Internet Addiction Found to be Growing Problem
Lisa M. Krieger / San Jose Mercury News (MCT)
Issue date: 10/23/06 Section: News
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Like a roll of the dice or a sip of bourbon, the glow of the computer screen has an irresistible and dangerous allure to many people, according to a new nationwide study by Stanford University.
A random survey of 2,500 adults-the first-ever attempt to quantify "internet addiction" in the general population-found that between six and fourteen percent of computer users said they spent too many bleary-eyed hours checking e-mail, making blog entries or visiting websites or chat rooms, sometimes neglecting work, school, families, food and sleep.
The Stanford team, led by psychiatrist Elias Aboujaoude, is not worried about people who spend their lunch hours cruising travel sites for a summer vacation in Tuscany.
Rather, they look for signs of compulsion.
"We worry when people use virtual interactions to substitute for real social interactions-and seeing their real relationships suffer, as a result," he said.
"Sneaking out of bed, once your partner is asleep, to go online. Missing deadline after deadline at work while visiting chat rooms. And when you cut back, feeling irritable, anxious or restless. Those are red flags," he said.
Aboujaoude grew interested in the problem when he started to see a small but growing number of habitual internet users visiting the university's Impulse Control Disorders Clinic.
"Over the last two to three years, more people have come in with this specific complaint, saying, 'I spend way too much time online, but I can't help it,'" he said. "They characterize it in terms that sound like almost a substance abuse problem."
Internet overuse is an easy trap because computers offer immediacy, a sense of connection and anonymity, Aboujaoude added. Connections are increasingly fast and wireless, and computers are pervasive in life.
In downtown Palo Alto, it is not hard to find need-the-net folks. In a Starbucks on University Avenue, high-tech salesman Ron Jennings of San Rafael, California, used a Treo handheld computer to check his e-mail while he waited for his laptop to finish sending a work document.
A random survey of 2,500 adults-the first-ever attempt to quantify "internet addiction" in the general population-found that between six and fourteen percent of computer users said they spent too many bleary-eyed hours checking e-mail, making blog entries or visiting websites or chat rooms, sometimes neglecting work, school, families, food and sleep.
The Stanford team, led by psychiatrist Elias Aboujaoude, is not worried about people who spend their lunch hours cruising travel sites for a summer vacation in Tuscany.
Rather, they look for signs of compulsion.
"We worry when people use virtual interactions to substitute for real social interactions-and seeing their real relationships suffer, as a result," he said.
"Sneaking out of bed, once your partner is asleep, to go online. Missing deadline after deadline at work while visiting chat rooms. And when you cut back, feeling irritable, anxious or restless. Those are red flags," he said.
Aboujaoude grew interested in the problem when he started to see a small but growing number of habitual internet users visiting the university's Impulse Control Disorders Clinic.
"Over the last two to three years, more people have come in with this specific complaint, saying, 'I spend way too much time online, but I can't help it,'" he said. "They characterize it in terms that sound like almost a substance abuse problem."
Internet overuse is an easy trap because computers offer immediacy, a sense of connection and anonymity, Aboujaoude added. Connections are increasingly fast and wireless, and computers are pervasive in life.
In downtown Palo Alto, it is not hard to find need-the-net folks. In a Starbucks on University Avenue, high-tech salesman Ron Jennings of San Rafael, California, used a Treo handheld computer to check his e-mail while he waited for his laptop to finish sending a work document.
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