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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]

#71

Post by bumby »

Mezzie wrote: post #60
rbobby wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually isn't addiction also defined in terms of some harm to the person? Damaging relationships, getting fired, going broke, and so forth. And having some guidance that Bob spending too much time on the internet is something serious and should follow an addiction recovery treatment plan is a net good thing (by a lot).

Those are all socially constructed to a degree, though. When I was growing up in the 90s, my strong preference for online communication prevented me from making/doing some connections that were, at the time, considered mandatory: It was thought that there was no way I would meet a mate or land/keep a job if I spent my time online instead of partaking in a more 'acceptable' activity. Such harm can also vary based on t…

Some problems are socially constructed, yes. But in the study over half the respondents listed "severe" impairment across academic, relationship, financial, and occupational domains. Some of that is surely because their use butts up against social norms (e.g., if everyone is telling you that you spend too much time online, I'm guessing you'd be more likely to rate your anxiety about internet use as high), but I think it might be dangerous to handwave all behavioral disorders as benign because of social constructs. The definition of addition here is "impairment" not "non-normative".

If a person loses their house to a gambling addiction, it's probably not a good framework to just say they're just not living up to the socially constructed norm of having a roof over one's head.

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

#72

Post by Mezzie »

bumby wrote: post #71
Mezzie wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are all socially constructed to a degree, though. When I was growing up in the 90s, my strong preference for online communication prevented me from making/doing some connections that were, at the time, considered mandatory: It was thought that there was no way I would meet a mate or land/keep a job if I spent my time online instead of partaking in a more 'acceptable' activity. Such harm can also vary based on t…

Some problems are socially constructed, yes. But in the study over half the respondents listed "severe" impairment across academic, relationship, financial, and occupational domains. Some of that is surely because their use butts up against social norms (e.g., if everyone is telling you that you spend too much time online, I'm guessing you'd be more likely to rate your anxiety about internet use as high), but I think…

My point is that the respondents may have been a self-selecting group due to a third factor, or they may just be people in general becoming more aware of this type of behavior. People who were internet addicts in the 90s are a skewed population.

My life is functionally impaired due to my homosexuality: Finding a partner is logistically difficult when your dating pool is, at best, 4% of that of others. This causes major financial and logistical impairments. Is my homosexuality the problem or is the problem a society which makes being single a difficulty? Likewise, 100 years ago, I would have spent my whole life blind. Now I live a normal life with very little in the way of visual accommodation. You cannot separate impairment from human society; humans are social animals.

Are the people in the article impaired because the internet is a problem, because of an external predisposition to addiction manifesting through internet use, or because society is impairing them?

It may be that the internet is a problem, but we aren't going to be able to answer that question unless we get rid of confounding variables.

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

#73

Post by Mezzie »

bumby wrote: post #67
Mezzie wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 doe…

That's a fair point.

I think the difficulty here is that because we had no way of knowing there things were going back in 1996, they didn't ask the questions/gather the information we would need in order to do the apples-to-apples comparison we'd need between these behaviors and their harms in 1996 and in 2021.

They wouldn't think to consider physical isolation separately from internet use: Unless you were hauling your machine to LAN parties, being on a computer was physically isolating. Likewise, monitors and accessories are way better ergonomically now so spending 60 hours a week online now is probably LESS damaging than it used to be (but still damaging).

Also, some degree of these impairments is acceptable depending on the reason: Most people in the trades aren't doing well physically after decades, we just don't care because they bring value. How much of the 'worry' about their physical state is because they weren't destroying their bodies doing something that made $$?

I'd be curious if you (or anybody) knows if gambling IN GENERAL is better or worse than it was 30 years ago. If online gambling is more of a norm now, is that due to non-gamblers starting to gamble, or are the people who would've been at the casino every weekend just saving the gas?

We can't solve these issues unless we know if the internet is a symptom or the cause.

