Stories of technology addiction are hitting the news again. One of the more recent stories says that China is using “Internet addiction” as the reason it refuses to allow any new Internet cafes to open. Is technology addiction a real phenomenon? In this article we’ll explore the stories, try to sift fact from fiction, and see what you can do if you think someone you know might be addicted.
The first thing you need to know is that technology addiction, or something that looks like it, isn’t new. Think about how long the phone or television has been around. And then of course there have been complaints of video game addiction almost as long as there have been video games. There’s a reason that the BlackBerry has earned the “crackberry” nickname, too.
Dr. Ivan Goldberg first theorized the disease of “internet addiction disorder” in 1995; the earliest references to it online date from 1997. There is some dispute as to whether Dr. Goldberg was serious when he came up with the disorder or was, as the New Yorker Magazine claims, attempting to play a joke on fellow psychiatrists who were also members of the online BBS he’d founded in 1986 specifically for mental health professionals.
Joke or not, he was contacted by colleagues and others who identified with the symptoms he posted. He himself insists that calling excessive Internet use an “addiction” is a mistake. “If you expand the concept of addiction to include everything people can overdo, then you must talk about people being addicted to books, addicted to jogging, addicted to other people,” Dr. Goldberg explained.
With all of the press coverage the phenomenon has received since 1997, one would think the joke is on Dr. Goldberg. Mental health professionals still argue whether technology addiction or Internet addiction disorder exists. To use the example of the Internet, at least one paper dating from 1997 insists that the Internet is an environment, and it is more correct to speak of addictions to activities within the environment, such as viewing pornography or hanging out in chat rooms or shopping. Others have argued that Internet addiction, if it exists, is more like kleptomania, a disorder involving poor impulse control. Whatever the truth may be, there are now clinics that focus on the problem. Let’s look at the symptoms.
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