Checklist: 10 signs that you are addicted to the Internet
Text: Daria Gavrilova
Mastering the basics of a healthy lifestyle, we have long realized that smoking is better to give up, and in the use of alcohol, the main thing is moderation. Nevertheless, potentially dangerous habits in the 21st century have evolved - now addiction can develop not only from alcohol, drugs or cigarettes, but also from technology. Journalists compare social networks with a crack for the ease of dependency formation, and academic journals estimate the number of Internet addicts in Europe and the United States as about 8% of the population. We have compiled a list of ten signs that you are planning an Internet addiction.
1
You spend more time on the Internet than planned.
The main sign of Internet addiction, like any other, is that it takes you more time than you planned. We all in one form or another have seen (and lived) this picture: a person lies in bed at night and reads something on the phone, although he has to sleep.
Inability to abandon gadgets before bedtime leads to insomnia and depression. If you regularly plan to go to bed at a certain time, but instead hang out in social networks or Wikipedia - this is an occasion to think about their habits. If, without a cozy scrolling, you feel bad and cannot fall asleep at all - this is a double reason to think. Ideally, it is better to put the device aside for an hour and a half before bedtime.
2
You do not have time to finish working or household chores
You had four hours of free time today, and you planned to write a text page — but instead tried to find out who is most likely to die this season's Game of Thrones season. Friends come to dinner - and you did not have time to go to the store for food and wine, as time flew by while reading the comments on the hot Facebook discussion.
It seems that you do not have enough time for anything, and you are increasingly working well past midnight, because during the day you sat on the Internet. In the most extreme cases, people lose their jobs and spend more than ten hours a day on the Internet. Nevertheless, the time spent online is not so important in itself - problems start when the Internet prevents you from carrying out the planned work plans.
3
You think about what you will do online, even when doing other things
It works the same way as with other types of addiction: just as a person with alcoholism imagines a steaming glass of beer after work, so you are savoring a future purchase on ASOS. A person without dependence does not think about what he will do on the Internet, when he finally finishes his work and returns to Facebook.
If you are considering the already published posts in detail, or mentally reworking any event into a story for social networks — and a blog is not your main source of income, then you may have a problem. The most alarming sign in this situation is the appearance of euphoria when you sit down at the computer.
4
You become irritable, and the mood is directly dependent on the time on the Internet
Scientists at Cornell University investigated five thousand questionnaires of people who tried to quit Facebook from the site 99daysoffreedom.com, and found out that many returned in a couple of days. The reasons were different, but one of the most important was emotional instability: people with a stable emotional sphere, who were in a good mood, were less likely to give up halfway through.
If the rejection of social networks and the Internet makes you irritable, angry and aggressive - you should think about changing habits. A very bad sign is guilt: if you are ashamed of the time you spend online, you may be addicted.
5
You are dependent on a particular site or activity
Some researchers consider it important to separate subtypes of Internet addiction: in their opinion, many users depend not on the Internet as such, but on a specific site or service.
Researcher Kimberly Yang identifies five subspecies of Internet addiction: addiction to computer games, an excess of information (dependence on Internet surfing), compulsive behavior (online shopping, online gambling), dependence on cybersex, and finally dependence on online relationships.
The latter category includes social networks: Facebook and its analogues create a successful illusion of warm communication and additionally psychologically bind users with constant updates and alerts.
6
You are hiding real time spent on the web from friends and loved ones
This is another classic sign of any dependence: you are trying to downplay the degree of the problem in the eyes of others. The fact that you have a desire to downplay the scale, already indicates the presence of dependence.
If you go to a nook to check the phone; say you need to make a call, and go away to check social networks; say that you go for a run, and in fact just read facebook on the bench - this is a clear sign of dependence.
7
You communicate more online, not live
Refusing to communicate with people in reality to spend time online is a very disturbing sign, says Linda Bell, director of the Canadian Belwood Rehab Center. In her practice, there was a patient who every day after work spent eight hours in an online casino - and gradually lost contact with all friends.
Watch yourself: if you increasingly prefer to say no to your friends and instead of meeting them, spend time watching videos on youtube, you may develop an addiction.
8
You abandoned the hobby
This sign is similar to the previous one: there are a limited number of hours in a day, and the more time you spend on the Internet, the less it remains for other activities.
If you used to go to Turkish twice a week, go in for salsa and go out for Sunday runs, and now you only have time for a run once a month, and the amount of basic work hasn’t increased - pay attention to how much time you spend online.
9
You have already tried to refuse, but nothing happened
This is one of the most obvious, but at the same time, the most serious signs. If you have already thought about spending too much time online, decided to reduce this time or arrange “cyberdetox”, but always failed, then things are not very good. It may be worth asking a psychotherapist for help.
10
Your addiction is physically manifested.
Internet addiction may seem like a joke - at first it was not taken even seriously by doctors. However, as early as 2008, the American Journal of Psychiatry in an editorial strongly recommended that Internet addiction be included in the fifth reissue of the main US psychiatric manual.
Now there are various classifications of Internet addiction, but no one denies its reality; moreover, in serious forms it begins to manifest itself in the patient physically. Insomnia, headaches and backache, eating habits, uncontrolled weight loss or weight gain, personal hygiene (if you forget or do not have time to wash yourself, spending time online), dry eye syndrome - all these things can be symptoms of neglected dependence on the Internet .
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