Robert Woodruff signs onto the Internet every day and spends hours telling people he has never met about his life and his dreams. He tells them things he wouldn’t dare tell his high school buddies.
It’s the combination of anonymity and intimacy that draws Woodruff, an 18-year-old from Portland, Ore., into the chat rooms, out of his shyness and, increasingly, away from his friends and family.
His grades have suffered. He doesn’t visit his grandparents as often as he used to. And he starts feeling restless if he goes more than a day without connecting to the World Wide Web.
“I once went two days without being on-line,” he said. “I didn’t like it. I was bored. Talking to real people just wasn’t as exciting.”
A few years ago, Woodruff might have been considered a mere computer geek. Today, in an age when nearly every vice has a clinical label, psychologists worry he may have a serious addiction–to the Internet.
“Some people are using (the Internet) as a coping mechanism instead of as a means of enjoyment or interacting with people,” said Jonathan Kandell, director of counseling services at the University of Maryland at College Park, one of the first academic institutions to offer on-line addiction counseling.
Others are less convinced it is a problem. Being addicted to the Internet, they maintain, may be as serious as being hooked on chocolate, no different from watching too much TV.
“We seem to be in an age where anything is an addiction if you do it to excess,” said psychologist Stephen Schlesinger, a Northwestern University Medical School faculty member and author of two books on addictions. “The real question for me has always been: What’s going on underneath that might lead somebody to do something excessively?”
Indeed, no numbers exist to support claims that web addiction is becoming widespread as more people jump on the Internet, partly because academics are just now starting to research the phenomenon.
But consider that this most modern of maladies already has its own on-line support groups and its own acronym, IAD, for Internet Addiction Disorder, a name assigned in 1995 by New York psychiatrist Ivan K. Goldberg. And reflecting the cyberworld’s indecision over whether to treat “webaholism” as a joke or a serious problem, one “Netaholics” web site offers this Serenity Prayer:
“Almighty webmaster, grant me the serenity to know when to log off, the courage to know when to check e-mail, and the wisdom to stay away from chat rooms.”
Lured into the hypnotic black hole of cyberspace, Internet addicts are said to spend increased amounts of time on-line and feel agitated or irritable when off-line. Even without a keyboard at hand, a few make voluntary or involuntary typing movements with their fingers. Many withdraw from social activities. Some find themselves with $300 to $500 monthly on-line bills they can’t afford.
Counterculturalist Timothy Leary was one of the first to liken computers to LSD, noting the mind-expanding, mesmerizing and ritualistic similarities between the two. (To Leary, of course, this was a good thing.)
But counselors such as Kandell contend too much Internet can have serious consequences, from depression, to dropping out, to divorce.
In April, police in a Milwaukee suburb reported one of the first known cases of an Internet-induced spat turning to fisticuffs.
When Gwen Gilbert decided she’d had enough with her husband Roger’s obsession with the Internet (and with an Australian woman he met in a chat room), she took to the phone wires outside her house with a pair of scissors, according to Pewaukee Police Lt. Tim Otto.
The incident escalated into a shoving and punching match, and the couple wound up in separate jail cells for the night on charges of battery and criminal damage to property.
“This had been going on for weeks,” Otto said. “She felt he was addicted to it and would pick up a phone in the house to cut him off. He would get mad, then go back on.”
In one case, according to Kandell, a Maryland woman destroyed her marriage and neglected her children because she was on-line as much as 21 hours a day. “She wasn’t taking (her children) to the doctor, they were running out of heating oil in the winter, not having enough food, because she was spending all her time on the Net,” he said.
Introduced in 1991, the World Wide Web, a graphical, point-and-click way to move around the Internet, has made cyberspace readily accessible to common folk, even those who can barely get their microwaves to defrost a roast.
But the new technology that has lured an estimated 24 million U.S. and Canadian users into cyberspace–to its chat rooms, fantasy games, home pages, newsgroups and e-mail–also has made it difficult for some of them to return to Earth.
In academic circles, a handful of addiction counselors are researching the problem in an effort to spread the word about Net addiction.
A University of Pittsburgh assistant professor and clinical psychologist, Kimberly Young, submitted a paper on the problem for the next American Psychological Association meeting in August, hoping the disorder gains acceptance among mental health professionals. The June issue of the association’s Monitor newsletter features several stories about Internet addiction.
