Subject: Dysfunctional Cyber-surfing, Disordered Internet Use (Abuse?), Tech Addicts, ETC

Dysfunctional Cyber-surfing, Disordered Internet Use (Abuse?), Tech Addicts, ETC

All,

I haven't become comfortable yet speaking of internet use as something that can become an addiction.

Yet: "Indeed, although definitions of addiction vary, there is a body of evidence that suggests drug addictions and non-drug habits share the same neural pathways (New Scientist, 26 August, p 30). While only a hardcore few can be considered true technology addicts, an entirely unscientific survey of the web, and of New Scientist staff, has revealed how prevalent techno-addictions may have become.

Don back. Descriptions of disorders are interesting as are some case studies. Don

Just can't get e-nough
20 December 2006
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Richard Fisher

Hello, my name is Richard and I am an egosurfer. The habit began about five years ago, and now I need help. Like most journalists, I can't deny that one of my private joys is seeing my byline in print. Now the internet is allowing me to feed this vanity to an ever greater extent, and the occasional sneaky web search has grown into a full-blown obsession with how high up Google's ranking my articles appear when I put my name into the search box. When I last looked, my best effort was a rather humiliating 47th place. You know you have a problem when you find yourself competing for ranking with a retired basketball player from the 1970s.

Not that I'm alone in suffering from a dysfunctional techno-habit. New technologies have revealed a whole raft of hitherto unsuspected personality problems: think crackberry, powerpointlessness or cheesepodding (see "Modern maladies", bottom). Most of us are familiar with sending an email to a colleague sitting a couple of feet away instead of talking to them. Some go onto the web to snoop on old friends, colleagues or even first dates. More of us than ever reveal highly personal information on blogs or MySpace entries. A few will even use internet anonymity to fool others into believing they are someone else altogether. So are these web syndromes and technological tics new versions of old afflictions, or are we developing fresh mind bugs?

Developing a bad habit is easier than many might think. "You can become addicted to potentially anything you do," says Mark Griffiths, an addiction researcher at Nottingham Trent University in the UK, "because addictions rely on constant rewards." Indeed, although definitions of addiction vary, there is a body of evidence that suggests drug addictions and non-drug habits share the same neural pathways (New Scientist, 26 August, p 30). While only a hardcore few can be considered true technology addicts, an entirely unscientific survey of the web, and of New Scientist staff, has revealed how prevalent techno-addictions may have become.

The web in particular has opened up a host of opportunities for overindulgence. Take Wikipedia. Updating the entries - something anyone can do - has become almost a way of life for some. There are more than 2400 "Wikipedians", p 36 - you know where to look it up if you don't know what it means - who have edited more than 4000 pages each ("see Confessions of a Wikipediholic", below). "It's clearly like crack for some people," says Dan Cosley at Cornell University in New York, who has studied how websites such as Wikipedia foster a community. To committed Wikipedians, he says, the site is more than a useful information resource; it's the embodiment of an ideology of free information for all.

For complete article go to:

http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/mg19225831.200?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=mg19225831.200

Don Phillips
daphil15 [at] hotmail [dot] com