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

#74

Post by bumby »

Mezzie wrote: post #72
bumby wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some problems are socially constructed, yes. But in the study over half the respondents listed "severe" impairment across academic, relationship, financial, and occupational domains. Some of that is surely because their use butts up against social norms (e.g., if everyone is telling you that you spend too much time online, I'm guessing you'd be more likely to rate your anxiety about internet use as high), but I think…

My point is that the respondents may have been a self-selecting group due to a third factor, or they may just be people in general becoming more aware of this type of behavior. People who were internet addicts in the 90s are a skewed population. My life is functionally impaired due to my homosexuality: Finding a partner is logistically difficult when your dating pool is, at best, 4% of that of others. This causes maj…

>My point is that the respondents may have been a self-selecting group due to a third factor

The article addresses this:

"It is possible that those individuals classified as Dependent experienced an exaggerated set of negative consequences related to their Internet use compelling them to respond to advertisements for this study."

You seem to be losing focus on what the article is about, namely non-intoxicant addiction. "addiction can be defined as an impulse-control disorder which does not involve an intoxicant." If you were talking about a sexual addiction rather than a sexual preference, it would be an apt analogy.

To your point, yes, the context of impairment is being adaptive to the society in which one lives. The hermit living off the grid in Montana would probably be classified as maladaptive to modern society even if they think that society exhibits negative traits. That is a distinctly different claim as to whether that modern society exhibits certain favorable characteristics. This study was about the former point and made no claims to the latter.

The respondents characterized the Internet addiction as akin to cigarette cravings. I think it's possible (or even likely) there are confounding factors that drive this, but I think this study was asking a much simpler question of "Does Internet use display negative behavioral manifestations that align with other non-substance addictions, like gambling." To that point, either of those (Internet use or gambling) could be driven by societal factors.

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

#75

Post by bumby »

Mezzie wrote: post #73
bumby wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 doe…

That's a fair point. I think the difficulty here is that because we had no way of knowing there things were going back in 1996, they didn't ask the questions/gather the information we would need in order to do the apples-to-apples comparison we'd need between these behaviors and their harms in 1996 and in 2021. They wouldn't think to consider physical isolation separately from internet use: Unless you were hauling yo…

I don't know, but a quick search on Google Scholar seems to indicate that Internet gambling makes gambling worse for those who already have a predisposition for gambling problems. It seems to be more about availability, as "land-based" casinos mediate the Internet effect somewhat.

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

#76

Post by sabellito »

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."

It might also be that we're both interpreting "internet addiction" with different severities, which would lead to different suggestions.

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

#77

Post by s1artibartfast »

xorfish wrote: post #28
s1artibartfast wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in the meantime suicide and depression keep climbing

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.

If it is the case that suicide and depression is lower in the EU, then we would want to compare internet addiction in the US vs EU.

If the US is higher, this supports the argument, not refutes it

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

#78

Post by Mezzie »

bumby wrote: post #75
Mezzie wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fair point. I think the difficulty here is that because we had no way of knowing there things were going back in 1996, they didn't ask the questions/gather the information we would need in order to do the apples-to-apples comparison we'd need between these behaviors and their harms in 1996 and in 2021. They wouldn't think to consider physical isolation separately from internet use: Unless you were hauling yo…

I don't know, but a quick search on Google Scholar seems to indicate that Internet gambling makes gambling worse for those who already have a predisposition for gambling problems. It seems to be more about availability, as "land-based" casinos mediate the Internet effect somewhat.

Yeah, that's a really good point. In which case perhaps the problem could be mitigated through things like mandatory artificial 'difficulty' in design/UX, and, if so, we would know to be on the lookout for that in any OTHER new technology we create down the road as well and design for it.

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

#79

Post by bumby »

Mezzie wrote: post #78
bumby wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, but a quick search on Google Scholar seems to indicate that Internet gambling makes gambling worse for those who already have a predisposition for gambling problems. It seems to be more about availability, as "land-based" casinos mediate the Internet effect somewhat.

Yeah, that's a really good point. In which case perhaps the problem could be mitigated through things like mandatory artificial 'difficulty' in design/UX, and, if so, we would know to be on the lookout for that in any OTHER new technology we create down the road as well and design for it.

I think that is an interesting take, but would obviously have a lot of pushback. I doubt private industry would willingly work against their own profit incentive. Can you imagine if the government mandated social media sites to limit the use of algorithms to grab people's attention?

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

#80

Post by alexvoda »

Mezzie wrote: post #56
kypro wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

> 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. Parents and adults did do this back in the 90s, at least to me. I read books when I didn't have computer access and both were considered 'problems'. I ha…

By the same logic, aren't some people addicted to socialising? But I never heard it be called that.
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