Hello. My name is Stewart, and I am an Internet addict.
I wake up in the morning, do what everyone does upon first awakening, then adjourn to my home office and check my email. Sometimes I ignore what everyone does upon they first awakening and move directly to checking email, then I do what everyone does upon first awakening. Then I grab my laptop, climb aboard my FitDesk and surf the Web while I stationary cycle for a half hour.
I surf the net while I eat. I surf the net while I watch TV. I surf the net while in the bathroom. I surf the net while I'm playing poker, while I'm waiting in line, while at a ballgame, lying in bed, sitting in a waiting room, riding the bus. I dream about surfing the net.
When I'm not connected I feel disconnected, cut off from the world, isolated. I get nervous and twitchy and irritable.
Sound familiar? If you're a woman, it might sound even more familiar.
A social opinion site called SodaHead.com asked its users if they thought they were addicted to the Internet. Putting aside the obvious survey weight of asking people already ON the Internet if they were addicted TO the Internet (some questions answer themselves), 61 percent of respondents said yes.
By gender, 64 percent of these addictees were women, 55 percent men. No surprise that the highest percentage of Internetaholics were younger – 73 percent of those between 13-17 and 71 percent of those between 18-24.
I am one of the 39 percent of old fogies in the 55-65 group to admit to an Internet addiction, the smallest group. Not surprisingly, a higher percentage of folks older than 65, 44 percent, called themselves online addicts.
You can see all of the SodaHead Internet addiction survey results on its survey infographic here.
My question is, of course: so what's bad about, shall we say, enthusiastic Interneting?
Apparently, I and the other SodaHead addicts have a mental disease.
Is Internet addiction a disease?
Discovering the level of your Internet addiction has become a parlor game. Several sites offer quizzes, sort of like those is Cosmo about pleasing him, to determine if you are an Internet addict – such as this one.
You can find another self-quiz at a more serious site called (duh) NetAddiction.com, "the center for Internet addiction…" It's a site by a Dr. Kimberly Young, a psychologist who has written and appeared on TV to spread the word of her identification of an actual mental disorder, which she described in a 1996 paper, "Internet Addiction: The Emergence of a New Disorder," to the American Psychological Association.
And Dr. Young has a cure for what digitally ails you called CBT-IA (Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy techniques for Internet Addictions), literally digital detoxing. You are probably forced to read nothing but actual newspapers all day – with no way to wash the ink off your fingers – and to write actual correspondence by scratching a quill across foolscap. Now, where'd I put that ink blotter?
As a layman who doesn't know shucks from Shinola about psychological disorders, I don't mean to demean Dr. Young's research or treatment. But claiming you've discovered a new disorder, providing you with the tools to discover you suffer from this disorder, then suggesting you pay for her cure for this self-diagnosed disorder – well, visions of The Road To Wellville flashed through my head while reading her site.
No, it's not
I may not be a psychiatrist, but those who are have pooh-poohed attempts to create a disorder out of something that may be simple obsession.
First off, what's now popularly referred to as Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) was first named by a New York psychiatrist, Dr. Ivan Goldberg, a year before Dr. Young's paper presentation.
One problem. Dr. Goldberg was kidding.
IAD – and nothing like it – is listed in the most recent edition (5th, 2011) of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the official guide of recognized mental disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association.
Dr. John M. Grohol, who runs PsychCentral, "the Internet's largest and oldest independent mental health and psychology network," has been fighting a fierce battle to debunk the whole idea of IAD.
In a PsychCentral post on January 5, Dr. Grohol explains why he thinks recent research establishing a causal affect for IAD is flawed. Before he gets to his clinical and methodology arguments, he makes this rational argument against the existence of IAD:
Do some people have problems with spending too much time online? Sure they do. Some people also spend too much time reading, watching television, and working, and ignore family, friendships, and social activities. But do we have TV addiction disorder, book addiction, and work addiction being suggested as legitimate mental disorders in the same category as schizophrenia and depression? I think not.
Which reminds me of Gary Cooper rationally defending his mental state in Mr. Deeds Goes To Town – but I digress.
My simplistic thought about being Internet addicted: if you have to ask, you've answered your question.
And I'm not ashamed to admit I have.
Hello. My name is Stewart, and I am an Internet addict.
And damned proud of it.
