If you answer yes to five or more of these questions, you may have an internet addiction.
· Do you feel preoccupied with the internet? (Think about your online activity or anticipate your next online session.)
· Do you need increasing amounts of time on the net in order to achieve satisfaction?
· Have you repeatedly made unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back or stop internet use?
· Do you feel restless, moody, depressed, or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop internet use?
· Do you stay online longer than originally intended?
· Have you jeopardised or risked the loss of a significant relationship, job, educational or career opportunity because of the internet?
· Have you lied to family members, a therapist or others to conceal the extent of your involvement with the internet?
· Do you use it to escape from problems (eg, feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety, depression)?
(None of this applies to me. Clearly, I can give it up any time I like. )
14 comments:
This is hilarious - it's like saying 'Do you spend more time breathing than you originally intended?'
'The internet' isn't a single thing, to which someone can become addicted. It's as enormous and varied as the real world and it's almost as inescapable - in fact I read a quote from Charlene Li at the weekend saying that with mobile technology, WiMAX etc., the internet will soon be all around us, just like the air.
Jeopardise my job, haha - if it wasn't for the internet I wouldn't *have* a job.
If someone is addicted to Facebook, that isn't an 'expression of addiction to the internet', it's an addiction to Facebook. (How can anyone be addicted to Facebook anyway, it's rubbish). You can't lump all this crap in together and say it's an addiction to 'the internet', any more than you can say that all junkies, alcoholics, crackheads etc. are addicted to 'life'. Honestly.
Oh thank goodness for Patroclus - I was about to stand up, mumble mmmyes and try to wriggle out of the 12-step programme...
You could ask people the same questions about TV, you know, those people who haven't discovered the internet yet and spend all evening watching game shows.
Only at least we are contributing something instead of sitting back there consuming all evening. I mean, we're doing a really important thing here, wittering on about ourselves online...
I'm addicted to those questionnaires that tell you if you answer 'yes' to five or more you're addicted.
I'm a recovered net junkie. Unless I have a project on the go I restrict myself to 1 hour in the evening (plus a few lunchtimes).
Would have commented earlier but it's taken me this long to repair the hole I had to punch in my computer.
Internet is good. Internet is good. Internet is good. Yes, we have blogs but, actually, you know, we do even see real humans occasionally too.
Anyway, yes, with Annie on internet being an oodle better than sitting watching telly - mind you, anyone seeing the Inside China series on BBC? Fucking brilliant - and with Pats on the job thing. I would be (even more) destitute and unemployable were it not for the internet.
Hurrah for addiction! (Mind you, I couldn't answer yes to five of those questions and my comp is basically flickering away onlinely all day every day.)
So many of these questions could apply to reading a really gripping book, but people are rarely encouraged to critically examine their reading habits and they're never encouraged to read LESS. Do you think it's a class thing?
Hmm internet addiction? Yes I have to go with that. I also think that it's unhealthy. For example, I probably spend far too much of my time geeking about online about guitars and music than I do actually playing and making the stuff. So I'd say yeah, I have a web problem. But I am in denial.
I would've commented this morning but I was busy browsing the net. Still, I'm done now so...erm, I've forgotten what I was going to say.
Ooh. It touched a nerve.
Patroclus, isn’t it more like saying someone is a drug addict, without specifying which drug they’re addicted to? You can’t say that all junkies are addicted to life, but you could generalise by saying they are all addicted to drugs, whether heroin or crack or, ahem, nicotine…
Without wishing to deny that the internet is a varied and wonderful thing, whether you’re on facebook or gaming or blogging, doesn’t it all boil down to sitting staring at pixels on a screen, ignoring flesh and blood people and the world around you in favour of something, how can I put it, more virtual?
It seems a valid comparison to me – if I enjoy a drink when I go out, that’s reasonable, but if I have to drink a bottle of vodka when I wake up every day, I have a problem – surely the man spending 16 hours a day minimum online (he has cut back from 16 hours at work, then a further 12 hours at home…) is an addict?
I remember years before I’d had any experience of computers reading about these funny Japanese teenagers who spent hours and hours holed up in their rooms with their computers – they found it difficult interacting with real people and preferred their reality filtered through a computer screen. How very odd they must be, I thought.
15 years later… It has changed a lot. I guess I am aware of how much time slips past without me noticing, and how there are possibly more interesting and productive things I could be doing.
Annie and BiB – is it better than watching TV you mean? Better morally? Better physically? Better for the world? Hmm…
Tim – you are a wag, sir. Yes, questionnaires turn us all into hypochondriacs.
Llewtrah – yes, that sounds about right to me. Maybe I’ll try it.
Marsha – hmm, disingenuous. Books have a beginning and an end, unlike the internet, and people don’t usually spend that long reading a good book. Books don’t give you lardy arse, bad posture, square eyes and repetitive mouse strain injury either.
Axe Victim – me too. What worries me is if occasionally I miss it when away on holiday – ON HOLIDAY! The last thing you should be thinking about is a computer when you are seeing glorious new things out there in the world.
Istvanski - I'd answer you, but I got distracted by I Can Has Cheeseburger.
I didn't just miss it on holiday I BLOGGED on holiday a few times but I was on my own with a 6 year old and he was asleep by 8 so rather go to the tapas bar across the way and leave him alone like some people do I read books and blogged instead like any good parent would! I didn't blog every day though.
Aside from all that - being online has become a part of daily life. When was the last time you used a telephone directory - or a phone to book cinema or gig tickets? Progress is dictating that we spend more time online - some more than others.
Annie: in my heart of hearts I know you're right. I do feel anxious and restless for a bit when I can't get online, but I wouldn't say it's so bad that I need drugs or counselling, as the article seems to suggest - the feeling generally goes away after about 12 hours.
But as we all know, doing productive stuff online, like blogging, leads to meeting up with interesting people in real life, and it's also spurred me to go out and do things in the real world so that I have something to blog about. So in that sense, spending a lot of time online has actually enriched my life in the physical world. I guess it's not the same for everyone, though.
But hey, I love the internet and I will always leap to its defence, whether it's rational or not. And I do believe that one day (soon) we will just carry the internet around with us, and we won't think of it as being any different from (or inferior to) the 'real' world, but rather an integral part of it.
'Books don’t give you lardy arse, bad posture, square eyes and repetitive mouse strain injury either.'
How can you tell all that just from my comments?!
I think internet can be better than watching TV because it can be (I'd be italicising those cans if I knew how) more active and then certainly more selective. I suppose, with TV, I might stumble across something I'd like to watch and that will be educational but with the internet, I can look for specific info, find out things I need to find out. Some TV is wonderful - a theatre in your own home - and I'll never watch a good documentary on the net, but I still think my good ol' comp is a greater source of info and a better use of my time. Right, back to working, surfing and blog-reading.
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