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Internet addiction: The emergence of a new clinical disorder (1996) [pdf]

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Re: Internet addiction: The emergence of a new clinical disorder (1996) [pdf]

#41

Post by CalRobert »

Jensson wrote: post #15
sidcool wrote: post #7

What's the solution to internet addiction? It's only seeming to get worse.

The same way you solve "car addiction", you don't. The internet is such a convenient way to get information and media that it outcompeted a lot of other old activities. Sure convenience has issues, like "car addiction" tend to create obesity, since you no longer train the skills dealing with inconvenience, but the convenience itself isn't a problem. Rather just like we realized people need exercise, you just need to…

Car addiction is a real problem, though. Pollution (air and noise), lost use of streets by people walking, chatting, cycling, etc. - increased social isolation, increased cost of living, 40,000 dead people a year, far less freedom for people who can't drive (especially kids), land being reallocated to car infrastructure, legal changes preventing the construction of walkable communities in the name of more convenient motoring, etc.

Similarly, the internet has had a lot of externalities we may not have addressed.

Re: Internet addiction: The emergence of a new clinical disorder (1996) [pdf]

#42

Post by _dain_ »

kypro wrote: post #38
cloudengineer94 wrote: post #33

I have been giving a lot of thoughts into this for quite a few years now. A few years ago I went on a trip and ended up staying at a friend's house where he didn't any internet connection. There was Mobile Data available but where I was it was very expensive due to the data cap being 1GB at the time. Anyhow, being disconnected for like 3 days in a row felt like a drug user without their "fix". There was no way to con…

Sometimes I wonder if the tech withdrawal people experience is more related to the inconvenience of not having tech like smart phones and computers, rather than an actual addiction. For example, when my car is at the garage I feel like I'm going through a kind of drug withdrawal. It really bothers that I can't just jump in my car and go somewhere and instead I now need to catch a bus or walk. Before having a car this…

>For example, when my car is at the garage I feel like I'm going through a kind of drug withdrawal. It really bothers that I can't just jump in my car and go somewhere and instead I now need to catch a bus or walk. Before having a car this would have been normal to me, but am I now addicted to my car or is it more that having a car is really convenient and now I'm experience the inconvenience of not having access to one?

"Addiction" is probably not the right way of framing it, since it applies more to the place you live rather than some aspect of your character. The place you live may be car-dependent, if walking/cycling/public transport are not adequate substitutes even temporarily.

Re: Internet addiction: The emergence of a new clinical disorder (1996) [pdf]

#43

Post by throwamon »

kypro wrote: post #38
cloudengineer94 wrote: post #33

I have been giving a lot of thoughts into this for quite a few years now. A few years ago I went on a trip and ended up staying at a friend's house where he didn't any internet connection. There was Mobile Data available but where I was it was very expensive due to the data cap being 1GB at the time. Anyhow, being disconnected for like 3 days in a row felt like a drug user without their "fix". There was no way to con…

Sometimes I wonder if the tech withdrawal people experience is more related to the inconvenience of not having tech like smart phones and computers, rather than an actual addiction. For example, when my car is at the garage I feel like I'm going through a kind of drug withdrawal. It really bothers that I can't just jump in my car and go somewhere and instead I now need to catch a bus or walk. Before having a car this…

If you spent over half your day watching cat videos and posting low-effort Hacker News comments and the other half feeling bad for doing it, you wouldn't be wondering that.

Re: Internet addiction: The emergence of a new clinical disorder (1996) [pdf]

#44

Post by 323 »

cloudengineer94 wrote: post #33

I have been giving a lot of thoughts into this for quite a few years now. A few years ago I went on a trip and ended up staying at a friend's house where he didn't any internet connection. There was Mobile Data available but where I was it was very expensive due to the data cap being 1GB at the time. Anyhow, being disconnected for like 3 days in a row felt like a drug user without their "fix". There was no way to con…

Some cognitive scientists are saying that smartphones are extensions of our mind/body now, so taking them away is like taking away the artificial limb of an amputee - it makes you feel incapacitated.

Some go further, and say that taking away smartphones from prisoners for example could be classified as psychological torture.

