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by kypro 1650 days ago
I wasn't denying that people can be addicted to the internet, my comment was in response to whether what the parent commenter was saying is even that analogous to addiction.

Internet addiction is a term that seems to get thrown around a lot these days, especially at kids and teens, but I think what people tend to label internet addiction isn't really an addiction at all or even directly damaging -- it's just people understandably wanting to take advantage of having access to the internet and smart phones to stay connected to friends or to entertain themselves. If it gets to the point where kids aren't doing school work, or if an adult rather play video games than get a job, then sure that's a problem. But if a guy likes to come home from work and spend 80% of his evening catching up with friends on Facebook and playing video games I don't think that's an any less valid way to spend an evening than say reading a fiction book. And again, we don't accuse people who spend most of their free time reading sci-fi books as being addicts, even if taking their sci-fi books from them would send them into a state of withdrawal while they found something else to replace their reading "addiction" with.

1 comments

> Again, we don't accuse people who spend most of their free time reading sci-fi books as being addicts, even if taking their sci-fi books from them would send them into a state of withdrawal while they found something else to replace their reading "addiction" with.

Parents and adults did do this back in the 90s, at least to me. I read books when I didn't have computer access and both were considered 'problems'. I had books taken away and was forbidden from reading because I would rather do that than socialize. I know I'm not the only one either.

By the same logic, aren't some people addicted to socialising? But I never heard it be called that.