The " Flavors" Of Internet Addiction And What They Have In Common

Under the larger banner of internet addiction, we feel that there are five categories or "flavors" that it can be broken down to.  These are as follows and in each case, the operative word or dynamic is in bold.

• Obsessive use of sex-oriented web sites for viewing pornographic pictures, videos, or live feeds.
• Relationship addiction, where there is an obsessive involvement with online chat and the "virtual relationships" that ensue.
• Action compulsions such as gambling, stock trading, information and data gathering and auctions.
• Role adoption compulsions via interactive and MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games)
• Mood management compulsions such as online shopping.

Please note that these "flavors" often overlap.  For example, there's an element of role or identity adoption in most chat rooms and gaming.  And mood management and control are operative factors in viewing online pornography.  As you'll learn, each of the "flavors" help fill a void that exists for the person in their real world and life.

And if you had to pick one word that summed up internet-related addictions, in our opinion it would be the word "avoidance."  The thought process inside the mind is simply saying "If I continue doing this, I can avoid that."  And it's true, while you're deeply involved or addicted to "World Of Warcraft," your not exactly obsessing on how to improve your monthly income in the real world.

And this is the common element with all internet-related addictions - avoiding reality.  And to further complicate the issue, the virtual world overlaps with the real world as well.  Online role-playing games like "Second Life," "EverQuest" and "Entropia Universe" let members create virtual economies where they can amass digital fortunes and some of these fortunes are actually sold for real money on eBay, or in gaming forums.

Addiction "Unplugged"

The easiest and most simplistic way to define an addiction is as follows:

"Addiction is the condition present when someone uses a substance, or engages in a behavior to the extent that it negatively alters and manipulates their mood, creates negative consequences in their relationships, causes them financial stress or damage, or negatively involves them in legal matters.  And yet, despite any or all of these negative outcomes and the remorse felt by those outcomes, they keep doing it."

Stripped right down, that's the working definition of what addictions and compulsive behaviors are.  So if you, or someone you're concerned about fits into that model, who cares what the "experts" say?  - You, or they have a problem.  And as for "studies," whether 7% or 70% of kids are becoming addicted to the internet, it makes little difference when it's your child that has the problem.

The description above basically involves what are known as the three "C's" of addiction.  People who are addicted have a loss of Control, they have a Compulsion to use the substance or engage in the activity, and they continue to do do despite negative Consequences.

So having said that, there are a few critical things you should know that will help you or someone you care about to start dealing with the problem if there is one.  One thing we know for sure, about the most impotent and useless thing you can say to someone who has a Net compulsion is simply, "well just turn the computer off," because that's comparable to telling an alcoholic to "just quit drinking."  It doesn't work - ever.  So consider the following points:

The Specific Addiction Is Only A "Preferred" Vehicle

Whether it's a substance or a behavior, all addictions serve as the "preferred vehicles” that the addict uses to make themselves feel better than they normally feel.  The alcoholic may feel better because the alcohol makes their problems go away for a while and reduces their anxiety over problems or situations from the present or past.

The person addicted to cocaine may feel lifted from a lingering depression and experience a heightened sense of confidence that they don’t normally have.  The online gaming addict may get a buzz from the high status they enjoy in the fantasy world of the game, versus the low status they perceive themselves as having in real life.  And the person online chatting for twenty hours a day is comfortably distracted from perhaps a nagging feeling of low self-esteem in his or her her normal, "real-world" life.  In every case, it's a matter of getting from psychological "Point A" (which you don't like) to psychological "Point B" (which you prefer)

"Membership" Has Its Rewards

In the beginning, becoming a member of an addiction "fraternity" offers rewards.  As you descend into full-blown alcoholism, it becomes easier to drink.  The person who once gagged at thought of sipping straight vodka will, if given enough time, be capable of chugging it.  Or the person who almost fainted at the sight of a needle will, if need be, jam a syringe anywhere in their body that it takes to get high.  In other words, addiction is a great "facilitator" of itself, and has built-in incentives designed to keep you loyal.

