Category: Health and Wellness
The use of the internet is pervasive in our culture. So much that the American Psychiatric Association is recommending further research on the condition called “Internet Use Disorder” in the upcoming diagnostic manual DSM V.
The disorder primarily refers to Internet gaming, however, it does include the criteria of “withdrawal symptoms when internet is taken away.” Sound familiar?
Addiction is not the only mental health condition that the internet can trigger. The other one is depression.
A recent article in the Scientific American suggests that people who rapidly move around on dozens of websites, engaging in fleeting contact, are most likely to get depressed:
“Peer-to-peer file sharing, heavy emailing and chatting online, and a tendency to quickly switch between multiple websites and other online resources all predict a greater propensity to experience symptoms of depression. Quickly switching between websites may reflect anhedonia (a decreased ability to experience emotions), as people desperately seek for emotional stimulation. Similarly, excessive emailing and chatting may signify a relative lack of strong face-to-face relationships, as people strive to maintain contact either with faraway friends or new people met online.”
It is the depth of emotion that is seen as critical for normal affect. The enormous amount of distraction that’s offered online seduces us into paying less and less attention towards a single topic — or people, for that matter.
Another phenomenon is loneliness.We do sit in front of our laptops mostly by ourselves, of course. There may be other family members around, but we tend to not engage much with them when the computer is on.
Even when talking with friends online, like on Facebook, there is a strange kind of loneliness that arises out of peer pressure, as an interesting reflection in hearty magazine point out: “The loss of a person’s ability to think differently than the people surrounding him is, in and of itself, a mode of INsanity that has everything to do with loneliness.”
The dynamic gives a whole new meaning to the term “alone in the crowd.”
Modern man as isolated, intimidated, disconnected and constantly distracted — not exactly an appealing vision of the future.
Wow! Dan! thanks for the Article. Interesting read.
Yes, thanks for the article. Interesting.
what are your thoughts, alex.
do you think internet addiction is linked to lonelyness?
I think its the other way around. I think loneliness is linked to the internet.
I'm no expert, but it seems to reason, and its certainly observable, that when one is lonely, one turns to the internet. When I'm bored and lonely, I go on a website to cheer me up. We all do that.
Thus, I think that loneliness is the reason we seek out the internet, i don't think the internet necessarily makes us lonely. Though, I'm sure it can in some cases.
I agree with Cody. for me, I'm only on the internet when I'm bored and there's nothing else to do.
I'm getting to sound like a broken record on this subject, I guess:
In the 1980s we had the issue of loneliness also. Only then, people who were isolated for one reason or another had no options. At least now, the Internet provides humans with an avenue for doing what humans do naturally: socialize.
My problem is these shrinks come up with this shit, set off moral panics, and try and demonize the very technology that allows some modicum of relief for the isolated. Is it as good as face to face? Probably not. If you take it away will there automatically be face to face? No, dammit no! Otherwise we would not have had the isolation problems of the 1980s. Were these shrinks born yesterday? Or just born in a barn or what? Sorry this one realy starts to grind on me.
Not only have I personally benefitted from these types of sites in the past 3 to 5 years on account of partial isolation, but I have seen even the elderly able to benefit: Getting videos and Skype videoconferences with the grandkids in another state. Something I could not provide my parents or parents in law 10 to 15 years ago when the daughter was little and we were in another state. Like any environment where humans find themselves, some will be better adjusted than others.
I personally am glad to find out an elderly person my parents' age, who would have been miserable in the 1980s, is now fully engaged online while their kids are working and living in another state, without the financial resources to visit often.
Shrinky-poohs, find you something else to bitch about, eh?
Dan, I find it ironic that you post several topics like these, and then you posted one a little while back called "Be wary of the American Psychiatric Association", who likes to spread around ideas like this one. Just something that crossed my mind. As for my thoughts on this subject, see my response on the"Is the web driving us crazy?" topic. I can't really say anything here that I didn't mention there, except to agree with earlier posts from Cody, Chelsea and leo.
I see another person is writing articles claiming the sky is falling again. Should we listen?
i think it goes round in circles.
if we are lonely, we turn to the internet
if we get too much internet, we get too lonely anyway as we don't want to socialise in the real world
What about the technology addiction? Since we pretty much can't live without some sort of technology, either from the computer, phone, cars, buses, planes and that. What about have something call the "technology addiction"? That will solve all the problem won't it? :P
I agree with Cody, Leo, and Ocean on here. Cody is right: often when people get lonely, they turn to the Internet for socialization. I know that can be the case for me. Socializing online has saved my sanity a few times when I've felt isolated. I will also say that being online does not make me want to stop socializing with people face-to-face. In fact, I do prefer real-life contact with people. But when that's not available for whatever reason, or when one is simply bored, the Net most definitely has its place. I get very tired of scare tactic nonsense of this nature.
Does it matter if I use a desktop not a laptop? Maybe I'm not lonely then?
Seriously, who ever wrote this artical must have nothing better to think about. I am sure that some people are lonely, so they get online.
They watch TV too, or listen to music. Reading a book gives me much pleasure, so if I have nothing to do I read offten times.
I do agree the internet has help with when I have nothing to do, but it has also given me much in my life, like friends,, music, ways to manage my life, and many other things.
If I'm lonely sometime I'm online it isn't the internet that caused it.
Well said post 13; I don't even know why people pay attention to this crap. What will it be next?
Tablets! Caring your tablet is a sign of insecurity!
I should write the article now, make the money. Lol
I'd say the internet is a great thing for the introvert. You can choose how much and with whom to interact without being called anti-social or a depressed grouch. Plus if you're curious about something, you can go right to the net and look things up via Google or the Wikipedia or other resources. You can hear radio from around the world, including internet-only content and you can make your own. Yes, there's something to be said about face-to-face interaction, but sometimes being around a lot of people can drain the introvert, so then he needs to go recharge and play on the net while doing so. And there ya go. In the end it's not hte existence of the net itself but how you apply it. Everything ahs its pros and cons but the way they write these articles you'd think the sky is falling because things just ain't what they used to was.
Too many of these shrinks are today's equivalent of shamans and priests and the like: find something wrong with you, and then provide most of the answer, but always keep you in a partial state of failure, because without you being some sort of failure they cannot succeed. This is not truly symbiotic, like many things in the market are, because their success depends on your failure and not your success.
Be glad these people don't build your computers, design your bridges or build your roads.
Sounds like people who invent a sickness and then follow it up by inventing a cure.