Internet Addiction It is thought that nearly five million people today are addicted to the Internet. With that many people experiencing addiction symptoms, it is important for the mental health community to develop methods of treatment. In an article in the March-April 1998 issue of Psychology Today, author Carol Potera explores the questions and realities of online use and addictions.

Although use of the Internet became common in the early 1990s, it wasn't until 1994 that an associate professor of psychology, Kimberly Young, discovered that some people were spending a large amount of time online and suffering negative consequences for it. Not having a real name for the condition, she called it "Internet Addiction."

The survey of 500 Internet users led Young to classify people as dependent or non-dependent on the Internet. Dependent users claimed that they used the Internet 38 hours per week, compared to 5 hours reported by the non-dependent users. Thirty-five percent said their favorite activity was talking in chat rooms. Another study done two years later showed that dependents spent twice as much time in chat rooms as non-dependent users.

Young's study asked about financial, personal, work, or school problems caused by Internet use. Half the dependents said they had problems but none of the non-dependents did.

But another study reported even more serious statistics. Counseling Net reported on a study by Dr. Janet Morahn-Martin at Bryant College wherein she concluded that 72% of those with high Internet use experienced problems with work, school and relationships. (COUNSELING.)

It's not really known how many people have Internet Addiction, but since there are similarities to other addictions, numbers can be estimated. Since about five to ten percent of people who drink or gamble develop addiction problems, it can be estimated that of the 47 million people online (at the time of the study) possibly two to five million developed Internet Addiction.

Young was surprised to discover that middle-aged women, instead of young men, were the most likely to become dependent users. Yet other statistics that same year claimed that the typical...

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Sixty percent of users who became dependent were women who reported a preference for chat rooms because they could talk online with others without telling anything about themselves unless they chose to. Another psychologist, Sherry Turkle, believed that one component of Internet Addiction is that being online lets people pretend to be someone else.

Why do people become addicted in the first place? The answers can be very simple -- and deceptive in their simplicity. Richard Davis wrote in "The Treatment of Internet Addiction" that reinforcers include the computer room environment, the chair one sits on, the feel of the keyboard and mouse in one's hand, the sound of the computer's fan running, and various audio signals, (e.g. beeps, clicks, bells, etc.) that are elicited in computer software programs," and "cognitions about the self include such thoughts as, "I have control and power online, whereas I don't have such power offline," "I am worthless offline, but online I am someone," and "I get respect online, but offline I don't." Maladaptive cognitions about the world include, "Nobody offline loves me," "everyone is addicted to the Internet in some way," and "the Internet is the only place you can really get to know someone."

As the concept of Internet Addiction grew, it became apparent that the label itself was incorrect. Psychologists don't approve of the term "addiction" and instead prefer the term "dependence." But whatever the label, as the number of people with the problem rose, psychologists had to be prepared to deal with it. The initial problem, which still exists, is whether or not Internet Addiction behaves the same way as other accepted addictions, specifically whether or not Internet Addiction produces chemical changes in the brain. Either way, Young writes, even if there are no chemical changes in the brain, there are social problems just like those in the accepted addictions.

John Suler, in his article about Internet Addiction says that a diagnosis "must meet two important criteria: 1) identification of a consistent, reliably diagnosed set of symptoms…