overview

This page discusses what has been characterised as 'internet dependency', 'cyber addiction', 'internomania' or even 'onlineaholics' and 'netaholics'.

It covers -

• introduction - the emergence of a new pathology
• one disorder or many - what do we mean by 'cyber addiction'?
• addiction as behaviour, substance, overuse or preference
• precedents - anxieties about broadcasting, the telephone, telegraphy and earlier 'new media' disorders
• orientations and polemics - writing about "the scourge of the Internet Age"
• issues - questions about the basis, prevalence and significance of net addiction

It supplements discussion elsewhere on this site regarding computer rage, sexuality, anxiety and other aspects of life online.

The following pages consider responses (eg the cyber addiction therapy industry), use of 'internet addiction' as a defence in criminal trials and litigation against employers or other entities for allleged negligence regarding addiction

     introduction

Are you a "Net Addict"? A "cybersexual addict"? Or even a "cyberwidow" (apparently there are no cyberwidowers)?

In yet another glorious chapter in the US's infatuation with therapy, the media and health services discovered Internet Addiction (IA) and Pathological Internet Use (PIU) during the mid 1990s. Given their affinity for the badge of modernity, that discovery leaked across to well-ordered states such as Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and China.

In the US psychologist Kimberly Young - author of Caught in the Net: How to Recognize the Signs of Internet Addiction and A Winning Strategy for Recovery (New York: Wiley 1998) and similar works, founder of the COLA Center for On-Line Addiction (COLA) - breathlessly recounts stories of

dozens of lives that were shattered by an overwhelming compulsion to surf the Net, play MUD games, or chat with distant and invisible neighbors in the timeless limbo of Cyberspace

Net addiction has become a media theme, with lurid depictions such as the 2005 account -

Hong Kong Internet junkie fights to combat addiction

Anthony Chan betrays the tell-tale signs of his addiction: his skin is pallid and covered in spots, he sits nervously hunched, peering to correct his blighted vision and he has trouble communicating with friends and family.

At just 16 he is emotionally fragile, physically ill and his future has been compromised by the addiction which has him in its grip. But when the lights are switched off he gets online, he could not care less about the problems it brings. His drug is the Internet and, when connected, it makes the lonely Hong Kong schoolboy feel on top of the world.

"The computer is my friend, it's my life, my social life," says Chan, shifting in his chair and squinting in the glare of the brightly-lit office where we talk. It is one of the few times this week he has left the confines of his bedroom where he spends hours and hours every day logged onto the Internet and he is missing it already, he says.

Fortunately there are no claims that the addicts mug little old ladies or steal from toddlers to pay for their habit.

In China it has been promoted as an explanation of why unfettered access to the net is dangerous, with laments that addiction has resulted in murders, thefts, suicides, bad temper and poor hygiene. More prosaically

two students in Chongqing fell asleep on a railway track after an all-night internet session, and a 31-year old Legend of Mir addict reportedly dropped dead after a 20-hour session.

In 2006 the Shanghai Youth Federation claimed that nearly 15% of teenagers in Shanghai had become addicted to the net and online games, with "0.5% severely addicted". It warned

Internet addiction is caused by overuse as well as [the medium's] bad culture, which has negative effects on the psychological and physical development of teenagers

The same year saw hype about legal action in China by

the parents of a 13-year-old Chinese boy who they say jumped to his death from a tall building after playing one of the popular Warcraft online games for 36 hours straight

One might ask why the parents didn't simply drag him away from the machine? One response is the scrutiny provided by Alex Golub & Kate Lingley in '"Just Like the Qing Empire": Internet Addiction, MMOGs, and Moral Crisis in Contemporary China' in 3(1) Games and Culture (2008), 59-75.

Apocryphal reports in 2004 claimed that conscripts in Finland were using net addiction as a means of avoiding military service.

