What is Internet Addiction?

Internet Addiction is a broad term covering a wide-variety of behaviors and impulse-control problems.  It is important to understand that there are five specific types of Internet addiction:

1. Cybersexual Addiction (addictions to adult chat rooms or cyberporn).
2. Cyber-relationship Addiction (online friendships made in chat rooms, MUDs, or newsgroups that replace real-life friends and family, this also includes the issue of cyberaffairs).
3. Net Compulsions (compulsive online gambling, online auction addiction, and obsessive online trading).
4. Information Overload (compulsive web surfing or database searches).
5. Computer Addiction (obsessive computer game-playing or to programming aspects of computer science, mostly a problem   among men, children, and teenagers).

How can you tell if you are addicted? Here are some typical warning signs:

1. Do you feel preoccupied with the Internet (think about previous on-line activity or anticipate next on-line session)?
2. Do you feel the need to use the Internet with increasing amounts of time in order to achieve satisfaction?
3. Have you repeatedly made unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop Internet use?
4. Do you feel restless, moody, depressed, or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop Internet use?
5. Do you stay on-line longer than originally intended?
6. Have you jeopardized or risked the loss of significant relationship, job, educational or career opportunity because of the Internet?
7. Have you lied to family members, therapist, or others to conceal the extent of involvement with the Internet?
8. Do you use the Internet as a way of escaping from problems or of relieving a dysphoric mood (e.g., feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety, depression)?

If you can answer "yes" to five or more of the questions, then you may suffer from Internet addiction.  If you fear that you may be addicted, we invite you to take our Internet Addiction Test. If you need immediate help, please contact our Virtual Clinic. 

Our clinical research shows that demographics of Internet addicts indicate a mean age of 29 for males and 43 for females and vocational backgrounds are broken down as follows: blue collar, non-technical white collar, high-technical white collar and none (i.e., homemaker, disabled, retired, students).

Duration of online use is broken down as follows:

 

Clinical research classifies the most addictive online applications:

To learn more about Internet addiction, please review Caught in the Net, the first recovery book on Internet addiction and review our articles online.

No one is sure how many people are affected by addictive use of the Internet.  But if one takes estimates used in other addictions such alcoholism or compulsive gambling, you might estimate that about 5% to 10% of all on-line users may be potentially addicted.  At this point, these numbers are very cautionary.

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