http://www.sexed.org/newsletters/issue01.html#myth

iaid – I’d certainly agree that this is a very serious problem that needs to be understood and dealt with. However, the fact that there is no common understanding between us as to what ‘internet addiction’ demonstrates one of the problems of the term.

“As Peele points out, “addiction” doesn’t even appear in the DSM IV, so until that term is properly considered, arguments over what things people can be “addicted to” will simply go in circles.”

Bob. D – thanks for that point, that is the other one.

As a patient in the system for 10 plus years, I personally think the whole diagnosis concept is flawed to begin with, and the whole thing needs changed. Maybe a Meyers Briggs type of classification system would better reflect reality-just throwing that out there for an example. Not something I thought through, just trying to illustrate a point that maybe the structure itself, the system, the foundation-could be better.

The narrowness of so-called disorders has many implications that are easily seen and can be rightly debated. But instead of debating the micro concepts involved, let’s look at the big picture from another angle…

Maybe someone, or a group of the extroadinarily bright and insightful will come up with a new system. Some things are better left unchanged, but some things can improve with change.

I think part of the problem is that the DSM was originally designed based upon old theory that has changed over the years? It keeps adapting as new theory is synthesized or validated, and I cannot see how this could be avoided. However, perhaps it should just be redone from scratch, rather than revised.

Consider a task force of people from all different disciplines – psychiatry, psychology, sociology, anthropology, computer scientists, political scientists, mathematicians, etc. and of course the mentally ill. The best and brightest from around the world, educated, creative, introspective, innovative. Social entreprenuers included! Anti-group think is where I’m getting at….

Maybe it isn’t traits; maybe it isn’t maladaptive behavior, maybe it isn’t a persons ability to function. The possibilities are there but perhaps unknown-maybe could be better designed in a manner from a concept completely undiscovered. It could be art, it could be science, it could be a mixture. Maybe it could be none of the above.

Overall, I think it would be interesting to have an open internet site that allows everyone and anyone to come up with ideas and see how it goes from there. You really never know what could be obtained from a collusion of so many different types of thinkers, or how the input of creativity could output a whole new system that better reflects reality.

What do you all think about that idea? It would not be expected the results of the collusion would be adopted, it would just explore the possibilities that are not being explored. Group think, imo, affects our society more than its credited for. Let’s create an open forum and see what transpires! There would be no risk in doing this – no one would have anything to lose, except maybe some personal narcissistic motivations, and alot could be gained.

I recommend reading Peele’s short piece (also posted on Peele’s “Addiction in Society” blog at PsychologyToday.com) in full, but here are a few quotes:

“The fight over the new psychiatric manual, DSM-V, has escalated. The conflict is due to an underlying flaw in the manual’s conception. Rather than tracing human activity in terms of its impact for people’s lives, it instead attempts to list each separate manifestation of abnormal functioning. This is madness.”

“The problem is not in identifying too many debilitating preoccupations as mental disorders. It is in listing the objects of people’s preoccupations in separate sections of the diagnostic manual.”

“In fact, the DSM-IV substance use section lists a range of problems people may incur through drug-taking and drinking. But what such an approach implicitly recognizes – that drug use and alcohol are themselves not inherently problematic – undercuts the validity of having a separate section designating only substance use disorders.”

“DSM-V can only make sense if it (1) specifies addictions and other problems in terms of the severity of the life disruptions they cause (e.g., schizophrenia not defined by hallucinations, or obsessive compulsive disorder by specific preoccupations), (2) conceives disorders not as traits but as conditions or experiences that vary depending on people’s life stages and situations.”

“Unfortunately people who advocate for these ‘illnesses’ [i.e. sex and internet addiction] – and psychiatry’s diagnostic manual – insist on each condition being separated into its own domain. The very act of designating specific disorders creates a sense that people are defined by their conditions and that they may never escape them. It also leads to an infinite expansion of such conditions.”

“Categorizing psychological problems in terms of the severity of their consequences has the potential to cut the size and shape of the manual drastically. If DSM-V insists on listing each specific manifestation of dysfunctional behavior and thought, then the kind of turf fights we are witnessing for each disorder are inevitable.
And DSM-V will start looking like the Oxford English Dictionary in its inclusiveness – and size.”