Alvin Cooper gained attention through problematical research that labelled the net "the crack cocaine of sexual compulsivity", with one in 10 (self-selected) respondents claiming that they are "addicted to sex and the Internet". By December 2005 some US therapists were peddling claims that

6 percent to 10 percent of the approximately 189 million Internet users in this country have a dependency that can be as destructive as alcoholism and drug addiction

That is consistent with a 2005 pilot study by Mubarak Ali of Flinders University that claimed a third of Australian teenagers "were in the process of becoming psychologically addicted", with 7% of the 114 teens describing themselves as "becoming addicted" to the net. One ungenerous observer responded that a similar percentage would describe themselves as "becoming addicted" to chocolate or boys.

A further 26% of kids in the Flinders study reported that they used the net every day and considered it "an important part of their lives". The average time spent online a week was 13 hours, which we note is less than the time spent watching television.

The 2007 paper 'Excessive Internet Use: The Role of Personality, Loneliness and Social Support Networks in Internet Addiction' by Elizabeth Hardie & Ming Yi Tee in 5 Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society 1 (PDF) claimed that

An online survey of 96 adults showed that, based on Young's (1998) criteria for the Internet Addiction Test, 40% of the sample could be classified as average internet users, 52% as problem over-users and 8% as pathologically addicted to the internet. The three groups differed on a range of factors, with over-users and addicts spending increasingly more time in online activities, being more neurotic and less extraverted, more socially anxious and emotionally lonely, and gaining greater support from internet social networks than average internet users.

One might hesitate to draw conclusions about the prevalence of pathologies on the basis of such a small sample.

John Grohol criticised other research, commenting that

I don't know of any other disorder currently being researched where the researchers, showing all the originality of a trash romance novel writer, simply "borrowed" the diagnostic symptom criteria for an unrelated disorder, made a few changes, and declared the existence of a new disorder. If this sounds absurd, it's because it is.

In 2006 Elias Aboujaoude, Lorrin Koran & Nona Gamel gained attention for claims in CNS Spectrums: The International Journal of Neuropsychiatric Medicine that the internet may be 'addictive' for 14% of the US online population. 13.7% supposedly found it hard to stay away from the net for several days at a time and 8.2% used the net as a way to escape problems or relieve negative mood.

Aboujaoude said "In a sense, they're using the Internet to 'self-medicate'". That comment provokes questions about whether watching television, reading a book, walking the dog or visiting a cinema is 'self medication' and thus an indication of addiction. Psychologist Mark Griffiths challenged email from parents worried that their kids are addicted because they use their computers three hours a day. Griffiths sensibly commented

That isn't addiction. People will spend hours cyberchatting with long-distance friends or partners and it's said they're addicted. That wouldn't be said if they were on the phone.

US academic Sara Kiesler characterised 'net addiction' a "fad illness", commenting that problematic use can be self-corrective and that characterising it as an addiction

demeans really serious illnesses, which are things like addiction to gambling, where you steal your family's money to pay for your gambling debts, drug addictions, cigarette addictions.

Margaret Shotton's Computer Addiction? A Study of Computer Dependency (London: Taylor & Francis 1989), arguably more cited than actually read and based on study of a mere 75 'addicts' reported that those hobbyists were

some of the most fascinating people of my life. They were intelligent, lively, amusing, original, inventive, and very hospitable. True, they rarely spend much time communicating with people for reasons explained within this book, but when interest was shown in them and their activities it would be difficult to find more interesting conversationalists. True, many of them were unconventional and unconstrained by society's 'mores', but who would not like the freedom and courage to act without recourse to others? True, some of their relationships were problematic and their activities bewildering and distressing to their partners, but they were no more likely to have failed marriages than
the rest of the population.

That description would fit many academics and police personnel.

     one disorder or many?

If you are not a true believer one puzzling aspect of cyber addiction is its definition. Is it one disorder or many? Is the label too broad to be meaningful? Where does 'normal' use stop and pathological use begin? What are its causes and appropriate therapies? There is no expert consensus and the disorder is not recognised in standard diagnostic manuals.

Jennifer Ferris' Internet Addiction Disorders: Causes, Symptoms & Consequences argued that IAD is

a psychophysiological disorder involving tolerance; withdrawal symptoms; affective disturbances; and interruption of social relationships.

