Adicción Al Internet

Use of the Internet around the world has increased dramatically in recent years, leading to pathological use, or Internet addiction, for some people. Internet addiction is defined as a psychological dependence on the Internet and is characterized by an increasing investment of resources on Internet-related activities, unpleasant feelings (e.g., anxiety, depression, emptiness) when offline.Research on Internet addiction has shown that users can become addicted to it. Addiction to the Internet shares some of the negative aspects of substance addiction and has been shown to lead to consequences such as failing school, family, and relationship problems. (Wiemer, 2005)
What is Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD)?
What "Internet addiction disorder" (IAD) is still difficult to define at thistime. Much of the original research was based upon the weakest type of research methodology, namely exploratory surveys with no clear hypothesis or rationale backing them. Coming from an atheoretical approach has some benefits, but also is not typically recognized as being a strong way to approach a new disorder. More recent research has expanded upon the original surveys and anecdotal case studyreports. However, as I will illustrate below later, even these studies don't support the conclusions the authors claim.
The original research into this disorder began with exploratory surveys, which cannot establish causal relationships between specific behaviors and their cause. While surveys can help establish descriptions of how people feel about themselves and their behaviors, they cannot drawconclusions about whether a specific technology, such as the Internet, has actually caused those behaviors. Those conclusions that are drawn are purely speculative and subjective made by the researchers themselves. Researchers have a name for this logical fallacy, ignoring a common cause. It's one of the oldest fallacies in science, and one still regularly perpetrated in psychological researchtoday.
Do some people have problems with spending too much time online? Sure they do. Some people also spend too much time reading, watching television, and working, and ignore family, friendships, and social activities. But do we have TV addiction disorder, book addiction, and work addiction being suggested as legitimate mental disorders in the same category as schizophrenia and depression? Ithink not. It's the tendency of some mental health professionals and researchers to want to label everything they see as potentially harmful with a new diagnostic category. Unfortunately, this causes more harm than it helps people. (The road to "discovering" IAD is filled with many logical fallacies, not the least of which is the confusion between cause and effect.)
What most people online whothink they are addicted are probably suffering from is the desire to not want to deal with other problems in their lives. Those problems may be a mental disorder (depression, anxiety, etc.), a serious health problem or disability, or a relationship problem. It is no different than turning on the TV so you won't have to talk to your spouse, or going "out with the boys" for a few drinks so you don'thave to spend time at home. Nothing is different except the modality.
What some very few people who spend time online without any other problems present may suffer from is compulsive over-use. Compulsive behaviors, however, are already covered by existing diagnostic categories and treatment would be similar. It's not the technology (whether it be the Internet, a book, the telephone, or thetelevision) that is important or addicting -- it's the behavior. And behaviors are easily treatable by traditional cognitive-behavior techniques in psychotherapy.
Case studies, the alternative to surveys used for many conclusions drawn about online overuse, are just as problematic. How can we really draw any reasonable conclusions about millions of people online based upon one or two case studies? Yet...