The concern is not necessarily how much time a person spends online. It’s more related to someone who is ruining their life because of their addiction to the internet, like the person in denial, or the person who wants to spend less time online to live their life functionally (not miss work, tend to their children, etc) but cannot stop being online…When their addiction to the internet leads to the internet becoming their priority over taking care of themselves and their children-things like that.

http://www.slate.com/id/2239010/pagenum/all/

I can understand and accept ‘internet addiction’ as a purely descriptive term, and no one has the right to ban it as such. However, I agree with Dr John’s questioning of its validity:

1) Because it implies that it is a single identifiable phenomena, when it seems obvious to me that it can’t possibly be when there are so many different uses to which someone can put internet use. Their differences are greater than their similaries, it seems to me, and so it is better to describe each in turn rather than subsume them all under the same term.

2) Because it implies that excessive internet use follows the model of addiction as originally applied (I presume) to such things as alcohol and drugs. I very much doubt the idea that excessive internet use does follow this model, although I can see how it might be seen to looked at from a superficial behavioural point of view.

As I suggested in earlier posts, ‘excessive’ internet use could merely be a sympton of having nothing better to do with one’s life. In which case perhaps we should be speaking of “Severe Deficiency of Interesting Life Activities Other than Internet-use Disorder” or SDILAOID for short. What do you think…..?

Do you get the point? The use of both ‘internet addiction’ or my preferred SDILAOID make presumptions and claims that some of us may question, and thereby close down an aspect of the discussion before it has started.

People have every right to refer to ‘internet addiction’ if they so wish, but Dr John, myself, and others also have the right to question the usefulness and/or validity of this term, (unless it is used, explicitly, as nothing more than a descriptive term for someone who thinks they are using the internet too much, although in this case it would be better to describe them as “someone who thinks they are using the internet too much.”)

Note: I would conceed that the presence of so many other ‘addictions’ muddies the water of this discussion somewhat, and maybe makes an objection to ‘internet addiction’ seem somewhat arbitrary. I would have a questioning attitude towards some of the other ‘addictions’ also…. It is a big discussion.

an anti-depressant is not a disease but a useful thing. like an anti-depressant, the internet can magnify our abilities beyond our capacity to deal with them if there is an underlying disorder.

as an aside about smoking: i was a teenager during the 1970′s and drug education was part of the junior high school curriculum. every single public speaker who came to us as a reformed addict smoked. they smoked right in front of us in the social studies class room. correctly or not, we were taught to believe that one behavior was a surrogate for another.
Does this reflect on the fact that there is presently no literature about chemical dependencies in internet addiction?:
well perhaps there is some sort of serotonin rush involved with the gambling etc. but i believe the problems will have vast economic consequences before insurance forces medicine’s hand in making this official. and as our usa population ages, this is as much a certainty to me now as global warming was to a few a dozen years ago.

Alcohol can be almost totally avoided by someone in recovery – a person can refrain from buying it and going to bars, refrain from hanging out with people who drink while they deal with the source of the addiction. How do you deal with internet addiction when you must use the internet for work and personal businesses?

I definitely know and have known people who are only addicted to one ‘thing’, and the elmination of one compulsion does not necessarily transform to another addiction.

The point that people can overeat after smoking cesassation is a valid one, but I just cannot believe that most ex smokers have other pathological compulsions. If cigarettes never existed, would people seek to dry other plants and smoke them? If cigarettes never existed, I don’t believe the addiction would exist. Just because research does not or cannot prove this does not mean it is not true.

The creation of new things requires new treatments. If the internet did not exist, people would not have the addiction. the internet adds elements to social relationships that did not exist before. People can transform themselves to live in a fantasy world either through gaming or reinventing their identity to become someone who they are not. While perhaps this behavior fills a void within, there were never such means to fill this void before.

People use drinking, drugs etc to avoid feeling or whatever, maybe an escape, much like the internet can fill a void or offer an escape from reality. I think, however, people never had such tools to fill a void in the manner in which the internet allows, and I wonder if it cultivates a new void in people-because perhaps people would never have known this element of human nature existed had they not had the opportunity to actively immerse themselves in a total fantasy world before via the internet.

Elements of addictions with social interactions and the ability to recreate one’s identity are much different than addictions involving reading books and watching television-passive activities. I don’t understand why Dr. Grohol keeps designating these outlets as one and the same. Maybe those in the fields of sociology or anthropology can see this more clearly than psychologists do?

Addiction to the internet calls for different methods of treatment, and I think it is more helpful than not to differentiate it from other addictions and that much research needs to be done. Delineating internet addiction from other addictions will also encourage such research.