Are we becoming addicted to the internet and gadgets?

An interesting debate topic is brewing as to whether the internet and gadgets have become addictive. Certainly at times it seems some folks may be of this persuasion but there is no real proof this is a problem - at least for now...

An interesting article posted July 3, 2007, on CNN discusses this question.

The article suggests gadget and internet addiction "could be said to be part of a serious current debate -- the debate over whether technology addiction, and especially Internet addiction, is a real mental disorder". The article further states "At its annual conference last month, members of the American Medical Association considered a proposal to label excessive video and online game playing as an addiction, but decided to table it until further study".

CNN Online
July 3, 2007
Jonathan Mandell

Are gadgets, and the internet, actually addictive?

CNN - When the users of BlackBerries could not send or receive e-mails for 11 hours in April because of a glitch in the system, hospital administrator Paul Levy pronounced it a "national disaster" because of all the BlackBerry "addicts" forced into withdrawal.

Writing in his blog, Levy -- the president of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts -- proclaimed himself proud of the swift actions of his hospital.

"We set up our crisis center ... staffed by our Psychiatry Department," Levy wrote. "Cases of withdrawal were handled ... with a minimal use of antidepressant drugs." The one downside, he wrote, were the "damaged walls and broken windows" because of the "many devices ... vigorously thrown."

Levy was joking. There was no activity in his hospital as a result of the BlackBerry blackout, other than some whining from BlackBerry-obsessed colleagues.

But his satire could be said to be part of a serious current debate -- Read more...