Internet Addiction Essay Example

Internet addiction is a growing problem for the whole world: estimates show that from 5 to 10 % of world population have this problem. Internet addiction is defined as any online-related, compulsive behavior which interferes with normal living and causes severe stress on family, friends, loved ones, and one’s work environment (Johnson, 2009). Internet addiction has been called Internet dependency and Internet compulsivity.

On one hand, Internet should not be regarded as a means of addiction. “Addicted Internet users are addicted to a favored kind of social stimulation and not to the Internet itself, although it is also true that the Internet has made it vastly easier and more convenient for someone to develop such a compulsion”(Bocij, 2006). Internet Addiction Essay Example. Therefore, those who tend to become addicts in real life. Have the same chance of becoming Internet addicts. On the other hand, the availability of Internet, propagation of new online possibilities and the lack of moral and social responsibility are the main driving forces causing people to drive into Internet compulsion.

One of the countries most vulnerable to this problem is Korea, where 90% of population have Internet access. Korea is ranked fourth in the world by the amount of home broadband subscribers. Also, Internet cafes are wide-spread, and Internet access is rather cheap. The problem of Internet addiction has already been closely examined and addressed by Korean government. To understand why this problem is so important for Korea, it is enough to analyze the statistics (Johnson, 2009):

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– the average Korean high-school student spends 23 hours per week playing video games. Internet Addiction Essay Example.

– 2.1 percent of children (from 6 to 19 y.o.) are affected severely enough to warrant treatment.

– about 80% of those who need treatment will also require medication.

– about 20-24% of those who need medication will also require hospitalization.

As one of the means for addressing this problem, a rescue camp for those who suffer Internet compulsivity was opened. The participants of rehabilitation programs arrive there and stay for a 12-day session. They are not allowed to use computers, and access to cell phones is limited by 1 hour per day. Also, lots of physical activities and actions aimed at establishing connection with real world are included.

Other actions of Korean government aimed at addressing the growing umber of Internet addicts is the idea of regulating the amount of Internet access and filtering content; the hotlines for those suffering Internet addiction are already available. However, despite these, obviously reasonable decisions, there are many depraved actions of the government related to the expansion of Internet dependency. For example, the availability of Internet and online gaming is a disease that has distracted many people (especially teenagers) from real life. However, government supports the online gaming industry and maintains Korea’s status as the capital of world gaming – for example, the world championship on computer games takes place in Korea. The biggest lie in all the situation is that though everyone is aware of Internet addiction, the government still supports and promotes the Internet cafes and uncontrolled usage of resources there, and does not make global attempts to address the situation. Though local solutions for those who are already addicted have been invented (and in this situation Korea is the pioneer – it managed to recognize such social problems which haven’t been identified clearly in other countries yet), there is no sound solution for turning people, especially young people, with their face to real life.

In my opinion, though Internet popularity itself should not be blamed for causing addiction, the tardy actions of the government and its “dual standards” – which encourage computer gaming business and internet cafes – together with the lack of adequate social programs for youth have partly added to the dimensions of the problem. Internet Addiction Essay Example. However, current concern of the government and its set of actions aimed at reducing Internet addiction and its causes indicate that the problem has been recognized. Therefore, I believe that in future the number of Internet addicts and those in the “risk zone” will reduce.

Sources:

Bocij, Paul. (2006). The dark side of the Internet. Greenwood Publishing Group.

Johnson, Nikola F. (2009). The Multiplicities of Internet Addiction. Ashgate.

In recent years, internet addiction has been a world-wide problem among the youth. Many of them may sit in front of the computer to play online game; chat with others for the whole day without resting. Those prolonged activities bring a lot of destructive effect to them both

Internet can be very constructive, but we must be conscious how much time we spend on it on a daily basis. People are addicted to the internet since they do not control the amount of time they spend on it. It is important to have other interests apart from the internet.

Today, surfing the Web has become a hobby as social and marketable as bar hopping or going to the movies. As the web has become a part of mainstream life, some mental health professionals have noted that a percentage of people using the web do so in a compulsive and out-of-control manner. In Japan (Aril 2010), a 30-year-old man who is addicted to internet killed his father and his 1 year-old niece because of his father terminated the contract of internet broadband. He then set up a fire and burnt his house. In this case, 2 people died and 3 people injured. This phenomenon of obsessive Internet use has been termed ‘Internet Addiction’ based on its similarity to common addictions such as smoking, drinking, and gambling. Internet Addiction Essay Example. Internet Addiction has even been championed as an actual disorder, notably by some psychologists. Nevertheless, at this time the true nature of Internet Addiction is not yet determined.

Because the Internet is used by many people as a normal part of their career or education, knowing how to separate excessive from normal use becomes difficult and cannot using simple measures such as amount of time spent online in a given period. Most fundamental in distinguishing normal from problem Internet use is the experience of compulsion to use the net. Normal users, no matter how heavy their usage, do not need to get online and do not neglect their occupational duties or their relationships with family and friends to get online.

