 |
7/29/2010 |
 |
|
|
Obsessive
Internet use poses risk of isolation, depression,
researchers say
June 13, 2000
Web posted at: 12:26 PM EDT (1626 GMT)
By Barbara Jamison
(WebMD)
-- How long have you been sitting there, staring at this screen?
Are you spending more and more of your time clicking and typing,
typing and clicking? Is there nothing else you'd rather do? Think
carefully about the answers to these questions, say psychologists;
they may tell a lot about your mental health.
A growing body of research suggests that excessive Internet use carries some
of the same risks as gambling: It can lead to social isolation, depression and
failure at work or school.
Some people -- particularly those who were isolated to begin with -- have forged
healthy friendships by meeting kindred souls online. But using the Internet too
much can hurt face-to-face relationships. And psychologists say an increasing
number of people are using the Internet so obsessively that they are ruining
their marriages and careers.
In one survey of 1,700 Internet users, presented August 24, 1999 at a meeting
of the American Psychological Association, 6 percent of those surveyed met the
criteria for addiction: They felt a building tension before the act, a rush of
relief afterwards and distortions of mood and bingeing.
Many get hooked on Internet pornography. "We're a nation of puritans," says
Dr. Kimberly S. Young, the survey's author and executive director of the Center
for On-Line Addiction in Pennsylvania. "And this is the first time in our
history we've had something so uncensored in our homes. You can get to very objectionable
material in a few keystrokes -- even by accident -- and then it's hard to get
out of the site."
Dan Moore (not his real name), a self-defined compulsive personality-type and
workaholic from a Midwestern state, says the Internet destroyed his life. This
middle-aged professional is currently going through divorce proceedings from
his wife of nine years and has been denied visitation rights with his two children
due to his addiction to sex sites. According to Dan, his wife claims that some
of the "soft porn" sites he regularly logged on to used minors. "She
became obsessed with the thought that I was getting involved in child pornography.
She even accused me of molesting my children." Although Dan vehemently denies
both charges, he admits that determining the age of women on the plethora of
available pornography sites is virtually impossible. "It's like having access
to a million adult videos, all for free. It's seductive. You get mesmerized."
Dan, who has recently begun treatment with an Internet addiction specialist and
is taking antidepressant medication, rid his home of both PC and modem. "When
I finally realized how it has affected my life, I felt like smashing it, throwing
it out the window. Now my compulsion is to try and understand what I've done
to myself and my family."
But it isn't only pornography that attracts addicts to the Internet, says Paul
Gallant, a licensed addiction counselor at the Sierra Tucson Center for Addiction
in Arizona. Some people are lured by the appeal of creating new identities for
themselves. Other users make a habit of online gambling, auctions or stock trading. "Your
life may be really boring in reality, but online you're a competitive superhero," Gallant
says.
Even innocent inquiries can become obsessions in a medium where information is
limitless, he adds. "Say you're a wine connoisseur, you find this great
site and it's linked to another great site. Fine, you've learned a lot more about
wine. Then all of a sudden you realize six hours have gone by. You're obsessed
with getting more and more information."
Experts are still debating nearly every aspect of the Internet's effect on mental
health. Advocates argue that the new medium's social benefits outweigh its risks.
They point to studies like one in the February 2000 issue of the journal American
Psychologist that found that many people draw comfort from anonymous discussions
with others who share their medical conditions.
But these studies are balanced by others that reveal a strong link between excessive
Internet use and serious mental disorders. For a study in the March 2000 issue
of the Journal of Affective Disorders, researchers interviewed 20 people like
Moore whose lives had been disrupted by the Internet. Nearly all of them were
diagnosed with serious mental illness, such as bipolar disorder. Many were sacrificing
sleep to spend an average of 30 hours a week online outside work.
But does the Internet cause the mental illness, or does mental illness lead people
to abuse the Internet? Researchers tried to answer that question in a 1998 study
by providing Internet access to 169 people who previously had not been able to
log on from home. The researchers reported in American Psychologist that the
more time these people spent online, the less time they spent with their families,
the smaller their social circles became and the more depressed and lonely they
felt. "Even for people who don't manifest addictive behavior, the Internet
is almost an invitation to obsession," says Young.
Many psychologists who accept that the Internet can be abused still hesitate
to use the phrase "addiction." University of Florida psychiatrist Dr.
Nathan Shapira, -- who co-authored the Journal of Affective Disorders study --
prefers "internetomania." But whatever you call it, he says, it's clear
that the problem needs more attention. "It concerns me that we're bustling
along blind. ... There is a tremendous amount of money going into the development
of this technology and almost nothing going into understanding how it affects
people. That may spell trouble ahead." |
|
|
|