In seeking to define the disorder she refers to a range of criteria that include

1. Tolerance - the need for increasing amounts of time on the net to achieve satisfaction and/or significantly diminished effect with continued use of the same amount of time on the internet.
2. Two or more withdrawal symptoms developing within days to one month after reduction of Internet use or cessation of Internet use (i.e., quitting cold turkey) and these must cause distress or impair social, personal or occupational functioning. These include: psychomotor agitation, i.e. trembling, tremors; anxiety; obsessive thinking about what is happening on the Internet; fantasies or dreams about the Internet; voluntary or involuntary typing movements of the fingers.
3. Use of the Internet is engaged in to relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms.
4. The Internet is often accessed more often, or for longer periods of time than was intended.
5. A significant amount of time is spent in activities related to Internet use (e.g. Internet books, trying out new World Wide Web browsers, researching Internet vendors, etc).
6. Important social, occupational, or recreational activities are given up or reduced because of use.
7. The individual risks the loss of a significant relationship, job, educational or career opportunity because of excessive use.

All in all, those criteria could be used to identify television, telephone or other addictions. Ferris notes that "other characteristics have been identified", including "feelings of restlessness or irritability when attempting to cut down or stop Internet use" and use of the net for "escaping problems or relieving feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety or depression". Oops, sounds like Barbara Cartland addiction.

What causes IAD? Given disagreement about the shape of the disorder - or merely its existence and seriousness - there is no consensus. Christopher Bates, commended by one of the gurus, suggests that 'cyberaddiction' is caused by "low blood volume", presumably an advance on past explanations such as witches on broomsticks.

     behaviour? substance? overuse or preference

There is no consensus among health specialists that the net is addictive.

One reason is that there is disagreement about behavioural versus substance addictions, with some writers arguing that behavioural addictions are expressions of underlying problems (eg depression or even schizophrenia) rather than properly attributable to a particular medium or pursuit.

Another reason is that there is disagreement about the identification of what constitutes cyberaddiction (or addiction to things such as mobile phones, television, iPods or reading medical journals). Proponents of cyberaddiction often refer to 'over-use', 'excessive use' or compulsivity. However, those proponents disagree about what is excessive, with some arguing that anything more than three hours per day is 'excessive' (a figure that enables glib characterisation of most office workers as actual or potential addicts).

Critics have responded that many people pursue avocations (such as chatting with friends online, watching television, reading books or working on cars) because those activities are pleasurable. They can stop, but - quite rationally - choose not to. Mere engagement with a medium such as television or the net should not be treated as always equivalence to compulsive behaviour or dependence.

Edward Castronova, in Synthetic Worlds: The Business & Culture of Online Games (Chicago: Uni of Chicago Press 2005), commented

When people spend dozens of hours weekly at their computers, or on the internet, or playing video games, it is almost certain that some other activities will suffer. The question is, when does this behaviour warrant the label 'addiction'? Addiction is a strong word, calling for both renunciation on the part of the subject and forceful intervention by others ... a behaviour becomes problematic when, and only when, it degrades other important things in life. A 60-hour-a-week compulsive EverQuest user who fails to speak to his own children when they come home from school is engaging in problematic behaviour. But consider the same user, living alone, with all his friends being online and in the game - is his devotion of time to cyberspace problematic? In the end we can only judge whether presence in the virtual world is good or bad by reference to the ordinary daily life of the person making the choice to go there. For some people Earth is where they really ought to spend their time. For others, perhaps the fantasy world is the only decent place available.

     precedents

Despite assertions about the uniqueness or significance of net addiction - or the insights of particular therapists - it is merely the latest of a succession of alarms about the physical, psychological or social effects of new media and new technologies.

Those precedents reflected broader social anxieties regarding virility, minorities, nationality and the lower classes.

