More and more people are discovering the joys of the Internet. But
once they arrive, some find it nearly impossible to sign off. Here's what
you can do to prevent on-line excursions from taking over your
life.
Frustration with the sluggish speed of a browser is the about the
most serious psychological pitfall that most of us face when surfing the
World Wide Web. But for as many as five million Americans, experts say,
the Internet has become a destructive force, its remarkable benefits
overshadowed by its potential to disrupt the lives of those who can't
resist the lure of round-the-clock social opportunities, entertainment,
and information. For such people, work, friends, family, and sleep are
replaced by a virtual world of chat rooms and games.
Take Judy and Bob, a Seattle couple who were saving to buy their
first house -- until monthly credit card bills started arriving with $350
charges for online services. Bob was "pissing away all our money on the
Internet," says Judy. And soon he was doing likewise to their marriage.
Every evening Bob came home from work and headed straight for the
computer, he stopped joining Judy for dinner or helping with household
chores. At 10 P.M. each night Judy hit the sack, while Bob stumbled to
bed some five hours later. Before long he was sucked into cyberspace 40
or 50 hours a week. When it became clear after six months that Bob had
chosen his on-line world over his real one, Judy left.
Such tales became increasingly common in the early 1990s, when the
growing popularity of commercial providers made the Internet affordable
and accessible to anyone with a personal computer, modem, and phone. Only
recently, however, have psychologists begun devising strategies to wean
on-line addicts from their endless browsing and chatting. And while it's
too soon to say how successful their efforts have been, their hope is
that the extent of the problem will be recognized before it becomes even
more widespread.
Cybertrouble
One of the first experts to notice the some people were spending an
unhealthy amount of time on the Internet was Kimberly Young, Ph.D., an
assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh,
Bradford. In 1994, Young launched the first major study of the problem,
surveying nearly 500 avid Internet users about their online habits.
Because there was no formal definition for the disorder -- which she
quickly christened "Internet addiction" -- Young classified study
participants as "dependent" or "nondependent" Internet users based on
their answers to seven questions she adapted from those used to diagnose
pathological gambling. (Sample question: Do you experience withdrawal
symptoms -- depression, agitation, moodiness -- when not on-line?) Those who
answered "yes" to three or more questions were classified as
dependent.
On average, Young found, dependents spent an astonishing 38 hours a
week on-line, compared with just five hours a week for nondependents. And
usually they were not cruising the information highway to enrich their
knowledge of El Nino or the Russian space station. Instead, dependents
sought contact with other people: their favorite activities were chat
rooms (35 percent) and Multi User Dungeon games (28 percent), while
non-dependents were most likely to use the Internet for electronic mail
(30 percent) and searching the World Wide Web (25 percent). Similarly, a
1996 survey of 530 college students by Kathy Scherer, Ph.D., a
psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin, found that dependents
and nondependents spent similar amounts of time exchanging email and
searching the Web, but dependents spent twice as much time in chat rooms
and playing games.
None of the non-dependents in Young's study reported academic,
personal, financial, or occupational problems caused by their Internet
use. But about half of dependents reported problems in all of these
areas. Yet many dependents insisted they couldn't give up the Internet; a
few even tossed out their modems, but their Internet cravings led them to
buy a new one to get their cyberspace fix. In fact, the smokers in the
study reported that their cravings for the Internet were stronger than
the urge to light up a cigarette.
Who's At Risk
Most Internet users don't become addicted. Among people who gamble
or drink alcohol, about 5 to 10 percent develop problem behaviors, and
Young believes that the figures are similar for pathological Internet
behavior. With an estimated 47 million people currently on-line, as many
as two to five million could be addicted. Especially vulnerable, Young
believes, are those who are lonely, bored, depressed, introverted, lack
self esteem, or have a history of addictions.
Perhaps the most surprising -- and widely reported -- finding in
Young's original study was that the majority (60 percent) of dependent
users were middle-aged women, particularly housewives, not young male
computer geeks. But this has not held up in later studies, which give men
a slight edge. Young suspects a bias occurred in her first study, perhaps
because women are more likely to admit and talk about their problems.
Still, she understands the appeal that chatrooms hold for these women and
others in her sample. "You never worry about how you look or how nice a
house you have, and you talk to people all over the world. It's instant
gratification without having to reveal yourself." Lonely housewives or
shy sophomores can feel like exciting people when on-line. "It's novel
and unique, and they get attached to the people they meet on-line," Young
says.
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