“You don’t have to post this to Facebook. You can just experience this,” McCrea told the audience that night. His message was simple: Be here in the present moment. Listen to the music. Experience the concert, and let it live on in your memory. Run the risk of not compulsively documenting every second of every day.
It seemed weird to hear that. Do people seriously need that reminder?
But people do seem to have a sinking feeling that a life lived through Facebook is no life at all. Some of that came out, I suppose, when the company’s Nasdaq stock took a dive after its initial public offering on May 18. It has stayed lower than the initial $38 per share IPO price since then.
For people who go online, either to play games, surf or goof around on Facebook, the Internet can be a dark wishing well. Because the Internet is everywhere, and because it brings us into contact with whatever we desire, it can enable malignant behaviors. If you have a problem with pornography and sex addiction, XXX sites and Craigslist personal ads are right around the corner. If you’re a compulsive shopper, eBay and Amazon.com will be there to soothe you. If you fancy a wager, Internet gambling – even when it’s for no money – can amp you up for a trip to the nearest Indian casino.
In college, I knew a brilliant math major who was put on academic probation because he couldn’t stop playing the online shooting game “Counter-Strike.” I also knew another guy who, spurred on by overconfidence from watching the World Series of Poker, lost a ton of money gambling online and in the casino.
But as far as Internet Addiction Disorder goes, the American Psychiatric Association does not officially recognize it as a mental illness.
“I think everything is in the infancy stage,” explained Allen Nace, with Kingston Hospital’s The Bridge Back program, which treats alcoholics and addicts. “And we don’t really have a sense of what normal is – I don’t know what normal is.”
The APA puts out a guidebook that defines known mental illness – it’s called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or the DSM. The latest version of that book is due out in May 2013.
“It is not in the DSM. And there’s debate about whether or not it’ll be in the new DSM,” Nace explained. Rival camps disagree. “The American Medical Association says no, Harvard University medical studies say yes. Is it a technological compulsion, or is it a symptom of other disorders?”
Scientists have had trouble studying Internet addiction because technology changes too fast. An Internet addict signing into Prodigy on a dial-up modem in the early Nineties is a much, much different creature than the smartphone-using Facebook junkie of 2012.
A hidden addiction?
In Ulster County, addiction centers treating alcoholism and drug abuse have seen a small number of Internet addicts. They’re a rare find. Usually, their Internet addiction is discovered as a secondary malady.
“I think it’s a hidden addiction, because the harm isn’t so apparent,” Nace said. “We do see it in the outpatient setting. We don’t see a lot of it, because people aren’t identifying that as the problem.”
Here in Ulster, there is not much “official” infrastructure to help. Drinkers have Alcoholics Anonymous and addicts have Narcotics Anonymous. There’s no such thing as “Internet Anonymous.” The best bet is to find a private counselor who specializes in addiction.
Christopher Dennehy, program director for Step One in Highland, noted that its clinic has treated people with Net addiction.
“We treat it similar to other addictions,” Dennehy explained. He pointed to a study by Dutch researchers finding that Internet addiction, specifically the porn variety, caused a chemical reaction in the brain similar to cocaine and other stimulants. That study found that excessive web use could desensitize dopamine receptors in the brain.
“If you talk to somebody trying to get off video games, they’re going to talk about extreme discomfort, irritability,” he said. “Your brain chemistry is trying to shift back.”
There’s a plethora of web addiction specialists treating people in New York City. Michael Fraser is a psychologist based in Manhattan who’s made a name for himself as an expert in treating Internet and video-game abuse. Fraser sees people many people, usually adults, experiencing some kind of major rupture in a relationship. The majority of the people he’d been seeing lately, however, have been teenagers or college students – first- or second-year college students – students who should be doing well but are failing.”
Addictive behaviors tend to be left unregulated and untreated if they create no social harm. Literally hundreds of millions of people worldwide are addicted to caffeine. But coffee creates no social strife, doesn’t break up relationships or cost people their jobs.
Problematic Internet use seems to straddle a line where treatment could and should come into play. Fraser said the number of hours people spend online or playing games is a major indicator of trouble.
“There’s some research that shows anywhere from 32 to 40 hours a week that’s spent that’s non-work-related is a sign that there could be something wrong,” he said. “The portals now to the Internet include smartphones, iPhones and iPads, things you can carry around with you. And so it’s very hard now to differentiate how much time is actually spent doing productive work.”
While probably everybody who has ever signed onto the Internet has found something to do that wastes time – searching for cat pictures, or watching stupid videos on YouTube – there are signs that show one is headed for trouble.
“There’s a select population that tends to make their way into mental-health clinics, when they have taken it too far,” Fraser said. “And by too far, I mean there’s something compulsive about their use or at the very least problematic, if not addictive.”
Here’s what to look out for in terms of Internet addiction:
– Is it causing a relationship to fall apart?
– Is it causing a problem with work? Have you been fired or called in sick because of it?
– If you’re a student, have your grades suffered since playing a particular game or getting a new smartphone? Are your parents confronting you about your use?
– Are you online for 32 to 40 hours per week outside of work use? Do you play a single game or search aimlessly for 12 or 14 hours a day?
– Does the Internet enable your gambling addiction?
– Does it enable or fuel your sex or pornography addiction?
– Does it enable compulsive shopping?
Fraser and other mental-health professionals noted that people who show addictive tendencies with the Internet usually have companion problems. There’s usually more to the story.
“I never approach this from the position of let’s-blame-the-video-game or let’s-blame-the-Internet. That would be foolish,” Fraser said. “But it is something that does seem to interact in a very negative way with those kind of problems and pre-existing conditions.”
Depression and anxiety are usually linked to Internet addiction. But anger-management issues can also rear their heads when games get frustrating or when parents ground kids from games.
If you think you might have a problem with the Internet, you should talk to your primary-care doctor or consult a psychiatrist.
