Internet addiction is now a psychiatric disorder

Internet addiction is now a psychiatric disorder

www.newscientist.com

If you regularly fall into bed bleary-eyed after a night of online gaming, you may be suffering from a psychiatric disorder. The condition is characterized by excessive use of the internet, anger or depression if computer access is lost, poor achievement and social isolation.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I wish I could post a poll with this...I wonder how many of us including me would fall into this category.

www.newscientist.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

internet addicts? pfft. lightweights. i had preteen computer withdrawals before the internet was made widely available. i once went on a 3 week trip overseas when i was 13 and i ended up buying software while i was there just to have something to look at and keep me sane.

reminds me of the Bob Saget clip from the movie Half-baked (caution: explicit)


yeah. i'm that much of a loser geek. at least i managed to find a wife that appreciates my profuse geekiness. she got me out of my parent's basement too. yeah, i could have been one of *those* guys. =)


[edit on 3-4-2008 by an0maly33]

Might just be the governments way of saying if we can't control the internet lets put some kind of psychiatric disorder in place for people that do things we don't like. Then they have the right to lock up people who speak out through sites like this and say they have multiple psychiatric disorders and he needs to be medicated to keep him from posting stuff on a conspiracy web site for his own good as politicians get to do what they want $5000 dollar hookers and war mongering while they rob us all blind of our social security.

Wonder if i can file for social security now?
I know i cant be arsed to get off the pc and get a job since i have a mental disorder.
I'm also addicted to water and food. I think i really need treatment for those tho . I just cant seem to shake the need. Every time i try to quit i get real sick then the doctors force it on me just to level me out . I wish there was a "methadone" for food/water



[edit on 3-4-2008 by oLDWoRLDDiSoRDeR]

Psychiatric disorder? No this is just more people that refuse to take responsibility for their actions in life. "Oh no, the evil internet made me ruin my life" grow up. Ya know, I smoke, I blame no one for my addicyion but myself, and yet people want to blame the internet and video games for their personal downfalls. Pansies.

No, don't worry. You don't have a disorder if you spend 8 hours a day on the internet.

It's normal.

Perfectly.....

Normal....

World of Warcraft 8 hours a day?

Sure, That's normal. Everyone and their mother does it. Everyone.

Normal stuff there.

i love your avatar pic. their expressions make the rasta hats fit perfectly.

and yes. my WoW is eq2, but same thing. totally normal.

totally.

So is voting for George Bush if you believe everything you read! There are a lot of people who get diagnosed with this condition or that condition- the medications suck and bring on worse conditions. Its all BS (IMO).

I refuse to buy into mental labels, although my eye sight is a little blurry

The funny part is that back in the day, back in the old AOL 2.5, 2800 baud dial up modems and 2.5 floppies days there was a lot of talk about internet addiction. Mostly from people who were, at the time, pretty unfamiliar with computers and networking technologies. Eventually all the buzz died down, why? Because everyone became addicted to the internet/cell phone/blackberry/etc!!

I know for a fact that I'm addicted to the internet, I have been since I got hooked all those years ago. I couldn't stop myself, the first one was free! there were AOL/Prodigy/Compuserve installation floppies everywhere. It started innocently enough but before long I was spending litterally all night online. (and that was when you had to pay by the hour!) I remember one camping trip I went on with my father, we were on the side of the mountain and I caught myself wishing I could go online.

Now it's gotten worse, I had managed to get my ex boss to give me a laptop, I got a directional anntenna to go with it and I could go online anywhere I wanted anytime I wanted. I'd still be on it all night long but it started getting to the point where I would wake up and turn the computer on before I even got my coffee. Sometimes I wouldn't even know what I was doing online, there were no websites I wanted to go to and nothing to research for days on end yet sure enough there I'd be in front of that screen burning my eyeballs.

Recently, however, my computer has crapped out on me. I thought that perhaps it was a good thing, that now I can actually live a normal life, go outside, get more artwork done, do more tattoos etc. For a while, about a week or two, everything was going great. I didn't miss the net or the stupid people I argued with on it. I didn't miss the porn ads or the popups constantly reminding me what a loser I am. I did a lot of artwork, I did a lot of tattoos, I got out of the house and met new people.

Then it started, the withdrawl, I started to feel isolated, a lone and depressed because my entire life had centered around that stupid glowing box. Most of the people I talked to were online and hundreds of miles away. I found myself literally wandering around the city with no goal or objective just hoping that something interesting would happen. Hell, I even considered going down to the library and fighting old ladies for a 30 minute fix of the net.

