[Mezzie]

I think it has to do with the number of people who've adopted the advancement. I've spent hours a day online since before this article came out, and it's much less of a social 'problem' than it used to be because now it's understood that sometimes people check things + I can easily do so on the go vs. being tethered to the desktop (and wired Internet).

Plus more 'normal' people are 'addicts' now. The only people spending tons of time online back in the 90s were weirdos who were REALLY into some aspect of it (for me, it was web design and UI/UX though of course I had no idea there was a term for it). We're not addicted to electricity, but I bet people were side-eyeing the first people who were obsessed enough to learn wiring and hook up their houses themselves.

We also had a similar reaction to television, which followed a similar pattern: My grandfather who was born in the 1910s was a factory worker who was OBSESSED with TVs when they were invented. His basement was full of parts and Franken-TVs. He was an 'addicted weirdo' in the 1930s and 1940s but by the time he died in the 1990s EVERYBODY was spending hours a day in front of a TV.