responses

This page considers responses to 'internet addiction'.

It covers -

• pulling the plug - therapeutic and management responses
• associated disorders - 'contact addiction', 'web rage' and 'sms fever'
• the therapy industry - statistics and studies

It supplements discussion elsewhere on this site regarding computer rage, sexuality, anxiety and other aspects of life online.

     pulling the plug

Responses to claims of pervasive cyber addiction have taken several forms, including -

• scepticism
• provision of corporate network management services
• different therapies, some delivered online, that range from traditional talking cures to behaviourist aversion training or recourse to the power of prayer

One response has been to take addiction as a given and therefore restrict access to the medium.

Websense, an 'employee management service', for example promoted its wares in 2002 with discovery of "one of the most highly addictive activities to scourge the modern workplace", with 25% of employees supposedly feeling addicted and a mere 8% of those polled (some 305 US office workers) claiming no knowledge of workplace web addiction.

Websense concluded that employee personal net usage centres on news sites (67%) and shopping (37%), with 23% of employees indicating that shopping is the "most addictive" online content. 67% access news sites for personal reasons; 37% access shopping and auction sites at the office.

2% of the surveyed employees admitted accessing "pornography" and 2% admitted gambling online at work. Supposedly 70% of "all Internet porn traffic" occurs during the nine-to-five workday, up to 40% of surfing is not business-related and over 60% of online purchases are made during that time.

Websense regrettably did not benchmark those figures against employee use of telephones.

It notes a comment from Marlene Maheu ("Internet addiction expert" and CEO of an organization developing internet and telehealth aids) that

Studies have shown that from 25 to 50 percent of cyber-addiction is occurring at the workplace ... That means employees are getting paid to participate in activities that are not work-related.

There is recurrent media attention - typically at the end of the year, when news is 'slow' and editors are barrel-scraping - to claims that people suffer withdrawal symptoms when deprived of the net.

It is unclear whether going cold turkey on the net is much different from being deprived of a mobile phone (sometimes characterised as contact addiction), snailmail or a video.

We are underwhelmed by accounts of the latest clinical disorder but if you are an Oprah fan you'll probably enjoy answers to questions such as "Why is the Internet so seductive? What are the warning signs of Internet addiction? Is recovery possible?" The corollary is presumably the 'web rage' featured in a 2001 Roper Starch report: more fender benders on the digital highway.

The Singapore Straits Times reported in 2001 that psychiatrists were touring local high schools, talking to children about the symptoms of IA. Supposedly, three children per year sought help when the disorder was first 'discovered' in 1995. As of 2001 around 80 kids sought help each year.

It is unclear whether that figure is higher than demands for therapy to cure GameBoy, Pokemon or plain old fashioned vanilla-style television. It is consistent with past accounts of telephone addiction, featured in Ronell's The Telephone Book or Tom Lutz' American Nervousness, 1903: An Anecdotal History (Ithaca: Cornell Uni Press 1991).

Another response has been the emergence of the online confession sites - such as Dailyconfession.com and Grouphug ("the idea is for anyone to anonymously confess to anything") - highlighted in our discussion of mind & body in the digital environment.

     associated disorders?

It is unclear whether net addiction is associated with other ICT disorders, substantive or otherwise, including -

• SMS addiction
• contact addiction (typically characterised as compulsive use of mobile phones and electronic mail)
• cyberchondria

It is also unclear whether supposed web addiction is associated with the 'computer rage' profiled by Kent Norman or the 'computer anxiety' highlighted elsewhere on this site.

     the therapy industry

Figures about the size, shape, growth and effectiveness of the cyberaddiction therapy industry are unclear. It is thus similar to the adult content industry, explored elsewhere on this site, where there has been little critical analysis of claims and many statements are self-interested.

So far there appear to have been no successful lawsuits against software/hardware vendors and ISPs for providing the means of addiction, in contrast to cases in the US where plaintiffs sued fast-food outlets for wantonly causing an addiction to fries and other takeaway treats.

Much of the writing about web addiction might be thought of in terms of fashion and as a media phenomenon rather than a discrete pathology, one situated in a culture where there is a substantial market for Blue Water (promoted as having had "negative memories" removed and replaced with "beneficial energy patterns") and Kabbalah Mountain Spring Water (which not only tastes good but absorbs radiation, alleviates rheumatism and has anti-ageing properties).

Questions about the 'addiction industry' and contemporary anxieties are highlighted in The Culture Of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid Of The Wrong Thing (New York: Perseus 2000) by Barry Glassner, Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry is Doing to People (London: Constable 1998) by Tana Dineen, Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability In An Uncertain Age (London: Routledge 2003) by Frank Furedi and Adam Burgess' Cellular Phones, Public Fears & A Culture of Precaution (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 2004).

A historical perspective is provided by Traumatic Pasts: History, Psychiatry & Trauma in the Modern Age, 1870-1930 (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 2001) edited by Mark Micale & Paul Lerner and Mind Games: American Culture & the Birth of Psychotherapy (Berkeley: Uni of California Press 1999) by Eric Caplan.

 

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