Research paper

The Internet addiction: reasons, definition

Introduction of Internet

In February 14, 1946, the first modern computer was born in Pennsylvania University; in 1969, the first Internet system was established in America, this system was named “Arpanet”. All of these things I mentioned above are required by military, the computer is in purpose for calculate the trajectory of the shell, and the Internet is for quick send information during the “cold war” between America and The Soviet Union. After almost 70 years development until today, computer and internet already became a very important part in people daily life. In the last century in the 1990s, the electronic office has been popularized, computer freed people from heavy paper files and records, mechanical arms replaced workers in factory and artificial intelligence became more and more humanized. Based on computers as the carrier of the internet, with the development of computer, the internet also has slowly been increasingly important in our lives. In Computer Dealer News magazine (Aug 22, 1996) listed 10 advantages of the Internet, it included many aspects which are Multimedia, Information transfer, general research, chatting, getting advice and receiving latest news. The internet also brought a lot of other things to this world. People in different areas can share knowledge and discuss it in same time; some people find a big opportunity to buy and sell merchandise online; people can even find all kinds of help on internet; the internet companies provide tens of thousands of jobs to support many families. We also enjoy entertainment from internet like society networking and online gaming.

Introduction of internet addiction

Behind all this glowing talk, however, because of people are too dependent on the internet so that   those people became a new clinical phenomenon which is called Internet Addiction, and these people called Internet addict. All over the world, Internet Addict is increasing in every country; especially in adolescent society, they contact and use internet when as long as they can remember, so internet is indispensable in their life. In America, a college student use internet 3 or more hours per day, which means 60-70% college students are potential internet addict. (expand)

 

 What is Internet addiction?

Some investigators have linked Internet addiction to addictive disorders, grouping it alongside alcohol and drug use disorders. Others have linked Internet addiction to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or to the impulse control disorders (ICDs).The disadvantages of Internet addiction (    ). in some medical magazine said an individual use Internet over 6 hours a day could diagnosing as Internet addiction, however, that it is non-validated.  We do not have a criterion to identify that whether people become addicted. In hospital, a doctor largely depend on patient’s psychiatric history, but many individuals with Internet addiction will meet the criteria for co-morbid psychiatric disorders, such as major depression, an anxiety disorder or another disorder of impulse control (e.g. compulsive shopping). So doctor may ask patient the following questions to help diagnosing:

 

Do you feel overly preoccupied with using your computer or accessing the Internet?

Do you ever feel that your computer (or Internet) use is excessive, inappropriate or poorly controlled?

Have your urges to use your computer (or the Internet), or the usage itself, ever been overly time consuming, caused you to feel upset or guilty, or led to serious problems in your life (e.g. financial or legal problems, relationship loss)? (   ) 

Also there are five subtypes of Internet addiction are as follows:

1. Cybersexual addiction: This occurs in individuals who are typically engaged in viewing, downloading and trading online pornography or are involved in adult fantasy role-play chat rooms.

2. Cyber-relational addiction: This occurs in people who become overly involved in online relationships or may engage in virtual adultery. Online relationships become more important than real life ones, and marital discord and family instability may result.

3. Net compulsions: This subtype includes a broad category of behaviours, including online gambling, shopping or stock trading. Significant financial losses may result, as well as relational and job disruptions.

4. Information overload: The World Wide Web has created a new kind of compulsive behaviour that involves excessive web surfing and database searches. These individuals spend a disproportionate amount of time searching for, collecting and organizing information.

5. Computer addiction: Most computers come equipped with pre-programmed games and people become addicted to playing them at the cost of work performance or family obligations.

These things only help doctor more exact to diagnosing, but it is not confirmed diagnosis. There is no solid standard for diagnosing Internet addiction, it not even a clinical symptoms in DSM-IV-TR ( American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. 4th ed.) . So in Internet addiction field we still have long way to go.

 

1. 3 types of Lazy, intellectually lazy

Internet addiction is making people lazy. There are three types of lazy which are: intellectually lazy, physically lazy and socially lazy. These problems cause many debates in society. The first one is intellectually lazy. With the advent of internet, it already has brought great progress. We almost can find all kinds information. When we did not have the internet, people have to go to the library or interview someone for search information. Now we just need go to Google, enter our question and we will get many answers and opinions about this question. People just need to click every website they feel is interesting and read it. When people want to know some news, they do not need to order the newspaper anymore. They just need to go to web portals and read any news they want. The problem is that people give up the traditional way of reading. There is a phenomenon that is the people almost lost the ability to read longish articles on the web or in print; because people are just seeking convenience, people got used to quickly scan short passages of text from many sources online. It  means that people if prefer to read titles and short paragraphs rather than read the whole long paper, then more people will lose the chance to read classic texts because these texts are extremely long.

 

2. physically lazy, confused real world and virtual world

The other problem is that some people are forgetting to enjoy nature as a form of entertainment and instead are choosing to entertainment themselves with technology.  Peoples’ original entertainment once included: hiking, fishing or playing chess with friends, but now our entertainment has changed to “I shared a video in my Facebook, you should watch it, it is so funny” or “shall we play ‘call of duty’ together tonight? I found a powerful weapon” things like this. There are some problems caused by internet addiction. (1) Loss of real life and lack of social skills. Everyone wants to be a hero and video games can satisfy them. So many people spend a lot of time gaming without having communication with others or learning something about this world. Finally people may be a hero in video games, but are the weak in real life. (2)  Disorientation. Most people socializing on the internet are not behaving normally. Like in some video games, you can kill anyone who you dislike, but you can’t do this in real life. We saw some news about a person imitated some activities just like in games and caused tragedy. (3) Poor judgment. We can find a lot of information on internet. This information include eroticism, violence or some worse information. People should recognize what are good things worth learning and stay away from what is bad, but it is hard, especially for teenagers. Teenagers are a group whose self-protective consciousness and self-control abilities are weak. Teenagers are thirsty for knowledge and a strong world view has not been formed yet. They are curious and thirsty for the external world and new things. But they are going through a period of change. The psychology and behavior is immature, so it is hard to resist the temptation from the virtual world. So it is important to guide teenagers through internet use.

3. socially lazy

The third is socially lazy. Many people dive into in the internet and indulge in society networking. They opposite to the computer day after day, believing the internet can do everything. Actually, a computer can almost do anything, but it lacks of something that only exists between people. Society networking provides us a convenient way to reach each other, but it also makes us socially lazy.

 

 

I will add treatment of Internet addiction section, misunderstanding of Internet addiction section, explain the differences between intelligent using of internet and internet addiction and conclusion.