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Friday, March 29, 2024
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How to Tell if You're Addicted to the Internet


Last weekend, I went to New York City, where I gobbled bagels, visited Ground Zero for the first time, saw Baz Luhrmann's production of Puccini's "La Boheme" and did not check my e-mail for over 72 hours.

By the time I got home Sunday evening, I was about 20 minutes from chewing my hands off out of desperation for an Internet fix. When I finally turned on the Little Beast (my laptop) and authenticated to the firewall, I actually felt the rush of adrenaline as it stormed out from my brain and flooded my system with relief and warmth.

It was about then when I realized the Internet addiction I thought I'd conquered when I graduated high school had actually grown more intense. The only reason I hadn't noticed was because since I started living on campus, I've had a 24/7 Ethernet access and nobody to tell me to turn the computer off and go to bed.

Strangely, it never occurred to me that checking one's e-mail almost compulsively throughout the day was a problem. Between taking notes in class, working in the library, doing homework and sitting at The Spectrum, there are few hours when I'm not sitting at a computer. Having a Mulberry or Outlook window open in the corner of my screen and switching over to my inbox every few minutes hardly seems like a destructive thing.

After realizing how much comfort I find in knowing I can check my e-mail every few hours even if I don't, I thought maybe I'd better take a second look at the addiction I thought I had overcome.

"Internet Addiction" was a term coined as a joke in the late 1990s by Ivan Goldberg, a psychiatrist whose joke about alcoholism and a dependence on bits and bytes were later refined to compare "netheads" to compulsive gamblers.

But how common is pathological Internet use among college students, and how worried should we be about it? Given that college students are already known to suffer from bouts of depression and anxiety, why isn't there more information available about the emotional repercussions of unfettered Internet access?

More importantly, since any addiction can be difficult to identify, where can one start looking to determine if one's friends (or - gasp - oneself) are at risk?

Although no one should use Internet quiz criteria as a foundation for diagnosis, these simply laid-out features can provide a basis for starting to ask questions. An article by Richard A. Davis, at www.InternetAddiction.ca, states:

"The symptomatic behaviors include: academic/work or interpersonal problems; neglecting friends, family and job or personal responsibilities; withdrawal when away from the Internet; irritability when attempting to stop using the Internet; staying online more than originally intended; lying or concealing how much time you spend online; drastic lifestyle changes in order to spend more time online; a general decrease in physical activity; disregard for one's health as a result of Internet activity; and sleep deprivation or a change in sleep patterns in order to spend time on the net."

Davis' definition is a bit more severe than another list of "warning signs" I found, which takes into account the amount of times one checks one's e-mail, as well as behaviors that seem relatively mild. Going down that list, I came to a few conclusions about my own Internet use:

I use my e-mail almost every day, skipping days only when it's beyond my control - and carting a laptop around to minimize those times. I lose track of time after logging in, often spending hours instant messaging or reading friends' livejournals, or just going to www.fark.com and laughing at the stupidity of my fellow human beings. I don't go out as much as I used to (though this is more in the interest of saving cash than anything else). Sure, I eat in front of my computer, but I've rarely liked sitting down with others for meals anyway.

I do know that I've never denied spending too much time online; that would just be stupid. As far as other people complaining about my spending too much time online, one of my flatmates mentioned she missed seeing me the other day, but I don't know if that was directly related to the time I've spent holed up in my room with my new Longwave album playing or not.

I can be busy and log in. It's called multitasking, and from Windows 95 on up, my operating system was specifically designed to facilitate it. As for sneaking online when nobody is watching, I don't have to. I have my own computer and my own Internet connection.

I check my mailbox every five minutes. So does everyone else on campus. Don't even try to deny it because I've seen you standing at the quick-fix internet stations in the hallway outside the Lockwood Cybrary.

And I'm sure I don't know what you mean by accusing me of being defensive.




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