Internet is really amazing. It's been a great tool especially for students to access information. It has no doubt brought a revolution in the way we interact with each other and has provided us with a common platform for communication. We can interact through the various social networking websites like orkut, facebook etc. News updates can be accessed anytime through internet. Online chat rooms and blogs allow us to carry out communication about any topic imaginable. The level of comfort increases talking to friends online, which further enhances the time spent on internet leading to addiction.
Internet can be a great tool to increase one's knowledge. It is considered to be a form of addiction when its use starts to interfere with the offline life, which leads to breaking up of personal relationships. This has a bad impact on the work and others important things in the life of the person.
The signs which indicate that a person is addicted to internet include
- The loss of track of time when carrying out internet access.
- Both the feelings of guilt and goodness are experienced by him.
- He starts neglecting his friends and family.
- The level of anxiety, depression increases if the time of surfing is decreased.
- He starts lying to others about the time spent online.
Some people uses computer as a tool to mitigate their sadness, they feel some kind of happiness accessing the internet thus leading to addiction. They always think of when he would be able to access his computer again. Internet addict tries to lessen his depression by surfing more and more, this in turn adds to his loneliness and isolation. Lack of adequate social support also contributes to addiction as one starts surfing chat rooms in order to fill in the gap by finding friends online.
Availability of more and more information on the web has also increased the presence of pornography. People who excessively use internet for accessing porn stuff become sex addict. This hampers their real life intimate relationships as the things they fantasize about are impossible in real life. Comparing everything with the happenings of a virtual world becomes a cause for problems.
The most important step to get rid of addiction is the identification of the fact by an individual that there is a need to strike balance between the time spent online and offline. A sense of greater commitment and dedication is required. The treatment can be effectively provided only after we identify the reason behind the increased internet usage; it may be depression or anxiety. Any past history related to drug or alcohol addiction is another factor that may have lead to this. The internet addict with such a history tries to pacify himself by reliving those moments when he used to take drugs or drink alcohol through internet. It is used by many as a way of coping with stress and shyness. Lack of social aptitude is another factor leading to internet addiction, building skills in this direction can be very effective in removing internet addiction.
