Internet addiction: types, symptoms, treatment and prevention

With the development of information technologies, whichare an undoubted blessing in themselves, a person has encountered a new problem. It turned out that the Internet, created to help and serve as a tool in work or study, can itself enslave and drag a person down to a severe dependence on the World Wide Web. Many underestimate the scale of this problem and completely in vain, because even psychologists and doctors have long sounded the alarm. Internet addiction is already practically on the list of mental illnesses, and its severe form is subject to treatment along with alcoholism and drug addiction.

How to recognize the dependence

So how do you know if you have internet addiction?has already taken hold of you or your household, is there any reason to worry? There are some signs that can help you determine whether the insidious Internet web has really taken hold of you. Firstly, you prefer surfing the Internet to any other form of relaxation or pastime. Often, the time spent at the computer flies by so quickly that, upon waking up, you are surprised to realize that instead of the planned 15 minutes, two whole hours have already passed. After connecting to the World Wide Web, unfinished business began to accumulate in the house, and your productivity has significantly decreased. If there is no Internet, you do not know what to do with yourself, and depression or irritability appears. Internet addiction also manifests itself in the fact that the World Wide Web takes away not only a lot of your time, but also money, which is spent on purchasing increasingly powerful computer equipment and paying for online purchases. You take the loss of rating on various sites to heart, painfully experience a low rating of a photo or removal from friends on social networks. You are constantly haunted by an obsessive desire to check your mail, look at your favorite forum or Facebook page. If you have found the above symptoms, it is time to start fighting for independence from the Internet. A person in the last stage of addiction is no longer able to exist in real life, outside of his cozy virtual world. He stops working, taking care of himself, even forgets to eat. Live communication completely disappears, friends and family fade into the background. Several years ago, America was shocked by a case when a woman carried away by a computer game forgot about her own child - a 3-year-old girl died of hunger and thirst.

Types and forms of computer dependence

Researchers of this problem distinguish betweenThere are several types of such addiction, each of which is caused by certain psychological prerequisites. The first and most common type is constant virtual communication, not limited by time frames. A person endlessly hangs out in numerous social networks, makes hundreds of friends. There is a substitution of real communication and friendship with their virtual analogues. Such Internet addiction, according to psychologists, develops in those who have problems with socialization in real life. The risk group is teenagers, people with low self-esteem. The second common addiction is gaming. Multiplayer online games are gaining more and more popularity, often not allowing the gamer to leave even for half an hour. Battles, chases, fairy-tale characters draw you headlong into the virtual world, allowing you to forget about problems and troubles. Coming home from boring and hard work or study, a person rushes to the computer to get into the world of easy and pleasant victories and adventures, but gets into a severe Internet gaming addiction. The risk group is infantile people, people with a weak character, unable or unwilling to overcome the problems that real life poses for them. The third type of addiction is sexual. It is expressed in the desire to get sexual pleasure without leaving the monitor screen. This Internet addiction manifests itself in constant viewing of porn films and the desire to engage in virtual sex. The reason for this is most often sexual dissatisfaction with one's partner or the absence of one. The consequence is a broken family and a complete inability to start a relationship in real life. Another form of addiction to the World Wide Web is information Internet addiction. People who are susceptible to it wander for hours on the vast expanses of the Internet, moving from one site to another without any need for it. The overloaded, overfed with information brain eventually loses the ability to think deeply and critically. Internet addiction to online games for money can also be singled out, in particular, addiction to virtual casinos. Not everyone has the opportunity to visit a real casino, but almost everyone can easily give in to the game on numerous sites, succumbing to tempting advertising.

Prevention and treatment

There are currently clinics thatare ready to accept patients who complain of Internet addiction, however, according to doctors, only a few are treated. The rest either do not admit that they have an addiction or try to get out of it on their own. In some countries, treatment is carried out using very radical methods. Chinese specialists, for example, use electric shock. In Russia, things are not so terrible: as a rule, it is limited to a consultation with a psychologist and physical exercise. To prevent Internet addiction from getting the better of you, arrange regular breaks from the World Wide Web. Turn off the computer on weekends, read a book, have a picnic outside the city. Limit the time spent on the Internet using a timer, you can also ask one of your relatives to monitor you. Do not sit in front of the monitor when unfinished business looms ahead. Make it a rule to go online only after finishing your planned work. It is important to identify the psychological problems that caused Internet addiction and deal with them. Start fighting today.