traumatic stress

10:39 0 Comments

In 2004 James Pacenza sued IBM for $US5 million after he was fired by IBM for visiting an adult chat room during the workday. Pacenza claimed that he is an internet addict who deserves treatment rather than dismissal. He had supposedly visited the chat rooms as "self medication" for traumatic stress incurred on military service in 1969. That stress caused him to become "a sex addict, and with the development of the internet, an internet addict". Pacenza claimed protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA),

cyber-addiction is occurring at the workplace

10:37 0 Comments

Studies have shown that from 25 to 50 percent of cyber-addiction is occurring at the workplace ... That means employees are getting paid to participate in activities that are not work-related.

Internet addiction disorder

10:36 0 Comments

I don't think Internet addiction disorder exists any more than tennis addictive disorder, bingo addictive disorder, and TV addictive disorder exist. People can overdo anything. To call it a disorder is an error

Truth or Fiction

10:35 0 Comments

published studies on Internet addiction are scarce. Most are surveys, marred by self-selecting samples and no control groups. The rest are theoretical papers that speculate on the philosophical aspects of Internet addiction but provide no data.

Meanwhile, many psychologists even doubt that addiction is the right term to describe what happens to people when they spend too much time online.

"It seems misleading to characterize behaviors as 'addictions' on the basis that people say they do too much of them," says Sara Kiesler, PhD, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University and co-author of one of the only controlled studies on Internet usage, published in the September 1998 American Psychologist. "No research has yet established that there is a disorder of Internet addiction that is separable from problems such as loneliness or problem gambling, or that a passion for using the Internet is long-lasting."

the fantasy world is the only decent place available.

10:33 0 Comments

When people spend dozens of hours weekly at their computers, or on the internet, or playing video games, it is almost certain that some other activities will suffer. The question is, when does this behaviour warrant the label 'addiction'? Addiction is a strong word, calling for both renunciation on the part of the subject and forceful intervention by others ... a behaviour becomes problematic when, and only when, it degrades other important things in life. A 60-hour-a-week compulsive EverQuest user who fails to speak to his own children when they come home from school is engaging in problematic behaviour. But consider the same user, living alone, with all his friends being online and in the game - is his devotion of time to cyberspace problematic? In the end we can only judge whether presence in the virtual world is good or bad by reference to the ordinary daily life of the person making the choice to go there. For some people Earth is where they really ought to spend their time. For others, perhaps the fantasy world is the only decent place available.

Tolerance

10:31 0 Comments

1. Tolerance - the need for increasing amounts of time on the net to achieve satisfaction and/or significantly diminished effect with continued use of the same amount of time on the internet.
2. Two or more withdrawal symptoms developing within days to one month after reduction of Internet use or cessation of Internet use (i.e., quitting cold turkey) and these must cause distress or impair social, personal or occupational functioning. These include: psychomotor agitation, i.e. trembling, tremors; anxiety; obsessive thinking about what is happening on the Internet; fantasies or dreams about the Internet; voluntary or involuntary typing movements of the fingers.
3. Use of the Internet is engaged in to relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms.
4. The Internet is often accessed more often, or for longer periods of time than was intended.
5. A significant amount of time is spent in activities related to Internet use (e.g. Internet books, trying out new World Wide Web browsers, researching Internet vendors, etc).
6. Important social, occupational, or recreational activities are given up or reduced because of use.
7. The individual risks the loss of a significant relationship, job, educational or career opportunity because of excessive use.

189 million Internet users

10:30 0 Comments

6 percent to 10 percent of the approximately 189 million Internet users in this country have a dependency that can be as destructive as alcoholism and drug addiction

all-night internet

10:29 0 Comments

two students in Chongqing fell asleep on a railway track after an all-night internet session, and a 31-year old Legend of Mir addict reportedly dropped dead after a 20-hour session.

jumped to his death from a tall building after playing one of the popular Warcraft online

10:29 0 Comments

the parents of a 13-year-old Chinese boy who they say jumped to his death from a tall building after playing one of the popular Warcraft online games for 36 hours straight

Internet junkie fights to combat addiction

10:28 0 Comments

Hong Kong Internet junkie fights to combat addiction

Anthony Chan betrays the tell-tale signs of his addiction: his skin is pallid and covered in spots, he sits nervously hunched, peering to correct his blighted vision and he has trouble communicating with friends and family.

At just 16 he is emotionally fragile, physically ill and his future has been compromised by the addiction which has him in its grip. But when the lights are switched off he gets online, he could not care less about the problems it brings. His drug is the Internet and, when connected, it makes the lonely Hong Kong schoolboy feel on top of the world.

"The computer is my friend, it's my life, my social life," says Chan, shifting in his chair and squinting in the glare of the brightly-lit office where we talk. It is one of the few times this week he has left the confines of his bedroom where he spends hours and hours every day logged onto the Internet and he is missing it already, he says.

technological addictions

10:25 0 Comments

Notions of technological addictions (Griffiths, 1996) and computer addiction (Shotton, 1991) have previously been studied in England. However, when the concept of Internet addiction was first introduced in a pioneer study by Young (1996), it sparked a controversial debate by both clinicians and academicians. Part of this controversy revolved around the contention that only physical substances ingested into the body could be termed "addictive." While many believed the term addiction should be applied only to cases involving the ingestion of a drug (e.g., Rachlin, 1990; Walker, 1989), defining addiction has moved beyond this to include a number of behaviors which do not involve an intoxicant such as compulsive gambling (Griffiths, 1990), video game playing (Keepers, 1990), overeating (Lesuire & Bloome, 1993), exercise (Morgan, 1979), love relationships (Peele & Brody, 1975), and television-viewing (Winn, 1983). Therefore, linking the term "addiction" solely to drugs creates an artificial distinction that strips the usage of the term for a similar condition when drugs are not involved (Alexander & Scheweighofer, 1988).

anti-online game addiction system

20:17 0 Comments

China on Tuesday introduced an “anti-online game addiction system” intended to protect players from the mental and physical perils of spending too much time in front of computers.

