Would You Consider This an Internet Addiction?

[The Sum of Awe]

As you may know, I was born in a very small town, in a very small state. I recently discovered that I actually am a sociable person, I love to socialize (as long it's not with dumbos who talk down to everyone). Sure, I'll drink and do a lot of dirty stuff that an average teen would do. I'd go to parties, I'd hang out with my friends every day if I had any who lived nearby.

My two closest friends live very far from me and work at meat packing factories, so they're always busy.

It's why I love going to work, my cubical neighbors talk to me about fun stuff (movies and video games and other stuff).


But as I live in a small part of the world, it affects my social life. My dad says I have an internet addiction as I'm usually on my laptop if I'm not at a friends' (which isn't often, maybe 4 times a week) and if I'm not working or something. The internet is my only access to social life.

I don't want to put blame on my parents for raising me in a poor, small town, but I don't think any kid deserves to grow up in a small town, it can completely damage them socially.



What do you think? Is my nexus with the internet an addiction?

[The Sum of Awe]

I think it's an addiction to talking to people and having friends around, but there are none that aren't always busy in this town.

[The Sum of Awe]

shamless bump

[Reptillian]

I'd say it's an addiction if it starts affecting your everyday life. If you start ignoring loved ones and start scheduling real life activities around your internet time...like say skipping work to go online or chatting online during a family BBQ. I'm originally from a small town, and I agree that it's difficult to make friends with similar interests and connect with people. I too found the internet to be a nice way to connect. Going off to college helped me meet people in good ol' meat space with similar interests...and I'm not socially inclined at all.

[Iridescence]

As someone who is online quite a bit, I don't see it as an addiction to the Internet.

What makes the Internet so interesting is the social aspect of it -- the people one comes across there. In that sense, I see nothing wrong with liking it, and liking it a lot. The internet isn't like a video-game where you're only interacting with a machine -- there are live people involved. If it were a question of being on a computer playing Pac-Man all day long, where that with which one is interacting is completely lifeless, then yeah, that would be an addiction to an artificial thing in a more traditional sense of the term.

I'm an introvert, and therefore find online social networking a great way to interact with folks while at the same time having solitude when I need it.

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[Debater Slayer]

I think I can relate to the situation you are describing, but in a different way: although I don't live in a small town by any means, it can be difficult to find friends with similar interests to mingle with.

In my opinion, knowing whether or not you are really addicted to the Internet can be really tricky; I think that you would need to be in a setting where you can choose to socialize with people but still prefer the Internet to such socialization anyway, to determine whether or not you have an Internet addiction or if it is just the "lesser of the evils" compared to the other choices you have, so to speak.

Consider the following questions; your answers to them would hopefully give you a bit of an idea of how "addicted" — or lack thereof — you are to the Internet, and why you feel that way:

• "Do I like being online because I have no people around me to mingle and talk with?" (In other words, you don't get to see or talk to a lot of people offline, hence your having recourse to the online world.)

• "Do I like being online because I don't find most of the people who are around me to be interesting enough to mingle and talk with?" (In other words, you get to see and talk to people or a lot of people offline, but you don't find most of them to be interesting enough and therefore prefer being online to mingling with them.)

• "Do I like being online because the people who I like to mingle and talk with are currently away from me?" (In other words, you have offline people that you like to be with and spend time with doing different activities, but you currently can't see them as much as you would like due to any number of reasons.)

So far as I can see, the "lesser of the evils" idea I mentioned above comes into play here: I think that the setting you are in and your current situation when it comes to who you can see and be with greatly factors in how much time you prefer to spend online; you can't clearly judge whether or not you are really addicted to the Internet if you don't have an alternative, i.e. nearby people who share common interests with you and who you'd like to befriend/hang out with, in my opinion.

Also, I think that posting on Internet forums can give the illusion of saying a lot when that isn't necessarily the case. I find that I tend to spend more time communicating my thoughts through words online than I do in real life, and I think there is more than one reason for that.

Firstly, I find that, in general, the availability and handiness of looking up info online causes me to spend more time searching stuff before responding to certain posts, mainly due to trying to look up the relevant info before responding; that's one less thing to spend time on in a real-life conversation. You either know enough about a subject(s) to keep the conversation flowing, or you don't — the subjects I'm referring to here are mostly ones that pertain to topics like statistics, for example, where having the ability to Google any given piece of info you want can be very useful.

There is no informative aid of this kind in a real-time offline conversation between two or more people... that is, unless they choose to look up something online, but I don't think that plays as big a role as it does in online exchanges.

Secondly, spoken conversations don't involve checking one's spelling, adjusting punctuation, or proofreading. They also don't involve backspacing to correct typos in the occasion that they occur, or contemplating which word to use out of multiple synonyms; a real-time conversation would both flow faster and take less time to progress than an online one. I think this is another factor that leads to the aforementioned illusion of saying much when one is simply trying to convey their thoughts in words — thoughts that, in a real-life situation, would be far less of a hassle to transmit compared to an online situation.

At any rate, Sum, what I'm trying to say is that, to my mind, spending a lot of time online only becomes an issue to worry about if it starts to distract you from being with offline friends, being with your family, or if you start to ignore your chores and/or schoolwork in favor of browsing the web. Otherwise, it is just one more activity that you happen to find enjoyable, hence your spending time (or a lot of time) doing it.

[apophenia]

First off - you're asking us ? LOL. There are lots of people here who put in a lot of time online. On the other hand, lot's of people treat face to face friendship as a way to waste time. Offline, people get bored, and hang out with each other talking crap. Or sit in a room together drinking or smoking bongs. And talking crap. If it wasn't for the drugs and alcohol they'd probably take up religion just to pass the time with god....LOL. Do priests and yogis etc have an addiction to playing with their god-spot ? I think that is true actually.

Humans are stuck with self-awareness, and we are compelled to think and communicate. If you are very fortunate you may be part of a group of people who are intelligent, witty, fun and available. Our fixation on celebrity culture gives us the impression that this is how people live. For most people that isn't true. Even for celebrities the lifestyle gets tedious. It's a job.

If you ever get the chance, see the movie "Stranger Than Paradise", written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. It's a classic movie about boredom and pointlessness, and friendship. It is almost intolerable, but fascinating to watch.

You are fortunate to have the internet considering your small-town lifestyle. On the other hand, you could become a killer musician, or a writer or graphic artist,maybe a photographer, if you put in 5 hours a day at it. That's worth thinking about too.

But I wouldn't consider the desire to communicate an addiction - it is the human condition. At least there are some interesting folk to talk to here, and to some degree it is opening your mind.