ARTICLE 3: The Internet Addiction

Source: http://www.netaddiction.com/

Internet Addiction is an impulsive-control problem and five subtypes have been defined:





Cybersexual Addiction – Individuals who suffer from Cybersex/Internet pornography addiction are typically engaged in viewing, downloading, and trading online pornography or involved in adult fantasy role-play chat rooms.



Cyber-Relational Addiction – Individuals who suffer from an addiction to chat rooms, IM, or social networking sites become over-involved in online relationships or may engage in virtual adultery. Online friends quickly become more important to the individual often at the expense of real life relationships with family and friends. In many instances, this will lead to marital discord and family instability.


Net Compulsions – Addictions to online gaming, online gambling, and eBay are fast becoming new mental problems in the post-Internet Era. With the instant access to virtual casinos, interactive games, and eBay, addicts loose excessive amounts of money and even disrupt other job-related duties or significant relationships.



Information Overload – The wealth of data available on the World Wide Web has created a new type of compulsive behavior regarding excessive web surfing and database searches. Individuals will spend greater amounts of time searching and collecting data from the web and organizing information. Obsessive compulsive tendencies and reduced work productivity are typically associated with this behavior.




Computer Addiction – In the 80s, computer games such as Solitaire and Minesweeper were programmed into computers and researchers found that obsessive computer game playing became problematic in organizational settings as employees spent most days playing rather than working. These games are not interactive nor played online.



According to the Stanford University School of Medicine Study, 1 out of 8 Americans suffer from Internet Addiction, 14% of respondents found it hard to abstain from Internet use for several days; 5.9% said excessive Internet use affected their relationships; 8.2% said the Internet was a means of escape from the real world. According to the Chinese Government, approximately 13 % of Chinese teenagers suffer from Internet addiction and they have banned the opening of Internet cafes for the year 2007. The Government of China funded a military-style boot camp to combat the disease. Patients are males between 14 and 19 years old.


Blogger Comments

We as a user have to internet and information technologies as well. The preventation to internet addiction also can be practise such as face the real life. We can make a relationship with people in a real world. Others than that, we also can set the internet time to prevent overuse it.