http://www.wamu.org/programs/kn/06/10/24.php#12057

Thank you for linking your article. I have failed at stopping drinking, and hearing from people who have been able to do it gives me hope.

Before the Internet, I’d be happy to go to the library and check out books.

Now my life is online. I have a RL job. But I’m also making money from the net. I do need to learn to get out and socialize, but I’m having trouble finding any incentive to do so.

My computer is the most expensive electronic device in my home: all the latest internals, dual LCD monitors, wireless input devices, high-speed modem, surround sound, etc. etc. Even saving the money of buying the parts and building it myself, it still cost thousands $$$. It is the newest of three I have in a home network.

I spend hours in Bible research, political blogging, programming, academic/career study, and playing games. I even refer to my computer by name.

“Addiction” doesn’t even come close. Are there any therapy groups for technomania?

When I can get away, I do, and I relish not having anything electronic anywhere near me.

The press also jumps on the higher number bandwagon since higher numbers are more newsworthy.

If the Internet never existed, the rest of us would likely be newspaper addicts, book addicts (bibliophiles), C-Span addicts, NPR addicts, or arguing with others in bars or coffee shops or if black barber shops (this may be a stereotype but I first thought this blog was named after a barber shop like Sparpton’s).

I would guess that the people more into fiction, science fiction, romance novels, are more the Second Life type.

Some people would be porn addicts, gambling addicts or Foley addicts with or without the Internet, and I am not sure if the categories should be combined into one “internet addiction.”

I dunno …

Does living vicariously through one’s own blog count?

Is it a sign that you’ve been surfing blogs WAY too long when you’ve HAD an impure thought about La Shawn Barber??

I think “internet addiction” doesn’t quite describe it accurately.

I think a lot of people have a “Gadget” addiction. Or, a “wireless” addiction.

Being tethered to these little devices.

Ask yourself how many times a day do you pull out your cell phone, blackberry, cranberry…..or whatever those little things are that people can’t seem to keep their hands off of.

I can’t imagine some little gadget having power over me, much less having to check it every minute.

In the old days, the phone rang, and you either answered it, or you didn’t.

La Shawn, you need to do a book about how you kicked alcohol. I’m sorry but that one article, in a magazine, isn’t substantial enough for such an important topic.

You’ve got a story, and it certainly can’t be any more controversial than James Frey’s ‘alcohol’ story.

I can’t believe the kind of lies that are told, now in the Rehab community….that if you just stop drinking….your life will then be perfect.

How can you tell an alcoholic that? Complete lies.

Stopping the alcohol, drugs, addictions, etc… is just one part of the equation.

This kind of “study” sounds more to me like another drive-by media attack than anything else.

The Internet itself can be used for a variety of purposes, perhaps a delineation of the actual type of Internet activity would be a better study. For instance, I would say that if your Internet activities consisted almost entirely of visiting Porn or Gambling sites, you got a problem, bud. But would a daily visitation of news and blogsites be the same problem? Only if you are of an ideology that does not appreciate the new media and the power it enjoys among those who want to know more about things than what the MSM driveby types would have us believe.

Typical leftoid practice though, kind of like an ad hominem attack on the technology itself, cleverly involving the people who use it.

He took Ritalin for a little while, which helped him in school for a little while, then he quit taking it. He spent most of his homework time getting sidetracked on the internet and only managed to graduate from high school by raising his three F’s to D minus at the very last second.

He’s in college now (a Film Studies major) and is saved from an internet addiction by virtue of living at his dad’s, where the cable-internet modem goes kaput for months on end.

As for me, I’m hooked. I blog at lunchtime and browse the internet as my mini-breaks from work (instead of taking a non-smoking cigarette break). I check my favorite blogs in the morning at home as soon as I get up, and look again at night. The internet doesn’t interfere with my normal life. Much.