Mental health professionals are split as to whether Internet addiction is real or not. No one disputes that some people use the Internet in an obsessive manner even to a point where it interferes with their ability to function at work and in social relationships. What is doubtful is whether people can become addicted to the Internet itself, or rather to the stimulation and information that the web provides. The argument surrounding Internet Addiction is precisely whether people become addicted to the net itself, or to the stimulation to be had via the net, such as online gambling, pornography or even simple communication with others via chat and blogs.

Some psychologists do not consider in addiction to the Internet itself, but rather in addiction to stimulation that the Internet provides. They propose that new Internet users often show an initial fascination with the innovation of the Web, but eventually lose interest and reduce their time spent online back to a normal, healthy amount. Those abuser who do go on to show obsessive Internet utilization, for the most part become compulsive only with considering to particular types of information to be had online, mainly often gambling, pornography, chat room or shopping sites. This is not an addiction to the Internet itself, but rather to risk-taking, sex, socializing or shopping. In real meaning, the main addictive characteristic of the Internet is its capability to enable instant and relatively social stimulation. “Addicted” Internet users are addicted to a favored kind of social stimulation and not to the Internet itself, although it is also true that the Internet has made it easier and more convenient for someone to develop such a compulsion. Internet Addiction Essay Example.

Why peoples especially youth have internet addition? There are some reasons to explain it.

By Internal Factors-The background of growth, the family is believed to have a fundamental influence on the developing child. A caregiver who is emotionally and physically available is essential for healthy child and adolescent development. Besides, dysfunctional caregiving, lack of positive parenting skills, and poor family management are strongly associated with substance use and delinquency in youth. Therefore, the youth growth up in poor family will seek alternative to fulfil their psychological needs, it is compensation. The level of compensation is depending on the individual factors such as the degree of self control, emotional control, ability of problem solving, anxiety management. When over compensation, addition will occur. There are some reasons that people choose internet for compensation. From social learning, when adolescents’ strong developmental needs, such as personal identity, autonomy, and relationships with peers may not be fulfilled through physical activities, they may then shed social inhibitions, which leads to Internet addiction (Lin & Tsai, 2002), also when they are dissatisfied with their leisure time, they may be motivated to seek excitement and pleasure from cyberspace and therefore raise their level of Internet addiction. Besides, encourage of society and the common use of Internet activities raise the level of Internet addiction. Furthermore, the traditional activities are perceived to be boring and fails to satisfy expected optimal experience, the youth may be motivated to seek another alternative-the Internet. Internet not only fulfills youth’s psychological needs but also entertainment needs. Lastly, Internet dependency was burden and the youth become habituated by using.

Internet addiction is not recognized as a formal mental health disorder. However, mental health professionals who have written about the subject note symptoms or behaviors that, when present in sufficient numbers, may indicate problematic use. These include:

Obsession with the Internet: User often thinks about the Internet while he or she is offline.

Loss of control: Addicted users feel unable or unwilling to get up from the computer and walk away. They sit down to check e-mail or look up a bit of information, and end up staying online for hours.

Inexplicable sadness or moodiness when not online: Reliance on any substance often causes mood-altering side effects when the addicted user is separated from the substance on which he or she depends.

Distraction (Using the Internet as an anti-depressant): One common symptom of many Internet addicts is the compulsion to cheer one’s self up by surfing the Web.

Dishonesty in regard to Internet use: Addicts may end up lying to employers or family members about the amount of time they spend online, or find other ways to conceal the depth of their involvement with the Internet.

Loss of boundaries or inhibitions: While this often pertains to romantic or sexual boundaries, such as sharing sexual fantasies online or participating in cyber sex, inhibitions can also be financial or social. Online gambling sites can cause addicts to blow more money than they would in a real-life casino because users never actually see their money won or lost, so it is easier to believe the money is not real. Internet Addiction Essay Example. Chat rooms can incite users to reveal secrets they would not reveal in face-to-face or phone conversations because of the same separation from reality. Also, addicted users are much more likely to commit crimes while online (e.g., ‘hacking’) than non-addicts.

Creation of virtual intimate relationships with other Internet users: Web-based relationships often cause those involved to spend excessive amounts of time online, attempting to make connections and date around the Net.

Loss of a significant relationship due to Internet use: When users spend too much time on the Web, they often neglect their personal relationships. Over time, such relationships may fail as partners simply refuse to be treated badly and break off from relations with the addicted individual.

Internet Addiction is not an official disorder, and many mental health professionals are not certain if it ever should be considered a real disorder. Nevertheless, compulsive Internet use is a serious problem for some people, and there are methods that can be helpful in alleviating this problem. Discussion below will describe some of these methods.

Internet addiction is a problem of compulsive stimulation, much like drug addiction. Because of this similarity, well studied treatment procedures known to be useful for helping drug addicts towards recovery are adapted for use with Internet addicts when the need arises. The techniques we describe below are drawn from a popular school of therapy known as ‘cognitive-behavioral’ therapy. Cognitive behavioral forms of therapy are well studied and known to be helpful as applied to many different mental and behavioral difficulties. They are also very practical and focus directly on reducing out of control ‘addict’ behaviors, and preventing relapse. They are not the only valid forms of therapy, however.

