Internet Addiction

I've heard my elders lament about how kids nowadays are addicted to the internet since I got my first computer. My aunt, a professor of Sociology in Texas, abhors technology and is quite proud of how little she uses any kind of technological device. Besides her nearly decade old laptop that she primarily uses to access email or to create documents for her students, she only has a small brick cell phone that is never charged. Just yesterday, actually I was listening to my mom complain about how the internet is why our generation is disconnected (very ironic) and angry. As someone who just participated in a semester-long course describing the positive effects of the internet, of course I told her why the internet in fact connects us and why we are a generation more adept at expressing our emotions. This is a story I have heard of countless times, where many people over the age of 40 think that the internet is addictive and is ruining our primary social connections. Just watch this video of the idea of internet being introduced on a national news station and see how the reports and Katie Couric respond to the introduction of a WorldWideWeb:

Crazy, right? Especially because when I Google'd 'Katie Couric', this is what came up:

The first couple things that came up when I looked up Couric were her website (which may have been hacked?) complete with her seven forms of social media and her Twitter account. Granted, Katie Couric is a famous journalist so she couldn't avoid the internet even if she wanted to, but how much can the rest of us? The journalist who once said that they would avoid the internet in order to spend more time with their family is featured on just about every major news station known to American people. As a famous professional, you couldn't avoid being online; even if you don't create your own media presence, you still need to have one. Even my aunt has a LinkedIn, 2 RateMyProfessors, 1 RateMyTeacher, and a Curriculum Vitae. Even as she hates technology, my aunt can't avoid it because of her job. Katie Couric is a year younger than my mom, just one of a generation who (mostly) speaks of the internet as a disease. 

But is the internet really as detrimental as we make it out to be? On the one hand we've seen just how much good the internet can do. But what about excess internet use of the wrong type? What qualifies excess internet use? Is it possible to use the internet too much for the right thing? 

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The idea of internet addiction is quite new. In an article assigned to my class, they discuss how addiction has evolved as a term. It used to be that be that addiction just meant physical compulsory behavior that affected you physiologically; alcohol, drugs, etc. As we evolved, addiction expanded to a broader range of topics, things which caused addictive behavior without the physical dependency; compulsory gambling, binge-eating, shopping addictions, etc. Now we have entered a new age, an age where something commonly used is detrimental. But what exactly IS the negative effect of the internet (and no, don't say "turning your brain to mush".)? The use of the internet itself can't really be the problem, there has to be something specific that is causing issue. If someone was using the internet to gamble compulsively, wouldn't that be a gambling addiction? Or if they were using it to shop consistently, wouldn't that be a shopping addiction? The article points out that some say that the internet is merely a vehicle, a road and not a destination. It is a medium through which we experience other things. 

While we haven't formally agreed on internet addiction as a global community, we have already begun testing people in their internet addiction status. One such study was conducted in Korea to try and identify internet addiction in children. Written by Ha et. al. in 2006, the article named "Psychiatric Comorbidity Assessed in Korean Children and Adolescents Who Screen Positive for Internet Addiction" tested children (average age 11) and adolescents (average age 15.8) for internet addiction. Of the 1,300 youths tested, 63 children and 170 adolescents tested positive for internet addiction. 12 were randomly selected from each group to be analyzed for their comorbidity with other illnesses. They found that 7 of the 12 children were diagnosed with ADHD, or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. In the adolescent group, 3 people were diagnosed with major depressive disorder, 2 with obsessive compulsive disorder, and 1 with schizophrenia. The article finishes out by stating that internet addiction comes with different comorbidities, but those differ by age. Children are much more likely to have attention disorders while adolescents are more likely to have more serious mental illnesses. 

Another article named "Adolescent Internet Addiction: Testing the Association Between, the Perception of Internet Attitudes, and Preference for Online Social Interactions" looked at the correlation of self esteem with internet preference in terms of internet addiction (Fioravanti et. al., 2012). They found that the preference for online interaction was correlated with internet addiction and low self esteem. Of the results, none were significantly correlated with males which might be based on the global trend of pressure placed on women. Adult women struggle with lower self-esteem than adolescent girls, but both groups worry about their appearance more than men who don't have the same kind of social pressure (although physical expectations ARE put on men as well). 

So what do we need to do about internet addiction? It's not like we can unplug. So much of school, work, social life, and necessity and ease are online. Many people wouldn't be able to operate without their daily dose of the internet. Think of trying to somewhere that is 20 minutes away by bus. How do you get there? How do you figure out when the bus is coming, which bus you need to take, and if you need to transfer? How do you know which stop to get off at? Most people would remedy this by a quick Google search, but that is unfortunately not something that will come easily (and sometimes at all) if we don't have the internet. 

One remedy might be Cognitive-Behavioral therapy. This kind of therapy is goal-oriented in eliminating or reducing certain kinds of negative behavior and is individually focused. The therapist might have you notice when you're behaving irrationally and actively work to snuff that kind of behavior. For instance, someone who is addicted to the internet might first figure out how many times the get on the internet or how long they spend on the internet. Then, they would make the effort to go on fewer times or for a restricted and shorter amount of time. An article written by King et. al. in 2012 named "Cognitive-Behavioral Approaches to Outpatient Treatment of Internet Addiction in Children and Adolescents" does just that. The article is a severe case study of a 16 year old boy who lives in Australia and spends roughly 10 hours a day online (O.M.G.). He usually skips after school activities and family gatherings to be online, consuming energy drinks in order to stay up late nights and use his computer. He urinates in a bottle sometimes to avoid leaving his computer and will usually eat at his computer. This level of internet use is much higher than most, but CBT posed a helpful and hopeful prospect for the teenagers parents. This kind of therapy doesn't do well if the patient is comorbid with ADHD, but with support of parents, teachers, self help books, therapy, and sometimes medication, cognitive behavioral therapy can be the answer to some of the problems. 

Ultimately, we need some kind of regulation on internet for children showing addiction like tendencies. The severity of internet addiction falls on a gradient, so there might not be a single marker or day where it is apparent that the child has internet addiction. However, the severity of internet addiction in terms of the amount of time spent and comorbidity with other illnesses could possible warrant classification in the new DSM.