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

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

#61

Post by whatroot8 » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

bumby wrote: post #52

Mezzie wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

All of that may be true, but it doesn’t necessarily negate the article claims of professional and social impairment. It just normalizes that behavior.

Maybe our past definitions of professional and social effort were arbitrary.

Point to a past social meme or industrial behavior that’s stood the test of time.

“Past worked like X so future must too.” is not a reasonable or rational position to hold given the evidence it will just change.

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

#62

Post by Mezzie » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 2:59 PM UTC

bumby wrote: post #51

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…

Is your point that the maladaptive effects in the study are not legitimate or that this behavior would just be supplanted by some other “fad”? I wonder if Internet addiction may have addition problems beyond those other examples. For example, the very tool used for many service jobs (the computer) is the same mechanism used to feed the addiction, making it extra hard to abstain. Or algorithms used to capture attentio…

This is similar to the problems faced by people recovering from Eating Disorders. You can't just NOT eat; you have to build a healthy relationship with the thing that almost ruined you. I wonder if anything in that field has been successful and might help people who DO feel like their internet use is out of control?

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

#63

Post by Mezzie » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 3:07 PM UTC

throwamon wrote: post #34

bigger_inside wrote: post #17

Have we collectively forgotten that Ivan Goldberg coined this term as a joke? It was also an ironic commentary on the overreach of addiction metaphors to encompass everything that existing social structures, especially established structures of productivity and wealth extraction, found disruptive. In that sense, the advent of "internet addiction" as a frame of reference was also part of the internet moral panic, whic…

"Internet addiction" doesn't strike me as a particularly unique expression, so I doubt he was the only one to come up with it. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure I'd never heard of it before I first thought of myself as "computer-addicted" when I was a child, before I even knew what the Internet was (and then, soon enough, I would see myself as "Internet-addicted" as well).

It was talked about, but this was either the first or one of the first academic articles to mention it, if I recall correctly (I may not). Similar to how discussions about how to save things online bubbled up before IA was established or there were a lot of talks about what made a webpage valuable before Google and Page Rank came on to the scene. Lots of collective consciousness going on.

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

#64

Post by Mezzie » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #41

Jensson wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Oh, there's a TON of unaddressed externalities.

Let's just fuck up everybody's nervous systems for profit! WHEE!

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

#65

Post by soylentcola » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 3:12 PM UTC

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…

Not to be too pedantic, but isn't "addiction" essentially a state of having adjusted to something to a point where its removal causes some level of distress?

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

#66

Post by throwamon » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

zeta0134 wrote: post #58

sabellito wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your advice to the comment, sadly, amounts to someone telling a drug addict to "just not use drugs", or a depressed person to "just go outside".

Ah, perhaps it has been misinterpreted. That was not my intent. "Take occasional breaks, they seem to help" was the goal, not "stop entirely and never start again."

Taking occasional breaks may be worse from an addiction point of view.

Relevant Sapolsky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2muJ0e9bvcI

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

#67

Post by bumby » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

Mezzie wrote: post #54

bumby wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of that may be true, but it doesn’t necessarily negate the article claims of professional and social impairment. It just normalizes that behavior.

The claims are missing an important variable when trying to determine if a behavior is harmful: The social context of that behavior. In the context of the 90s (and especially for adults), spending too much time online was, in some ways, an inherently anti-social act: You had to be physically tethered to the machine, often monopolizing the only other of long-distance communication available (the landline phone line) f…

I think the context was described. The article lists 5 dimensions where adverse behavior was documented: academic, relationship, financial, occupational, and physical. While I think you may be right about the different socializing role of the internet 25 years later, I'm not sure that explains away the adverse affects across all those dimensions. For example, with online gambling becoming more of a norm now, that doesn't mean the adverse financial aspects are any less bad. Normalization of deviance doesn't equate to unharmful.

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

#68

Post by bumby » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

h2odragon wrote: post #59

bumby wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your point that the maladaptive effects in the study are not legitimate or that this behavior would just be supplanted by some other “fad”? I wonder if Internet addiction may have addition problems beyond those other examples. For example, the very tool used for many service jobs (the computer) is the same mechanism used to feed the addiction, making it extra hard to abstain. Or algorithms used to capture attentio…

"supplanted by" or "attributed to?" There's always some reason to criticize other's behavior as bad, for them or society or whatever. There's always the problem of "you don't see the value the behavior gives me the same way I do." Even if the effects are legitimately objectively bad for someone, was the cause really "internet addiction?" Or was that merely a convenient label to apply or even a pet cause that could be…

I meant supplanted but I can see why the distinction may matter. I meant that today people may blame the Internet but at sometime later the Internet is no longer a concern because we've found some other boogeyman to blame. I believe the ancient Greeks, with their strong oral traditions, felt that written history would erode society. Not many people are lamenting the downsides of books today.

>was the cause really "internet addiction?"

According to the study, it would appear so.

"They reported developing a preoccupation with being on-line again which they compared to "cravings" that smokers feel when they have gone a length of time without a cigarette."

Although the authors do acknowledge possible sampling bias.

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

#69

Post by bumby » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 5:26 PM UTC

323 wrote: post #44

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.

Are there any citations to back up those claims?

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

#70

Post by bumby » Wed, Dec 08, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

bigger_inside wrote: post #17

Have we collectively forgotten that Ivan Goldberg coined this term as a joke? It was also an ironic commentary on the overreach of addiction metaphors to encompass everything that existing social structures, especially established structures of productivity and wealth extraction, found disruptive. In that sense, the advent of "internet addiction" as a frame of reference was also part of the internet moral panic, whic…

But the context of the article is not disruption to the economy or power structure, but an impulse control disorder which does not involve an intoxicant and has negative impacts on one's life. If you can believe something like gambling is addictive, I think the term "addition" in the context of the study is apt.