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February 03, 2010
"Internet addiction" -- latest growth industry in a highly competitive field
Are we facing an epidemic of "Internet addiction"? Apparently so. There are more and more studies like this warning of dire dangers, which are said to include depression and the risk of suicide: Study leader Dr Catriona Morrison, from the Institute of Psychological Sciences at the University of Leeds, said: "The internet now plays a huge part in modern life, but its benefits are accompanied by a darker side."It's tough to deny that any activity can be carried to excess (I've been writing this blog for nearly seven years, so I should know), but I'm not sure that doing something too much constitutes an addiction in the true sense of the word. As to the correlation between the Internet and depression, it wasn't that long ago that I read about another study linking television watching to depression. It should come as no surprise that depressed people (as well as people with various anxiety disorders which might make them not want to leave the house) would tend to engage in passive forms of entertainment. It's all too easy to say that this is what "caused" the depression, but is there any reason to suppose that taking away their TV and Internet would make them happy? Depression has been with humanity for a long time. Winston Churchill called it "my black dog" and he used to build brick walls in his garden. (Today that would probably be called an obsessive building addiction or something.) Since Internet addiction seems here to stay, I thought I'd take an unscientific look at the popular addictions and see how they compare on Google. Because it's where the addiction word came from, drug addiction ought to to be the granddaddy of them all, and it does get a whopping 12,100,000 hits. Internet addiction is of course close behind and at 8,700,000 hits, I think it's fair to call it our fastest growing addiction. However, you would have to add drug and Internet addictions together to surpass what seems to be the number one addiction -- sports addiction, which at 16,400,000 hits, seems to be the top-rated addiction. At 9,770,000 hits, music addiction is only slightly ahead of Internet addiction. But that may change. As to which addiction is "better for you" (more "wholesome" perhaps), that would seem to depend on your point of view. EDITORIAL NOTE: It might be Google, or it might be my error, but music addiction seems to have done down to only 6,350,000 since I first wrote this post. Are people that fickle about such serious matters? Maybe it's a form of addiction nostalgia, but today I pity poor television addiction. A much-discussed topic among concerned parents when I was a child, today it seems almost left out. Only 1,280,000 hits. Even cell-phone addiction is ahead of the television, with 1,870,000 hits. Not bad, but even the ubiquitous cell phone has a little ways to go to catch up with shopping addiction -- currently standing at 2,000,000. Anyway, I don't want into an extended debate about how wholesome or healthy (or unwholesome or unhealthy) any of these things are. My purpose here is only to look at the various addiction ratings. (Or "ratings of addictions" -- take your pick.) Lagging behind cell phones is the Not to sound classist or anything, but where I grew up, many a man was addicted to golf. Yet today, golf addiction doesn't even break a million -- at 919,000 hits. Slightly behind that is Skiing addiction (905,000). Another popular (and therefore addictive) pastime is surfing, but I left out the numbers, because the activity is so hopelessly entangled with Internet addiction (via "surfing" the web or the Internet), that any number would be misleading. It may come as a surprise to many people, according to Google, Porn addiction (939,000) is ranked more highly than either skiing or golf. There are few things I can think of that are more "wholesome" than exercise, but even that can be addictive, and there are a number of sites devoted to combating it. However, out of fairness, I don't think it's reasonable to rate exercise addiction according to the 1,320,000 Google hits it receives, because many of them refer to exercise in the context of fighting other addictions. But if exercise can be addictive too, doesn't that beg the question of whether addicts are just substituting one addiction for another? While I didn't mean to overlook work addiction, with 551,000 hits, the good old all-American work ethic just doesn't seem to be stretched to the obsessive compulsive proportions it was in my childhood. Perhaps Going Galt has helped people break free from these neurotic chains. Make of these numbers what you will. But I was surprised to find so many addictions, and I am sure there are many that I overlooked. It occurs to me that if so many of us are as addicted as it seems we so obviously are, we might be in danger of becoming a nation of addicts. And if things get to the point where we are all addicted to one thing or another, doesn't this beg the question of what addiction is, and whether it is unhealthy? Who gets to decide these things? The same people who seem ready to declare that we are all suffering from one mental illness or another? At the rate things are going, pretty soon we'll all be abnormal. I guess I can handle such a fate, but sooner or later someone is bound to ask, "if we are all abnormal, then what is normal?" And if we're all sick, what is well? posted by Eric on 02.03.10 at 02:02 PM
Comments
It is obvious from this post that you are addicted to addiction. Seek help at once before you get depressed. M. Simon · February 3, 2010 09:48 PM "addicted to addiction" 741,000 "addiction addiction" 169,000 M. Simon · February 3, 2010 09:50 PM Here is an article on Addiction Addiction: http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/citation/wc990909.htm The Internet? Natch! M. Simon · February 3, 2010 09:52 PM Drug addiction is the oldest. There are marijuana analogs in mother's milk. M. Simon · February 3, 2010 09:53 PM 3,640,000 for "addicted to therapy"... Donna B. · February 4, 2010 01:18 AM Post a comment
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Any significance to you forgetting what is, I'm sure you agree, the oldest of all addictions: Sex addiction , 10,200,000 hits.