Internet-based addictions and compulsions also provide "incentives," in many forms.  And with the Net, everything happens fast, even the incentives or rewards.  In other words the gap or interval between effort and reward is quite short.  Most multi-player games offer small "incentives" along the road to the big ones. Online chat offers a similar dynamic where the interval between going in to a chat room as an "unknown," or "outsider" and actually meeting people and becoming part of the clique or community is quite short compared to the real world.  So when people can't find much in their real life that offers them incentive, (at least for rewards they perceive they can get) they tend to be perfect candidates for online compulsion and addiction.  It gives them what they need - and it does it fast.

Point A To Point B

Like we said, the specific addiction is just the "chosen vehicle" and it's used to get the person from point "A" to point "B".  Point "A" is a place where mood and feelings are not good - point "B" is a place where mood and feelings are at least better.  Addictions are used to fill “holes in our souls.”  Something is missing inside, and the addiction that one falls into is used to fill that hole and for a while, it not only works, it's really enjoyable.

But gradually, it demands more and more of your total being and ultimately, you become a slave to it.  All addictions are like that.  They’re progressive and they are without question, relentless.  Bit by bit they will chew away at your rational brain until there’s nothing left of it, or you.  If it happened overnight, it would be easy to see it for what it is.  But it doesn't.  Addiction is insidious, in that it seduces you slowly, lulling you into a feeling that it's what you should be doing, it's where you belong.  Ultimately, no matter how bad it gets, it still feels like home.

An Extension Of The Nervous System

It's said that on a deeply psychological level, clothing is an extension of our skin.  In the same vein, many feel information technology systems could be viewed as an extension to our nervous system.  They allow us to see, hear, feel and react in a virtual manner and in a sense, serve as a "vehicle" to take us to other places psychologically. There's a lot of research being done in this area right now to determine how profoundly this "extension" to our nervous system or "vehicle" affects us.  But one thing we know for sure - it does affect us, and some of us are affected profoundly.  For many people, their particular perception or experience of reality sucks - they just don't like it.  And often, the chosen internet "vehicle" takes them to another reality that in their eyes, is far more preferable.

Speaking Of "Vehicles," Let's Consider "Cyber- Speed"

Have you ever been in a car on the highway for an extended period of time at high speed and then all of a sudden you get off and start driving at 35 miles per hour on a side road?  Doesn't it feel like you're crawling?  But you're actually not crawling, you're doing the speed limit, but compared to how fast you were going, it's feels like you're in slow motion.

This is what happens for people who spend excessive amounts of time in cyberspace too.  The pace of the Net is so fast, that when you finally log off the "cyber-highway," the "side roads" of the real world seem slow, dull, boring and mundane.  And of course, when that happens, guess what else happens?  You want to go back on the highway and get back up to speed.  And the longer you stay on the highway, the less you want any part of what's now become the boredom of reality.  Real life now holds little or no attraction, and ultimately, reality will not only become boring, it will even become an inconvenience.

Orientation & Attachment

There is huge problem in North America right now with children improperly attaching to forces and entities other than their parents or caregivers.  In fact it's a problem of such massive proportion, we believe it underlies problems with addiction, juvenile delinquency, depression, anxiety - you name it.  We will be producing a major tutorial on this subject within 2008, but for the time being, let's just consider how it relates to compulsive internet use.

In times past, a child received their orientation in life and had their attachment needs met through their parents and this is the way it was and is supposed to be.  Excluding a few species that work on auto-pilot from the moment they're born, if you look at most organisms on Earth including human beings, you'll find that the offspring are supposed to have this type of nurturing relationship with the parent until they have fully matured and found their own path and direction in life.

And years ago, even if the child's parents weren't there all the time, there were usually other viable, mature and stable substitutes.  Neighbors, aunts, uncles etc. would fill in temporarily because they were usually close by.  And we knew our neighbors and for that matter, we even knew many shopkeepers by name and they knew us.  There was a sense of "community."

Times Have Changed

Today, our society and economic situation has changed that.  Parents are less of a factor today in the child's mind and many children at a very early age start to become "peer oriented."  That means that today, kids take more and more of their guidance and direction not from their parents, but from each other.  By and large, the parent plays less of a role today in what their children pay attention to, what matters to them and what they feel is important.  Instead of culture being handed down vertically, from parent to child, it's now being distributed horizontally, from child to child.  In other words, you have children who have not fully matured guiding other children who are not fully matured and as we are seeing today, the result is nothing less than a societal disaster.

So how does this apply to the Internet, and a child spending too much time on it?  Well, if your child is spending the bulk of their time on the internet, that's where they're getting their culture from.  That's where they're getting the "raw materials" they'll use to form whatever level of maturity they achieve.