Re: Internet addiction: The emergence of a new clinical disorder (1996) [pdf]

#46

Post by xorfish »

DanBC wrote: post #39
xorfish wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suicide rates worldwide have been consistently dropping. The same is true for Europe. The US is an outlier, the suicide rate has increased by 10% between 1996 and 2017. Source: https://ourworldindata.org/suicide I'm not sure that there is comparable data available for depression since our understanding of it has changed over the last 30 years and getting consistent data is very difficult.

Our World in Data is not a suitable source for suicide statistics, especially if you're comparing different countries across time. They don't tell you what populations they're using; they don't tell you how these different countries are counting suicide; they don't tell you whether the methods for counting have changed over time in these countries.

The data source is the World Health Organization. The data quality from different countries is included in their report.

The data for western Europe and the US is of high quality.

Which data would be of higher quality?

Re: Internet addiction: The emergence of a new clinical disorder (1996) [pdf]

#47

Post by kypro »

throwamon wrote: post #43
kypro wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I wonder if the tech withdrawal people experience is more related to the inconvenience of not having tech like smart phones and computers, rather than an actual addiction. For example, when my car is at the garage I feel like I'm going through a kind of drug withdrawal. It really bothers that I can't just jump in my car and go somewhere and instead I now need to catch a bus or walk. Before having a car this…

If you spent over half your day watching cat videos and posting low-effort Hacker News comments and the other half feeling bad for doing it, you wouldn't be wondering that.

I wasn't denying that people can be addicted to the internet, my comment was in response to whether what the parent commenter was saying is even that analogous to addiction.

Internet addiction is a term that seems to get thrown around a lot these days, especially at kids and teens, but I think what people tend to label internet addiction isn't really an addiction at all or even directly damaging -- it's just people understandably wanting to take advantage of having access to the internet and smart phones to stay connected to friends or to entertain themselves. If it gets to the point where kids aren't doing school work, or if an adult rather play video games than get a job, then sure that's a problem. But if a guy likes to come home from work and spend 80% of his evening catching up with friends on Facebook and playing video games I don't think that's an any less valid way to spend an evening than say reading a fiction book. And again, we don't accuse people who spend most of their free time reading sci-fi books as being addicts, even if taking their sci-fi books from them would send them into a state of withdrawal while they found something else to replace their reading "addiction" with.

Re: Internet addiction: The emergence of a new clinical disorder (1996) [pdf]

#48

Post by alexellisuk »

sidcool wrote: post #7

What's the solution to internet addiction? It's only seeming to get worse.

Someone recently bought me a copy of Dopamine Detox via my Amazon Wishlist. It's an easy read and gives some suggestions for how to start reclaiming your attention and have purpose in your days. I'd recommend it.

Re: Internet addiction: The emergence of a new clinical disorder (1996) [pdf]

#49

Post by cristoperb »

johnisgood wrote: post #32
motohagiography wrote: post #2

> Dependents spent a M = 38.5, SD = 8.04 hours per week compared to Non-Dependents who spent M= 4.9, SD = 4.70 hours per week. Rookie numbers.

I spend around 12 (sometimes 48) hours a day on the Internet. 8.04 hours per week is nothing... ~1 hour per day. That is nothing.

It's 38.5 hours per week (with a standard deviation of 8.04 hours). Still doesn't sound like too much today.

Re: Internet addiction: The emergence of a new clinical disorder (1996) [pdf]

#50

Post by Mezzie »

h2odragon wrote: post #40

There was a time when the impact of Novels (fiction books) on young women's health was a topic of hot debate. When this "Internet addiction" label got pasted onto the same old "be scared of the new fad" it coincided with Nancy's "Just Say No" campaign and sought tailwind from the term "addiction"; oddly just as "addiction by prescription" began its meteoric rise. Nor should we forget all the Internet Sex Predators; s…

I remember when this article came out. I was 8 and definitely fit the criteria and have ever since, but for some reason it's not a 'problem' anymore since now everybody has internet access to the point where it becomes logistically difficult if you DON'T for whatever reason. Instead of "Mez is a weirdo who spends all of her time online", now it's "Oh, ask Mez [about whatever thing they heard online], she'll know what's going on."

Now the "problem" is TikTok/"the algorithm". Which, don't get me wrong, algorithmic discovery and content provision have issues, but a lot of the panic is non techy people just not understanding something new. I'm sure in 10 years we'll be panicking about something else.

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