How do you define internet addiction?
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How do you define internet addiction?
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I’ve read a few news articles today about internet addiction and it is interesting how different uses are defined. One article suggests that the behaviours of internet addiction are similar to
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Forums » Open clinical » Psychiatry » How do you define internet addiction?
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How do you define internet addiction?
posted at 12/1/2012 11:16 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 409
First: 7/4/2011 Last: 21/2/2012 |
I’ve read a few news articles today about internet addiction and it is interesting how different uses are defined. One article suggests that the behaviours of internet addiction are similar to the behaviours of a gambling addict, where you will go without sleep or food in favour of your addiction. http://tgr.ph/y4szlZ However, Henrietta Bowden Jones, consultant psychiatrist at Imperial College, London says that peoples’ increased use of technologies is nothing to be concerned about because it is part of the fabric of our daily lives in terms of how we work, read, socialise and shop. But can we still be addicted to technology or the internet even if we are able to maintain relationships, eat and drink? Another article I’ve read is about how smartphone users hear ‘phantom vibrations’: http://tgr.ph/xFIDMS This phenomenon is where users mistakenly believe they have received a new message because their body is craving to receive a new message. Researchers who presented at British Psychological Society’s Division of Occupational Psychology Conference in Chester, UK, found that “stress was directly linked to the number of times people checked their phones on average, and people with the most extreme levels of stress were troubled by "phantom" vibrations when no message had been received.” You could argue that this additional stress has brought on by the medium used. Likewise, I know of people who will check Facebook constantly and often there is nothing new to read -is this a form of addiction? |
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Re: How do you define internet addiction?
posted at 12/1/2012 11:51 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 1905
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 20/2/2012 |
If you went to the pub after work and had a pint with your friends would this be pub addiction? If you played five hundred on Saturdays with a bottle of Scotch would this be five hundred addiction. Perhaps dod2doc is an addiction and I am the main addict. Perhaps I should be elimated so that the less addicted can play the game? The trouble is that modern life has so gutted social interaction that we now find solace in speaking to perfect strangers we will never meet or know as a surrogate for going to the pub, the Saturday market, to church or to visit grandma. We have lost the parish. We have lost the church, the mosque the local cafe with its endless babble, coffee and ouzo. The internet is a surrogate for all this. Our children now live in a cyber world. I grew up in a real world, God help them. We have lost something on our climb up out of the swamp. The trouble is we are tribal people and the Internet provides for the tribe, the camp fire, the sagas, the epics told by wandering minstrels. We have not changed. The environment has just as the vast ice walls melted and the moraines left rubble on the shores we are now trapped in a new Ice Age dominated by silicon, cyber and the false allusions of our imaginations. Even dating is now done in this domain rather than by the chaperoned couple and the straight jacket of parental and societal mores. Yes we are addicted but addicted to connectedness and not a machine because within each of us we need connection like our red cells need iron.
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Re: How do you define internet addiction?
posted at 12/1/2012 4:33 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 290
First: 9/12/2011 Last: 21/2/2012 |
Well said Odysseus, we are a tribal people, and as connection lessens due to longer workhours, and increased workload, we all yearn for more friendships. The Internet with its endless vistas of Knowledge give us a way to connect, learn, teach, and interact with other humans far away. People in New York, can talk to people in Australia, just like right now! What a wonderful medium for change, exploration, and interaction. DuaneF |
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Re: How do you define internet addiction?
posted at 15/1/2012 9:34 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2
First: 15/1/2012 Last: 2/2/2012 |
An 82 y.o. "Silver Surfer" retired male, living on my own for over thirty years but with real friends, both old and young, I am nevertheless at one with all that has been said in reply to the first posting. Often criticising myself for spending so much time on the internet, it is at least reassuring to read what has been said here already
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Re: How do you define internet addiction?
posted at 15/1/2012 12:58 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 22
First: 6/5/2009 Last: 15/1/2012 |
What are the alternatives to lurking or posting on doc2doc this morning a) complete the two assignments due in on Friday b) tidy the house c) take the children to sport (rugbythis morning called off, ground too frosty) walk agreed with one child for this afternoon while the other is off at indoor nets d) do some gardening (see excuse above) e) cook lunch/supper (soup bubbling) e) conversation with family (both children online revising -just possibly- for exams, husband online looking for second-hand books) f) other artistic endeavour (watercolour painting course booked for later in the year) g) sort the dirty washing (machine already going) No contest, as they say. Anyway, the computer on my lap is keeping me warm - (see frost above) and where else do I get to LOL (thanks Jonathan) and muse about the erudition of Odysseus? |
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Re: How do you define internet addiction?
posted at 16/1/2012 1:21 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 1905
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 20/2/2012 |
Nice to know some read "antipodean chum's" posts. I think in pictures and talk in riddles. (antipodean of course). Why not sharing your dirty washing? More grist for the mill. I love a well kept house and the smell of a pot of pea and ham soup on the stove which is only beaten by the smell of a loaf of bread in the oven. Hearth and home are what I live for apart from boats. My wife is my Penelope. Getting back to the topic, as a father of seven children, I think that children these days are running the risk of being too attracted to computers in all their varied forms and that this has impacted on the simplicity of childhood and being in the moment. My book describes a different world once inhabited by children for thousands of years. That realm is near gone. |
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Re: How do you define internet addiction?
posted at 19/1/2012 7:10 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 19
First: 19/1/2012 Last: 23/2/2012 |
I'm not sure it's any different from any other impulse control disorder (just a new thing to compulsively do), and there is a massive proliferation of diagnoses in psychiatry that I'm not sure is 100% helpful...but internet addition has almost certainly made it into DSM-V, and I think Jerald J Block has a good go at a definition in the Am J Psych: Did anyone else know there is a journal called ' CyberPsychology, Behavior and Social Networking'. Published here if you're interested in subscribing: And ifyou fancy a bitof self screening on this try Dr Kimberley Young's test...  |
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Re: How do you define internet addiction?
posted at 19/1/2012 8:02 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 290
First: 9/12/2011 Last: 21/2/2012 |
Good Points Aliceomax and Odysseus, I enjoy the internet, and Alas most of my research and studies take place in cyberspace, but to be frank, Todays youth have forgotten how to cook, clean, form real relationships, etc. The net is not a substitute for life it is an add on. DuaneF |
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Re: How do you define internet addiction?
posted at 27/1/2012 12:23 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 516
First: 19/4/2010 Last: 23/2/2012 |
Silver and Gold medals on the Doc2Doc website certainly suggest some sort of addiction. I think only one of us has a platinum medal, thus far. Have you ever thought of Cutting down internet usage?. Have you ever got Angry when someone suggested you should cut down? Have you ever felt Guilty about hour internet usage? Have you ever used the Internet as an Eye opener???? Hmmmm. |
Forums » Open clinical » Psychiatry » How do you define internet addiction?