Whether someone is an obsessive "chatter," or a compulsive "gamer," by avoiding learning how to become a human being in the real world, they're learning comes from other people with a similar dysfunction, who are also avoiding the real world.  It's a classic example of "the blind leading the blind."  That's why bikers hang out with bikers, Goths hang out with Goths - virtually any group you can think of will socialize with, and take their direction from each other, because they have attached to each other and relate to each other.

The Real Nature Of "Flawed Thinking"

You hear a lot in addiction about "flawed thinking."  Among other things, this manifests itself as the illogical and irrational things an addict will do in the way of behavior.  For example, why would a kid spend thirty hours straight playing a computer game?  Or why would someone become so involved in a chat line that they let everything else in their life slip away?  Well consider the following example and you might begin to understand how thinking can become so flawed.  It's what we call, "The Flawed Premise."

So, The World Is Flat.  Right?

Suppose many years ago, you were an explorer who firmly believed the world wasn't round, but that it was flat.  So that's your original "flawed premise" - that the world is flat.  Now consider every other decision and choice you make about going out and exploring the world.  Since they're all based on that original "flawed premise,"  then to one degree or another, all of those decisions and choices will also be flawed.

So when the addict has their "reward pathways" rewarded by taking the substance or engaging in the behavior, their brain says, "This makes me feel better than I normally feel therefore this is good for me."  Or, "this has solved the problem that I had about not feeling good, therefore this is what I should be doing."   Or, "anytime I don't feel good or have problems or feelings I don't want to deal with, if I (take) (do) this, I'll feel better and that's good."  Or, "feeling good is the most important thing, and this activity makes me feel good, therefore this activity is the most important thing."

And on it goes, progressively until everything the addict thinks, does, says, or feels is based on the original flawed premise.  And because the premise is flawed, everything else is, as we said, to one degree or another flawed as well.  Ultimately, the addict begins to measure and weigh everything against their flawed premise.

An Absence Of Logic

So when you're talking about addiction, or even compulsive or maladaptive behaviors, the first thing you begin to learn is that there is always a complete absence of logic, common sense and rational thinking present.  Is it rational for a couple to leave their baby in the backseat of a sweltering car until it dies while they’re in an internet café playing online games?  Of course not, unless of course you have completely convinced yourself that playing online games is the most important thing for your psychological well-being.

Is it logical for a housewife to be so engrossed in an online chat room that it takes her three hours to notice that her child has drowned in the bathtub?  Well, once again, if the original premise said that online chat was what was necessary to avoid not feeling depressed, or lonely, or guilty, or even suicidal, then it makes sense that all else goes by the wayside.

And this is precisely why people who are not prone to addiction can't understand people who are and never will until they stop using their own "flawed premise," which is thinking that an addictive mind works like a normal mind.  It doesn't.  So they shouldn't even bother asking, "Why don't they just stop?"  "Why would someone let their life slip away?"  "Why do they keep doing something when it's hurting them?"  Unfortunately, these are sound, logical questions being asked of people who are not operating under a sound, logical premise.

Eventually, Misery Wins

So whether internet-related compulsions are true addictions or "maladaptive" behaviors, we know that with a percentage of people, if their behavior is allowed to run its progressive course, suffering misery on some level is not likely, it's guaranteed.  Sooner or later, what the person has to do is momentarily "step out of themselves" and see what's really happening in their life.  Just for a moment, the original premise has to be questioned and they must ask themselves, "Is this just me enjoying myself, or is it really a way of avoiding other issues I don't want to deal with?"  Or, "How big has my online world become compared to the real world?"

In other words, the person in question has to get some perspective on the situation so they can see it for what it is.  Think of how few people would have continued to believe the world was flat if they could have seen Earth from a satellite view!  And the addict needs this type of perspective as well.  You can't see a mountain for what it is when you're standing beside it and you can't appreciate a forest when your nose is pressed up against a tree.  You have to step back so you can see it in proper perspective.  Unfortunately, it's really, really hard to do.

So on the next page, we're going try and let you have an objective look at your own activity and behavior regarding the internet.  Who knows? - you may see something about yourself you've never seen before.

Top Of Page

<<<Previous Page (1)                                                   >>>Next Page (3)