Webupon

Internet addiction isn’t anything I ever really thought about until I moved house a few months ago. In order to keep everything tidy I asked for the service to be cut off on the day I left my old house. As usual in the UK, I was disconnected three days early. I asked for the new connection to be made the day after I moved to my new house. That was three days late. What should have been a one day outage turned in to eight days without the internet.

The first couple of days weren’t too bad as I could get to the net from work and was too busy packing when I was at home. The day of the move was a write off anyway, as I didn’t have time to do anything except sweat. The two days after were a weekend and the lack of internet was nagging the back of my mind. I couldn’t check emails, MSN, or my blogs. Even though I saw people, had my phone and people helping me move, I still felt disconnected. It was a happy day indeed when I finally got connected. Unpacking and my wife were ignored for hours as I recharged my online batteries.

This got me thinking about whether I was an addict or not.

The dictionary.com definition of addiction is: ‘The state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.’

The internet is definitely habit forming, but I wouldn’t imagine for a second that its cessation would cause a severe trauma. Annoyance, frustration, and a lack of ‘connection’, yes, but I don’t really associate the word trauma with what I felt.
Although it pains me to say, I think I display certain aspect of an addiction, but not in the traditional sense. I have known addicts of many substances throughout my life and I would say that the ‘cold turkey’ of lack of internet is nothing near the kind of suffering that substance addicts endure. If anything is an ‘addiction lite’. I did suffer, but it was manageable, didn’t really impact my daily functioning as a person. I didn’t get the seats, and didn’t do anything reckless to try and get my fix.

I do spend a lot of time online, most of it creatively. Researching for projects, learning things and sharing ideas. I also waste a fair amount of time on game forums, game sites and shops. The side effects of this behaviour is a desire to always have new technology to indulge this habit and a resentment towards anything or anyone who interferes with my time online. I have a hunger for knowledge, and the internet is the biggest library in the world. I have most of the knowledge our civilization has acquired right at my fingertips. Why would I not want to spend time learning about stuff?

I may be an addict, the internet may be addictive, but compared to other addictions in the world I’m not worried.