Corvillus

A recently conducted Stanford University School of Medicine study suggests that Internet addiction has high incidence in the US. According to the study, 1 in 8 people is an Internet addict.

The study also shows that people often turn to the Internet to get their mind off of their bad moods. I’m not sure if I’d personally consider this addictive behaviour, since just about everyone I know does something to get their mind off of whatever is bothering them, whether that be going on the Internet, going out, getting exercise, watching TV, reading a book, or just about anything that doesn’t remind them of the cause of the issue.

The interesting result from the study though is not that people use the Internet heavily, or why, however. It is that people go out of their way to hide their Internet usage. Now this I find strange in today’s society, where the Internet is fast becoming the dominant form of media. These days, there is no reason for anyone to be embarassed about their Internet usage, and aside from nonconstructive criticism from a minority of people (idiots, if you will) who don’t use the Internet often and look down on those who do. Anybody who is trying to hide their Internet usage probably has bigger problems than just Internet addiction.

According to the study, the typical Internet “addict” is in their 30’s and spends 30 hours or more on the Internet on “non-essential computer use”, which averages out to just over 4 hours a day. While this is admittedly high, you could easily find people that would watch more TV than this on average. The Internet also offers serval advantages over TV. It makes a larger amount of quality educational content available to users than TV does. It is also a powerful tool for interacting with other people due to it’s bidirectional nature, compared to TV and it’s unidirectional system.

All that said, you don’t see as many studies these days bashing TV viewing as you do Internet use, mainly because the Internet is easy to sensationalize thanks to the ignorance of the masses. (How many MySpace related news stories have you seen these days? How about Jack Thompson and his sympathizers ranting about how all of the world’s problems stem from video games?) Another reason might be the fact that the Internet is taking mindshare away from traditional media, and so the natural reaction is to keep attacking it and hope it goes away.

All in all, I think the whole issue is overblown. As long as people balance their Internet usage out with other activities, it shouldn’t be a problem. And even if they don’t, that’s not really anyone’s business but their own.

US full of Internet addicts [Yahoo News]