The advent of printing saw the emergence of warnings from educators, doctors and the pulpit about the seductions of print. The pallid (and spotty) schoolboy whose overindulgence in literature resulted in death from consumption was a theme for around 400 years. It is a counterpart of claims that addiction to novels or poetry debilitated the weaker sex, leading to frigidity, stillbirths and an early grave. The development of mass markets for literature saw warnings that the lower classes - in particular girls working in textile mills and other factories - were particularly susceptible ... spending hours (and too much of their income) mooning over trashy novels rather than devotedly tending the looms.

Denunciation of the telegraph featured claims that the wires altered the physiology of those in close contact (a justification for early gender restrictions in the workforce) and curdled milk or otherwise damaged cows. Women were believed to be particularly excited by opportunities to receive and send telegrams, with compulsive use resulting in catch-all symptoms such as neuraesthenia or dysmenorrhea. A few generations later we saw more subtle warnings about anomie in the suburbs or the office, with for example stereotypes about women "always nattering on the phone".

Such claims echoed warnings by clergy, civil society organisations and the emerging psychology industry about compulsive consumption of film, radio and television. Those warnings included assertions about subliminal messages, conditioning and fundamental changes to brain physiology.

Mencken satirised contemporary US hysteria about television watching, warning in 1952 that

no matter how good any given television show is, to look at that tube of lights and shadows almost invariably brings to mind such things as death, tuberculosis, cats howling on the back fence, incest, dishes in the sink, etc.

Such a reaction ... applies particularly to looking at television alone. A hair-in-the-mouth, screaming-nerves sensation comes from viewing television in solitude, an act of the same category as drinking in solitude or taking morphine while shut up in a closet, but much worse.

Furthermore ... to look at it for any length of time, even in the company of others, causes sexual impotence, shortens the life span, makes the hair and teeth fall out, and encourages early psychosis in otherwise normal people.

The more recent Television & the Quality of Life: How Viewing Shapes Everyday Experience (Mahwah: Erlbaum 1990) by Robert Kubey & Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi conceded that the term 'TV addiction' is "imprecise and laden with value judgments" but claimed that it "captures the essence of a very real phenomenon".

Their 2002 article Television Addiction Is No Mere Metaphor noted that

Psychologists and psychiatrists formally define substance dependence as a disorder characterized by criteria that include spending a great deal of time using the substance; using it more often than one intends; thinking about reducing use or making repeated unsuccessful efforts to reduce use; giving up important social, family or occupational activities to use it; and reporting withdrawal symptoms when one stops using it. All these criteria can apply to people who watch a lot of television.

Courts and much of the media have been less generous. In 2004 for example Timothy Dumouchel gained momentary notoriety through small claims litigation against a Wisconsin cable tv service. He said

I believe the reason I smoke and drink every day and my wife is overweight is because we watched the TV everyday for the last four years... I'm definitely addicted. When I'm home, it's on. I wanted to talk to my family. When you're watching TV, how much do you communicate with your family?

Anxieties about 'SMS addiction' or 'mobile addiction' are highlighted later in this note.

We have pointed elsewhere to waves of anxiety about railways, film, radio and even comics. A historical perspective is provided by Avital Ronell's The Telephone Book: Technology, Schizophrenia, Electric Speech (Lincoln: Uni of Nebraska Press 1991). Joseph Walther offered a parody in his 1999 paper 'Communication Addiction Disorder: Concern over Media, Behavior and Effects' (PDF).

     orientations and polemics

The literature on internet addiction is at best uneven and is often distinctly polemical, with an emphasis on anecdote at the expense of rigorous statistical analysis.

Young has been echoed in works such as Hooked On The Net: How to say goodnight when the party never ends (Grand Rapids: Kregel 2002) by Andrew Careaga - marketed as "a solid, Christ-centered take on the controversial subject of Internet addiction - written by a self-admitted Internet aficionado" - and David Greenfield's Virtual Addiction: Help for Netheads, Cyberfreaks and Those Who Love Them (Oakland: New Harbinger 1999) or In the Shadows of the Net: Breaking Free of Compulsive Online Sexual Behavior (Center City: Hazelden 2004) by Patrick Carnes, David Delmonico & Elizabeth Griffin. It has also been echoed in numerous undergraduate papers, replete with labels such as 'MUD & IRC: The Heroin of the Internet?'

