Internet Addiction Could Have Biological Indicator

[Guest]

Let's admit it. It is difficult to take the term "Internet addiction disorder" (IAD) seriously and some of us easily consider claims of Internet addiction a cheap excuse for extra time on Facebook.

Internet Addiction Could Have Biological Indicator : Read more

 

[alidan]

no, it cant just be as simple as life is boring unless you have mountains of cash to spend, and the internet has almost everything you want outside of a physical things, you can gain knowledge, play a game, visit a tropical place through pictures, see all the news you want, and find porn in the down time... where as doing the same things in real life would cost 50$ minimum for knowledge, probably well over 400$ and willing to have welts for games or be in decent physical shape, 10-20k for a tropical vacation, or 20-20000$ for porn depending on how much you want. all of these could cost so much more than the numbers i quoted. and everything i listed online could be done in an hour from scratch, try doing that with all of that in the real world.

i mean cant they just say online is more appealing than real life?

 

[house70]

1. A study with 33 subjects has less power than... pretty much anything out there that has power (statistical power). 17 out of how many? 16 out of how many? Nobody will be able to extrapolate any results from this. Credibility = zero.
2. The statement :
IAD "may share psychological and neural mechanisms with other types of impulse control disorders and substance addiction."
is a perfect example of "duh!". All addictions out there share a common trait, which is a positive reward feedback loop, and IAD is no different from, say, cocaine addiction in that respect. Which leads us to
3. " In addition, the scientists believe that other white matter integrity treatments could also work for cases of Internet addiction." This is so far fetched, I don't even know where to start. If addictions (see 2.) were that easy to treat, the world would be an entirely different place. First, there is no causality demonstrated between the so-called structural white matter abnormality and addictions per-se. Addictions have the object of studies for decades, and if it were that simple, we would have had a cure by now. ANY addiction. Second, the reward mechanisms involve dopamine and other neurotransmitters, and are not related anatomically, but physiologically. Those guys could have studied any addiction (like a million other researchers before them) and could have used hundreds of subjects available out there. The power of the study would have been higher, but the results likely not the ones they were looking for.

I call major BS; this is at best anecdotal report, not a study.

 

[sockso]

Well no shit. All thought is physical. So everything with the mind has a biological indicator.

 

[Plasmid]

i mean cant they just say online is more appealing than real life?

Totally agree with you. I can do far more over the internet than I can do in person and of course spend way less. It goes from education to entertainment ; I can do it faster! One of the precise reasons why dropped cable tv that is filled with non-stop propaganda.

/rant

 

[Guest]

I have some of the signs of internet addiction, but apparantly for a different reason. When anyone talks fast enough for a minute or longer, my transfer from short-term memory to long-term memory fails to keep up, and I forget most of what was said during that minute. Most of the actors I see on TV talk fast enough for that. Therefore, I have little interest in watching TV or talking with people before I know how fast they talk. The internet usually allows me more control of how fast I need to absorb the information (except for videos showing actors talking), so I can do more with it.

 

[jsc]

And internet addiction "could" be caused by cosmic rays.After all, 100% of those with internet addiction were previously exposed to cosmic radiation.

Alway glad to be of service to mankind.

 

[IQ11110002]

Next study, We are all addicted to clean air/water/food and will need some device/pill that a large corporation makes to keep it flowing, Ohhh wait a sec,Looks over at air purifier,Then under sink at water purifier, Then in cudboard at multivitamins/pills!
Great to see they can come up with a new disorder/problem so they can give themselves work, We will all have to make an appointment at docs/headshrinks right NOW!

 

[ko888]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]i mean cant they just say online is more appealing than real life?[/citation]
If you were connected up to the Matrix you wouldn't want to leave either.

 

[nebun]

they don't know what they are talking aobut

 

[Soul_keeper]

well, I guess this means they'll have pills for us now ...

 

[freggo]

A 'study' of 33 individuals? You've got to be kidding me.
That's not a study, that's a waste of everyone's time.

 

[tanjo]

[citation][nom]ko888[/nom]If you were connected up to the Matrix you wouldn't want to leave either.[/citation]
Only if you can fly like Neo.

OTOH.. what's the qualification or rather symptoms to be considered IAD? There are more than 1001 ways to use the internet. Do the IAD candidates show withdrawal symptoms when barred access to the internet... aside of course from cursing you for not let him/her surf and/or being worried about missing something that happened to his/her fb friends.

 

[JOSHSKORN]

Ugh I wish they'd quit paying people overanalyze obvious things.

If your family has a history of "addiction" and you're somewhat of a "techie", of course you'll get addicted to the internet. Your other siblings may become addicted to something else, unless they're strong and will resist such temptations.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]ko888[/nom]If you were connected up to the Matrix you wouldn't want to leave either.[/citation]

if there was a matrix, and i could jack into things, such as a video game where i can die as much as i want and come back as much as i want, first thing im doing is hitting up an everquest like mmo, getting on a pvp server, and never coming out.

 

[singemagique]

[citation][nom]house70[/nom]1. A study with 33 subjects has less power than... pretty much anything out there that has power (statistical power). [/citation]

Using a one-way ANCOVA and assuming a large effect size (ie. ~.5), and 1 degree of freedom for between group contrast, 35 subjects will give you a power around 0.8 (this is pretty good in my book).

 

[kristoffe]

Without knee jerk reaction to this study, it is important to remember our checks and balances. Instead of getting mad at it, maybe we should remember the real life things we do. I, myself, danced 5-6 nights a week and performed, then started biking 20 miles a day to commute to my lab in philly over the ben franklin bridge. when I am at work or home I use the net a lot, even to fix things in my home, remedies, news, tv shows, bf3, etc.

But I do think there are even cooler things to do than obsessively use the web. Reading this article gives new pause to how much I am online and not learning how to use new software, or practice piano or something real world. I am almost hesitant to mention that the web does offer a virtual experience with downloaded programs or online software to do things we cannot afford or there are limited resources to do so.

Dichotomy.

 

[salgado18]

[citation][nom]Robert Miles[/nom]I have some of the signs of internet addiction, but apparantly for a different reason. When anyone talks fast enough for a minute or longer, my transfer from short-term memory to long-term memory fails to keep up, and I forget most of what was said during that minute. Most of the actors I see on TV talk fast enough for that. Therefore, I have little interest in watching TV or talking with people before I know how fast they talk. The internet usually allows me more control of how fast I need to absorb the information (except for videos showing actors talking), so I can do more with it.[/citation]
No offense, but I forgot what you where talking about in the middle of the paragraph.

 

[wemakeourfuture]

Not a surprising finding. Any form of addiction will have some effect on the brain. Not surprised that people addicted to the internet would have brain scans different that those who are not.

Studies start small, if certain findings have been made they tend to expand to verify the findings of the first one. Hopefully they get funding to expand this study and parallel studies in different countries are also done to validate the findings.

 

[COLGeek]

How is this biological indicator any different than similar indicators regarding other addictions? Addiction is addiction, the vice is the difference. Not really news nor terribly insightful. Next.