Can the Internet be Addictive?

An article describing something called "Internet addiction disorder" has been spreading around the Web, and Vaughan Bell, a psychiatrist at King's College London, is fuming over what he calls the "infuriating and self-contradictory" piece. Bell just published a paper in the Journal of Mental Health detailing why this supposedly new brand of psychological addiction is, in fact, impossible. He says that people can become addicted to substances or activities, but stresses that the Internet is neither. Instead, he says it's a medium of communication, and that one can be no more addicted to it than to language or radio waves.

Bell acknowledges that there are people who have significant psychological problems and do spend too much time online, but says there's little evidence that all the surfing causes those problems. The Japanese, he says, are approaching the issue the right way. They've identified the problem driving the individuals known as hikkikomori, who spend all their time using the Internet and playing video games, as social withdrawal. The gameplay and surfing are just symptoms of that larger issue.

This isn't the first time scientists have fought over this question of excessive Internet use, and it may be that the courts help decide the issue. A former IBM worker recently sued the company for wrongful termination after he'd been caught spending too much time in chat rooms. His excuse? An acute case of Internet addiction. Which may or may not be real.—Gregory Mone

Comments

[Chris Campbell]

This completly relates to Maplestory, a extremly fast growing community playing this MMORPG. There are children, that actually spend more then 48 consecutive hours playing this game, or even just talking to people digitally. Its like a mass messenger, not all are friends, and the main aspect of the game is to kill, and to be better then the next person.. full of Hikkikomori's..

[Modern Polymath]

This coincides right along side with our continuing shift to the faultless person. "It's not my fault.... I have an addiction!!" This sickens me.

[charter jet]

Yeah, sometimes it is. We should discipline ourselves when using the internet!

Luke Hamilton

[viagra online]

You're talking about active computation -- the bits going through processors. How about the mass of stored data? All of the massive storage arrays the large net players have should account for something.