There is a more analytical account in Richard Davis' paper A Cognitive-behavioral Model for Pathological Internet Use (PIU) and Mark Griffiths' 'Internet addiction: Does it really exist?' in Psychology & the Internet, intrapersonal, interpersonal, and transpersonal implications (San Diego: Academic Press 1998) edited by Jayne Gackenbach and in Narelle Warden, James Phillips & James Ogloff's 2004 'Internet Addiction' in 11 Psychiatry, Psychology & Law 2, 280-295.

John Suler's 1999 paper Healthy & Pathological Internet Use attempted to differentiate between good and bad consumption. Nicholas Yee's 2002 paper Ariadne - Understanding MMORPG Addiction considers addiction to massive multiplayer online roleplaying games; there is another perspective in the 2007 presentation The LAN Game Ate My Brain, Dude: 'MMORPG Addiction' and Australian Law (PDF) and the forthcoming paper A Label in Search of Liability: CyberAddiction and the Law.

Two outcomes from early alarms were the APA paper on Sexuality on the Internet: From Sexual Exploration to Pathological Expression by Alvin Cooper, Coralie Scherer, Sylvain Boies & Barry Gordon and Carla Surratt's Netaholics? The creation of a pathology (New York: Nova Science Publishers 1999).

Points of entry to the literature on identification and treatment of addiction per se include Addiction: mechanisms, phenomenology and treatment (New York: Springer 2003) edited by W Fleischhacker & D Brooks, The addiction-prone personality (New York: Kluwer Academic 2000) by Gordon Barnes and Addiction: evolution of a specialist field (Malden: Blackwell Science 2002) edited by Griffith Edwards. A perspective on diagnostics is provided by papers in Rethinking The DSM: A Psychological Perspective (Washington: American Psychological Association 2002) edited by Larry Beutler & Mary Malik.

A more detailed bibliography is provided on the final page of this note.

     issues

Most studies of cyberaddiction are deeply problematical because they

• draw on small (sometimes ludicrously small) and often self-selected populations
• have no independent oversight
• involve serious uncertainties about questionnaire structure and data handling or about the interpretation of figures and answers
• are not benchmarked against widely recognised independent research
• fail to differentiate between time spent online at work and non-occupational use.

An APA journalist gently noted in 2000 that

despite the topic's prominence, published studies on Internet addiction are scarce. Most are surveys, marred by self-selecting samples and no control groups. The rest are theoretical papers that speculate on the philosophical aspects of Internet addiction but provide no data.

Meanwhile, many psychologists even doubt that addiction is the right term to describe what happens to people when they spend too much time online.

"It seems misleading to characterize behaviors as 'addictions' on the basis that people say they do too much of them," says Sara Kiesler, PhD, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University and co-author of one of the only controlled studies on Internet usage, published in the September 1998 American Psychologist. "No research has yet established that there is a disorder of Internet addiction that is separable from problems such as loneliness or problem gambling, or that a passion for using the Internet is long-lasting."

Another asked "is the internet addictive or are addicts using the internet?". Others have wondered whether some 'victims' are scapegoating the net: if your career is on hold, kids have bad taste in music, love has flown away and washing the dishes does not excite you it must be the fault of the all-powerful internet. That perception of potency is an echo of some of the more utopian claims that going online will make us all wiser, richer, happier and - of course - connected.

US academic Ivan Goldberg, whose 1995 spoof of the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is sometimes cited as spawning the disorder, commented that

I don't think Internet addiction disorder exists any more than tennis addictive disorder, bingo addictive disorder, and TV addictive disorder exist. People can overdo anything. To call it a disorder is an error.

That was endorsed by Mark Griffiths, characterising much 'cyberaddiction' as comparable to 'star trek addiction'. Other writers have wondered about the implications for law, asking whether 'internet addiction' is different from the 'twinkie defense', 'tobacco deprivation syndrome' or 'UFO survivor syndrome' highlighted later in this note.

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