In treating drug addiction, frequently the goal of therapy is abstainence. An alcoholic, for example, is often best off if he or she ceases to drink alcohol entirely and to maintain a sober lifestyle. While this makes sense for a drug like alcohol which we might argue is a at best a luxury recreational indulgence and not a necessity, but it doesn’t necessarily make sense for Internet over-usage. Much like the telephone, the Internet has become an essential part of modern business.  Internet Addiction Essay Example.To ask people to not use the Internet at all could be a significant burden for them. Instead of abstainence, then, a reasonable goal for Internet addiction therapy is a reduction in total use of the net. Because Internet addicts by definition will have difficulty moderating their use on their own, therapy techniques can be employed to help them to become more motivated to reduce their use, and to become more conscious of how they get into trouble with the Internet.

Motivational Interviewing may be employed to assess how motivated Internet addict may be to change their behavior and to help addicts to increase their motivation to make a lasting change. To accomplish the latter, a therapist may help addicts to develop genuine empathy for the people who are hurt by their addiction (e.g., family and friends, employers, etc.). By helping addicts to see how their actions affect others they care about or are dependent on economically, therapists can help increase addicts motivation to change.

Therapists will also generally help addicts to identify ‘triggers’ that lead to episodes of uncontrolled Internet use. Naive addicts of any type typically believe that their indulgences “just happen” and that they played little or no role in an episode happening. A more realistic appraisal of an addict’s true situation will often reveal that a particular unconscious set of events occurred involving ‘triggers’ that prompted an addict to binge. Like a noun, a trigger is a “person, place or thing” that is a step in a chain of events that leads towards a relapse into addict behavior. To provide a fictitious but realistic example, a first trigger might be boredom, or horniness, or even a bad mood brought on by a fight. Addicts seek out their stimulation of choice in response to these triggers, most of the time without ever being all that aware of why they are acting as they do. Therapists will often discuss in detail episodes of indulgence with addicts so that they become conscious of their triggers and can choose to act in an alternative fashion when they next become vulnerable. They will also help addicts to generate lists of safer, more functional alternative behaviors they can engage in when they realize they are in danger so that they do not default to their addictive behavior. Internet Addiction Essay Example.

Part and parcel with identifying triggers, is helping addicts to set realistic goals for their Internet use. It may be that Internet use is important at use, but needs to be restricted at home. It may be that particular websites need to be avoided, but other uses of the Internet are okay. Therapists work with their patients to set realistic and measurable goals for their Internet usage. Patients are then asked to actually record their Internet usage in a log which is used in therapy to track progress. For example, to help reduce the amount of time spent of the Internet, or one specific portion thereof, a user will set a maximum allowed time per day or week. The goal is to keep under this maximum–the farther under, the better. To ensure this goal is met, users can rely on timers or alarms, to monitor how long they have spent online. For example, if an Internet user feels he is spending too much time in chat rooms, he may set a goal to spend no more than two hours per week using the Internet for this purpose. He sets a thirty-minute timer for each of the four times per week he wants to use the Internet for chat rooms, and as soon as his timer goes off he exits the chat room. He also records his actual usage on the log so as to see how well he is able to conform to his goal.

As anyone can quickly surmise, conforming to goals and logging your behavior is hard, disciplined work that is difficult for many people to sustain on their own. Therapists help patients to sustain this disciplined work by having them give weekly progress reports (either in individual or group therapy settings), or setting up (healthy) rewards that patients can earn when goals have been met for an agreed upon amount of time. Since one of the main draws of the Internet is the secrecy it appears to give, sharing online experiences in the context of offline relationships may discourages a user from ‘hiding’ in the Internet. Sharing progress in a group therapy session, with a therapist, or with a family member can help motivation to cut back on Internet time.

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Even with the best intentions, it is easy for an addict to ‘forget’ to record a lapse, or to simply not bring it up in sessions. Denial and people’s desire to please can be powerful forces to overcome. Objective monitoring can be useful when self-discipline and self-reporting are not enough to keep an addict on the straight and narrow. Regular urine, blood and hair samples are used for this purpose when dealing with drug addicts. Internet Addiction Essay Example. With regard to Internet addiction, it is possible to install computer programs designed to monitor where someone surfs and how long they spend there to provide an accurate and objective report of someone’s surfing behavior. PC software will monitor the kinds and number of websites a person uses and the amount of time spent Web surfing or checking e-mail. Such programs can help compulsive Internet users supervise their own Internet use, but only if they are installed so as to be hard to tamper with.

The therapy techniques described above are best delivered by a trained mental health professional in the context of a therapy relationship. A fair amount of self-help literature in the form of books and websites are available for those whose problems are not so demanding, or those who simply wish to be more educated about this problem. See the reading suggestions below, or the Links section of this topic center for suggestions.

The bottom line when dealing with Internet Addiction is to identify triggers that lead to problematic use, to set realistic goals for reducing use, and to then stick to and monitor conformance with those goals, sharing this conformity data with someone else to encourage honesty and sticking to the plan. Internet Addiction Essay Example.