Internet addiction

There’s a new survey released by Rasmussen Reports — most commonly known for their political polling — that describes peoples’ perceptions of online use. The bottom-line statistic is that 23% of adults surveyed believe that they spend too much time online. Drill down the numbers, and it gets more interesting.

Substance addiction has been around for ages. Internet addiction, on the other hand, is relatively new, and may be harder to recognize. But the Seattle-based ReSTART center for Internet addiction has come up with a list to determine whether you can escape from the Web.

The first US gaming and texting addiction clinic is now open for business. Positioned 13 miles away from Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, the reSTART Internet Addiction Recover Program provides a 45-day intensive care program for Internet and game addicts.

A recent Gadgetology study by consumer electronics shopping site, Retrevo.com went looking for answers on how much control social media has on peoples’ lives. We weren’t entirely surprised to learn how addictive social media has become especially among the 35 and younger crowd.

Social Networking Addiction is a mental illness centered around a dependency of online ‘FRIENDS’ or online interaction on social networks. Social Networking Addicts are unable to control their tendency to be logged in and participating on social networking websites. What are some characteristics of Social Networking Addiction?

Gamers who are hooked on to their computers or consoles for more than seven hours a week, and who identified themselves as addicts, tend to sleep less during the weekdays and experience greater sleepiness than casual or non-gamers, according to a study.

How much time do you spend online? How much of that time is on sites like Facebook, or Myspace? A new study actually shows women, especially stay-at-home moms are becoming more at-risk for internet addiction.

What does a teenage brain on Google look like? Do all those hours spent online rewire the circuitry? Could these kids even relate better to emoticons than to real people? These sound like concerns from worried parents. But they’re coming from brain scientists.

Ninety per cent of the young people who seek treatment for compulsive computer gaming are not addicted. So says Keith Bakker the founder and head of Europe's first and only clinic to treat gaming addicts. The clinic is changing its treatment as it realises that compulsive gaming is a social rather than a psychological problem.

It's not just teenagers in the basement: Adult addiction is growing, but the stigma remains. For years, high-school science teacher Pauline Harvey went to work thinking her unemployed husband spent all day job-hunting on their home computer. He was hunting, all right - Brad Dorrance would shoot down opponents for more than 12 hours a day in a virtual world that had gradually become more real to him than his wife.