 basic criteria for addiction you're addicted. For behavioral addictions unfortunately they use the wrong criteria (At least they did in DSM-IV). The only things you really care about are the negative consequences (as most people understand intuitively) and not some arbitrary number like "spends more than 60 hours a week involved in this activity."
emodendroket 12y ago
But that's also the trouble, isn't it? It's a bit like people who are compulsive overeaters -- the easiest thing to do would be to just totally abstain, like most reformed alcoholics choose to, but you can't just stop eating and you can't just never use the Internet.

grimtrigger 12y ago

I think a better way to look at it is "information addiction" or "social snooping addiction". "Internet addiction" is a silly concept, because the internet is merely the medium. Its like referring to gambling addiction as "casino addiction".

bushido 12y ago
That's exactly what I was thinking of posting when I read the article. I know a lot of people who could be classified under the "information addict" category. Two decades ago they would've most likely been regulars at a library, part of book clubs, have all the encyclopedia's they could get their hands on etc. Two decades ago they would've also have been classified as well read, informed and all similar good things. If anything the internet has made it easier for them to understand different perspectives and participate in discussions. Would I call they "information addicts"? Definitely not. But there are some types of addictions that the internet as a , medium has made easier to achieve "social snooping addiction" and "WebMD addiction" would definitely be the big ones. But as OP said, the internet is merely a medium, not the addiction.
- baddox 12y ago
  Right. If you're going to call those people addicts, you might as well call us all air addicts.
  - garrettgrimsley 12y ago
    >you might as well call us all air addicts. This is a ridiculous dismissal of a serious issue, and frankly it reads like you and the parent commenters didn't bother to RTFA. >through a combination of excessive time spent online and that time interfering with necessary social and professional activities, Internet use would result in either mental distress or clinical impairment, akin to the type of inability to function associated with pathological gambling Does that read like your typical book club member?
    - 12y ago

mgarfias 12y ago

Nah, I’m just really bored.

tjradcliffe 12y ago

What on Earth is a "real thing"? And what does that have to do with the name given it? Concepts are mental activities that identify disparate concretes by ignoring some aspects of their differences. As such, we can unify pretty much anything under a concept. The question is never "is this abstract thing really real for reals?" It is: "Does this way of grouping things give us any useful way of dealing with the underlying reality?" Debates about whether the constellation of phenomena that get united under a named concept constitute a "real thing" are almost always undertaken in more-or-less willful ignorance of this fact. The very way of posing the question--"Is this real?"--obscures the actually interesting and important question: "Is this useful?" Addiction is a fairly well-defined and useful category of pathology. People who are addicted to something have similar symptoms and issues, and treatment of addiction can be usefully studied across groups of addicts, so what is learned about people with alcohol addictions may be useful to people with heroin addictions and so on (or not: simply because two things are grouped under the same concept for a given purpose does not mean they are usefully identical for all purposes, as anyone who has handled a sail boat and a row boat--both members of the abstract category "boat"--knows.) No concept has perfectly crisp edges, and on the borders there are plenty of cases that one person would count as "in" while another would count as "out". If enough such cases start accumulating and impede communication and thought, we create new interstitial concepts. In the case of "Internet addiction" the interesting question is, "Is this enough like other addictions to group it usefully under the came concept, or do we need something intermediate or possibly orthogonal to usefully categorize it?"

Retra 12y ago
>Concepts are mental activities that identify disparate concretes by ignoring some aspects of their differences. This is a good intuition for a certain set of topological notions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_axiom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_axiom
adamconroy 12y ago
I think you just proved it is a real thing. Nobody but an addict could bothered posting such a well analysed comment on an obscure forum.
12y ago

pastycrinkles 12y ago

HN's comments to this article are funny. Most of them read like denials or sidesteppings of the issue.

bgilroy26 12y ago
Addiction you say? What is 'addiction'? What is 'disease'? What is 'real'? It recalls Bill Clinton asking for a more precise definition of the word 'is'.

swah 12y ago

No. I've been browsing 10 hours a day for the last 15 years and never got addicted.

adultSwim 12y ago

Yes