The system, which will encourage players to play less by cutting the benefits they gain in online games, is to be implemented by local internet companies that have signed a code of conduct drawn up by China's press and publications administration.

The move reflects fears about the social impact of popular “multiplayer online role-playing games” which have been blamed for encouraging sloth, truancy and even murder.

An estimated 25m Chinese play online role-playing games. These allow players to interact as characters ranging from warrior heroes to powerful magicians in vast virtual environments.

However, communist groups and newspapers have highlighted reports that many players are addicted to the games.

Stanford's Impulse Control Disorders Clinic

20:08 0 Comments

Aboujaoude, clinical assistant professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences and director of Stanford's Impulse Control Disorders Clinic, said that a small but growing number of Internet users are starting to visit their doctors for help with unhealthy attachments to cyberspace. He said these patients' strong drive to compulsively use the Internet to check e-mail, make blog entries or visit Web sites or chat rooms, is not unlike what sufferers of substance abuse or impulse-control disorders experience: a repetitive, intrusive and irresistible urge to perform an act that may be pleasurable in the moment but that can lead to significant problems on the personal and professional levels.

Signs of online gaming addiction

20:07 0 Comments

Signs of online gaming addiction include a preoccupation with gaming, loss of interest in other activities, academic problems for students, social withdrawal from family and friends, using gaming as an escape, and continuing to game despite its consequences. We have seen a dramatic increase in the number of calls from parents concerned about a child’s online gaming habits in the last year. Gaming has become a particular problem in Korea and China where new clinics addressing the problem have opened and a new Detox Center for Video Game Addiction opened in Amsterdam this past summer for intensive inpatient treatment.

new data

20:04 0 Comments

new data are being released by the National Annenberg Risk Survey of Youth, which has tracked gambling among young people ages 14 to 22 since 2002. Based on the survey's most recent estimates, approximately 850,000 males ages 18 to 22 gamble online at least one a month. The corresponding number for males between 14 and 17 is 357,000.

Among the 18- to 22-year-old age group, weekly use of Internet gambling sites increased from 2.3% in 2005 to 5.8% this year, a statistically significant increase.

With a rise in online gambling comes a greater danger of addiction, according to Nancy Petry, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut’s Center for Gambling Research and Treatment.

AN ONLINE GAME AFTER YOUR HANDS OR ARMS BEGIN TO HURT?

20:00 0 Comments

"Hello: I play World of Warcraft which I'm sure must be responsible for a great deal of online addiction. I have gone through periods of playing somewhat intensively which I may do for up to 4 hours 4 evenings in a week but then I am suddenly so bored with it that I don't touch it for a month or two then repeat the cycle. So maybe a binge addiction! Anyway, the purpose of this message is to comment on your online survey: Are you an obsessive online gamer? I am a nurse and one thing I have noticed is that frequently people are playing to a point of physical harm. I am in a guild that actually meets every once in a while in San Francisco (so real face time with fellow guildies which I think is unusual) and often they have what seem to me to be tendonitis and other repetitive stress/overuse injuries such as Carpal Tunnel (although as a nurse naturally I would leave diagnosis up to the physicians!). Also I often hear (on Ventrillo which many gamers use for audio) or see (in online comments) remarks that people have tingling or numbness in the nerves of their hands, wrists, forearms, shoulders, or necks, any of which could be the onset of more serious conditions. People seem to accept all this as part of gaming, especially heavy gamers who go on "raids" (something I'd never do) which take hours and hours maybe three times a week to complete. Therefore I think you need to add a question to your online gaming questionnaire: HAVE YOU EVER PLAYED/CONTINUED TO PLAY AN ONLINE GAME AFTER YOUR HANDS OR ARMS BEGIN TO HURT? In this case I am not even addressing lower back pain and possible damage to spine/cartilage, or damage to vision, both of which I suspect as a result of computer use. I think it would be good to see something on your questionnaire about this."

19:51 0 Comments

Cybersexual Affairs
Cybersex Addiction
Cyberporn Addiction
Chat Room Addiction
Obsessive Role Play Gaming
Compulsive Online Gambling
eBay Addiction
Compulsive Surfing

World of Warcraft

19:46 1 Comments

video game that create an alternate universe where human beings play as fictional characters in real-time along with and against other people around the world. As the sophistication of this technology increases, more people are sucked into this virtual world and begin to develop real psychological problems such as social isolation, depression, difficulty in work and relationships, and being disconnected from reality. Fortunately this article gets it right, this type of behavior is an impulse control disorder like pathological gambling not an “addiction” per se. I think for some people that MMORPGs can provide a valuable style of social interaction, but it can become problematic when more time is spent with this depersonalized interaction than real interaction with other people.