Member Advice on Internet Addiction

The female species is well known in life for being able to multi task. We can feed the baby, make a cup of tea, keep an eye on the dinner, take the washing out of the washing machine, and read the bills all in a small space of time. Since time began, women have had to be multi taskers because of necessity. Their lives are filled to brimming with things to do.

Since the beginning of the internet, a new species has arisen. It is the internet addicted, and you may not be aware of this but the problem is so serious that there are now centres where you can go on the internet to help you break the addiction.

I think the internet became my safe haven for a while when my husband and I split up because it was rather a safe place to be, and one I felt totally comfortable in for a while. Escapism but also multi tasking, something that women, as I said before, are particularly good at.

Once minute I was talking to a man in the States that was about to kill himself and was passionately writing words to try and stop him, and one minute playing a game with strangers and teasing and tantalising. I could be who I wanted to be rather than who I was.

WHEN IT HIT ME

I began more and more to get away from real friends. I was never there when they phoned because I was too busy online and the phone was always engaged, and in the end they stopped calling. I was being treated with anti depressants, and I really was in a world where the moment I got up in the morning, to the moment I went to bed, I had no purpose in my life other than switching on this damned machine and taking on the problems of strangers, and feeling like I belonged somewhere.

THE PEOPLE MOST IN DANGER

The folks that are most in danger from internet addiction are caring ones, people who are reaching beyond the world in which they live because they need contact with other human beings. There can be any number of reasons, and in my case, my life had fallen apart and I was not yet ready to put it all back together again.

Instead of facing the world and taking my life in hand, I came onto the internet. I wrote emails to strangers and they became a very real part of my world.

Lonely people are in danger too, and obscure people who have little importance in their own worlds. One of the best friends that I have made on the net got really wrapped up in it because he had no control over the life he was living. He's a great guy and we write daily, but this little space on the internet was somewhere where he could say "Hey life is going too fast. I want to get off the roundabout", a way that I have felt all too often, although in real life, responsibilities mean that people like him and people like me cannot do that. We are too busy sorting out other people's problems and never find time for ourselves.

Here on the net we found that space where what we want matters, and if that sounds sad, then it is because it is a sad situation, although for the most part the addiction as such is a temporary fix until our life problems can be sorted, and I truly believe that in a way, it is the human body's way of taking a rest, of taking a break in order to be able to stand back and look at the real issues and find solutions, because when you look too hard at your life, solutions can never be found.

Distancing ourselves from our problems by coming onto a place like the Internet is a little like a day out, although believe me it lasts longer than that.

SO WHAT SHOULD I LOOK FOR IN DECIDING WHETHER I AM ADDICTED ?

Look at your pattern of behaviour. Look at how you would feel if you were told that you could not use your computer for as little as a day. Does it upset you ? If it does not upset you then you are not addicted. If it does, then you need to look at the reasons and see if they are logical ones that can be sorted another way.

DIFFERENT KINDS OF ADDICTION.

There seem to be all kinds of addictions that have come out of the existance of the internet and here I name a few because they may help a reader to see whether they are in fact addicted or just having a good time.

CYBER SEXUAL ADDICTION

This is an addiction to porn sites, and porn information. Did you know that there is a centre for people that are addicted to the sexual aspect of the internet, going into chatrooms with the sole purpose of contacting someone for sexual activity ? Well alarmingly there are. There is even a book written for people with this addiction called "Caught in the net". This is not an addiction that I have ever suffered from however. I just figure the lack of sex in my life is just normal stuff, though I have to admit I did go on a challenge by a friend to see whether it was true that scotsmen wore nothing under their kilts, and whether people of other nations have male bits that are bigger than English ones, but that was for a laugh - certainly not for any kind of self gratification.

GENERAL INTERNET ADDICTION

Ask yourself whether you intended to stay online this long ? Ask yourself whether you are neglecting your personal hygeine, your house, your friends, your love life. If you find life online more exciting than life in general, then its time to start asking why and making your own life a little more rewarding.

There is actually a quiz online and it may be interesting for readers to give the quiz a go to see whether they are internet addicted.
http://www.netaddiction.com/resources/in​ternet_addiction_test.htm
It makes interesting reading.

CHILDHOOD ADDICTION

Now this really is a serious problem and one that parents should be aware of, as children are vulnerable and too much internet access can harm them. It has been shown on television many times that children get pulled into the internet, either as gamers, or chatters, and when you see the news and news items about young girls being seduced by older men online, then I believe that each parent has a responsibility to their child to make sure that the computer that they use in their home is safe, and that the child spends more time in real life than in computer life, because growing up is important in the real world, with real people.

ADDICTION TO GAMBLING

This is well known in real life, but the internet offers you the opportunity to gamble from home, and here this I feel is very dangerous for people that stay at home to avoid addictions such as gambling. To make gambling so easily available on the internet is dangerous and if you fall into this category and are getting into financial debt because of it, then giving away your computer would probably be the most constructive thing that you could do !!!

OVERALL ADDICTION

From auction sites, to music, to gambling, to chatting, to being open and friendly, to being intimate with strangers, the Internet is not the friendly place that people think it is. There are dangers with spending too much time online, and one of the biggest dangers is that you can lose what could be a very productive time offline.

I spent time here after my marriage fell apart, and was pulled into the internet for a while, although I must admit, I knew what I was doing, and it did me no real harm. The trouble is that it would have been very easy to stay in this world of cyber space and never come out of it, simply because it is ever changing, and the choice of which direction you go is yours, whereas in real life it isn't always that easy for everyone.

I was never lonely when I was on the net. There are always other people looking to talk with other people, and it becomes a vicious circle after a while but it really does not have to be.

Now, I come onto the internet for my little bit of time each night and first thing in the morning, but apart from that, it is my choice, rather than a feeling that I have to be here. I don't get upset if we have a power cut any more. I don't care if I cannot write three reviews a day, and answer a dozen emails. Life has taken over and I love it, though the Internet has its proper place in my life now and the friends I have on here are very real friends, though none of them demanding that I am here 24 hours out of 24.

The sun is shining. I have gardening to do, and it is more important to me than being here, so I leave you, hoping that you do the quiz and find out just how addicted you are to the Internet and hoping that one person gleans a little sense out of my review, and decides to put the Internet in its rightful place, and go back to live amongst the living !!!

Thanks for reading.

Rachel