So yes, internet addiction is a real thing and I'm deffinitly suffering from it. I suppose you may have to be predisposed to it a bit, I know I was. I had always had trouble making connections with other people, never had any friends, never had a girlfriend, when I speak I think I make perfect sense but others look at me with a confused look. The big trouble started when I found out I could meet people, and girls specifically, on the interent. It was all downhill from there and now I've wasted years on the internet thinking I'm having a life, making friends and building something for myself when in reality none of it exists, none of the people are real, the places I have fond memories of are all in game, no one in the real world sees the artwork I've done, it's all virtual.

Hell, look at me now, I woke up, got coffee and got on my girlfriend's computer, the same computer I was on until 3:30 am last night while desperatly trying to fix my own computer.

*shakes cup* Spare some net sir? Just need a few gigs man, just a few gigs! *shakes cup*

If this is true, then the reports made by the top experts are all in trouble. In Space cast 2020, it implies that in the future we will all be using the internet and its technology on a regular basis for everything from education to climate control and space exploration, homeworld security and much much more. I suggest and urge you to read this wonderfully enlightening FOIA document to verify what I say for yourself.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I absolutely know and admit that I am an addict to the internet

So much of my life revolves around being online. I do school online (for now). I work online. I play online. I research things that I would not have access to if it werent for the internet. I shop online. I have friendships online. I correspond with my friends and family online.

In fact, I have met some fabulous friends - here - and have taken it off the board. And probably eventually offline. I do not see all people I correspond with online as just screen names. Many I do. Many I dont because I have developed friendships with them.

I have met and dated people I have met online......some horrible experiences and some really good experiences.

With that said, I do have a life outside of my online life. I do have friends and family whom I converse with often. But they are all thousands of miles away (im currently in Alaska), so the internet has been a life saver for me. It has allowed me to expand my life to so many different levels. I do get ouside (in the summer) and spend a lot of time outside.....HOWEVER....thanks to wireless technology, I can almost go anywhere outside with my laptop

When I cant get online....for example, I sprained my wrist a couple of weeks ago and couldnt type...or when the power goes out...or when Im away from computer access for a few days...I freak out. LOL

Im moving this summer and it will take me two weeks to get to my next location....I have already made plans to get an air card...so I can get online anytime. Even while driving through remote parts of Canada.

*must log on* *must get www fix*

So, yep.........im an addict.

sort of off topic, but shadowflux inspired a tale of the days of yore...before AOL there was a service called QLink. it was actually a predecessor to AOL if i recall. my dad would connect to it using our 300baud modem on the Commodore 64. =) i never really used that, but when we got our 286 i frequented the BBS's. I think AOL started around the time i was in 3rd grade - i remember using gopher and newsgroups for research before there was much of a WWW as we know it. with AOL 2.0 they introduced "hypertext" and www access and we were all "wtf is that!?! clickable text that takes me to a related page with more information?!" seemed like a big deal at the time, trust me. =)

[edit on 3-4-2008 by an0maly33]

I suppose I might fall into this category, but it's not really just the internet for me.

I feel like I may be addicted to being in contact with the world. If I don't have an international newspaper, or news source to look at, I get withdrawals.
The internet is such a convenient way of getting access to whats happening in the world.

Am I an avid gamer? Not really... not anymore at least. There just aren't any games that tickle my fancy any more.

When me and my girlfriend moved into our new apartment, it took 3 weeks before the internet could be linked up, there were too many people in line ahead of us for linkups.
During those 3 weeks, I became very aware that I was addicted to world affairs. I went to the newspaper boxes outside the apartment and bought each of the 5 newspapers there, every day, just so I can have some idea of what is happening in the world.

Luckily my phone company charges long distance calls as if they were local calls, so I called internationally to friends quite a few times simply to discuss world affairs.

I also found myself going to the library to replace my wikipedia addiction.
With wikipedia as you all know, anything you are curious about, can be answered with a few clicks... once thats gone, one feels compelled to walk mile or two simply to find the information they are curious about at the time.

So, I assume my addiction might not be the internet, as much as I'm simply addicted to being linked to the world.

[edit on 3-4-2008 by johnsky]

johnsky, that's actually how i am these days as well. even if i have a computer i still feel cut off from the world if i have a network outage. i think could be more of an issue of being addicted to communication, not so much the internet specifically.