“I’ve written a book on it, but I’ve had rejections from publishers who say, `Geez, we don’t think there’s a market for this,’ ” Young said. “But I think psychologists are starting to see more cases of this. It’s not just a joke anymore because people are having real problems.”
Young’s Center for On-line Addiction (http://www1.pitt.edu./ksy/) offers training for psychologists, educators and human resource managers on how to identify and deal with individuals who spend excessive amounts of time on the Internet. She said she has spoken to more than 400 self-professed Internet addicts, as well as concerned family members and friends.
Viktor Brenner, a Marquette University counselor, currently is conducting a 32-question online survey (at http://www.mu.edu/dept/ccenter/introsrv.html) on Internet use to try to gauge the trend.
“Anything that’s enjoyable, you’ll find people who abuse it,” Brenner said.
Both Marquette University and the University of Maryland attempted earlier this year to hold support groups for Internet addicts, but not enough people showed up. Still, universities are considered hot zones for potential Internet junkies because they often give students free and unlimited Net access.
Rich Barrette, a 24-year-old Ohio University graduate student, started his “Webaholics” home page in 1994 (http://www.ohiou.edu/rbarrett/webaholic s/ver2/index.html) after two of his classmates ended up dropping out of school because they spent all their time on the web.
Thousands of self-proclaimed webaholics post their testimonials on the site, most in a jokey manner.
“It’s all tongue-in-cheek,” Barrette said. “Obviously, alcoholics don’t have AA meetings in bars. But some of the people who sign into the support group definitely have problems. I’ve talked to some of these people; they’re really looking for help.”
On April 26, one anonymous visitor wrote: “The web has practically ruined my life. I once actually used to be popular and good at sports. . . . (Now) I have no friends, a bad attitude, and my grades dropped big time. I also get eye strain from staring at the screen for such periods of time.”
Don Collins of Dallas, who later agreed to be interviewed–in a live chat room–also wrote in: “Things don’t get done around the house. I don’t get to sleep till sunrise. I have to leave my laptop at home when I go to work or work will not get done. I am glad to know that I’m not alone. HELP!!!!!!! I HAVE NO LIFE!”
ARE YOU A WEBAHOLIC?
1. Do you feel an obsessive need to check your e-mail at frequent intervals?
2. Do you make voluntary or involuntary typing movements of your fingers?
3. Have you ever received online bills that are double or triple what you expected?
4. Have you ever lost sleep or skipped a meal more than once in order to spend more time on the net?
5. Have you ever called in sick, skipped class or been late for an appointment because you couldn’t tear yourself away from your computer?
6. Have you ever gotten into an argument with friends or family members because of the amount of time you spend on-line?
7. Have your grades (or work) ever suffered because of the time you spent online?
8. Are your on-line relationships more fulfilling than your face-to-face ones?
9. Do you need to spend increased amounts of time on the Internet to achieve satisfaction?
10. Have you ever experienced anxiety, obsessive thinking or fantasies about the Internet after not using it for several days?
SHOCK THE MONKEY
Counselors advise those who think they have an Internet compulsion to write down the amount of time they expect to spend on-line, then log their actual use. Some might need to keep an egg timer by the computer to help limit the amount of time spent plugged in.
Surfing or checking e-mail should be the reward for completing other necessary chores around the house that need to get done, says Jonathan Kandell, director of counseling services at the University of Maryland at College Park. Users should not surf for fun on the Web until after work hours.
Only in extreme cases do psychologists recommend getting rid of the computer. This option is particularly difficult when the addict is required to be on-line for school or work.
Seeking professional help also is recommended for those whose use of the Internet is interfering with other aspects of their lives.
And so far, the best place to seek that help is–where else?–on the Internet.
WEBAHOLICS QUIZ ANSWERS
If you answered yes to 0-4 questions, don’t worry. You could simply be fascinated by the new technology, or just slightly computer-crazed.
If you answered yes to 5-8 questions, you may want to evaluate how much time you’re spending on the Internet by keeping logs, timing your sessions and even buying software such as Addiction Manager that helps control Internet use.
“If you can’t seem to get a handle on it yourself, then get help,” advises Jonathan Kandell, a psychologist at the University of Maryland at College Park’s counseling center.
If you answered yes to 9-10 questions, you probably have a problem and should seek counseling. Recognizing patterns of overuse is an important first step. Psychologists such as Kandell recommend pinpointing underlying troubles that make you want to escape into the Internet, then addressing those problems directly.
Only in extreme cases do they recommend getting rid of the computer.