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Academic Problems

The Internet has been touted as a premiere educational tool driving schools to integrate Internet services among their classroom environments. However, one survey revealed that eighty-six percent of responding teachers, librarians, and computer coordinators believe that Internet usage by children does not improve performance (Barber, 1997). Respondents argued that information on the Internet is too disorganized and unrelated to school curriculum and textbooks to help students achieve better results on standardized tests. To further question its educational value, Young (1996) found that fifty-eight percent of students reported a decline in study habits, a significant drop in grades, missed classes, or being placed on probation due to excessive Internet use.

Although the merits of the Internet make it an ideal research tool, students surf irrelevant web sites, engage in chat room gossip, converse with Internet penpals, and play interactive games at the cost of productive activity. Alfred University’s Provost W. Richard Ott investigated why normally successful students with 1200 to 1300 SATs had recently been dismissed. To his surprise, his investigation found that forty-three percent of these students failed school due to extensive patterns of late night log-ons to the university computer system (Brady, 1996). Beyond tracking Internet misuse among students, college counselors began seeing client’s whose primary problem was an inability to control their Internet use. A survey initiated by counselors at the University of Texas at Austin found that of the 531 valid responses, 14% met criteria for Internet addiction (Scherer, in press). This resulted in forming a campus-wide seminar called "It’s 4am, and I Can’t, Uh-Won’t Log Off" to increase awareness about the risk factors of Internet misuse among students. Dr. Jonathan Kandell at the University of Maryland at College Park’s Counseling Center went so far as to initiate an Internet addiction support group when he noticed academic impairment and poor integration in extracurricular activities due to excessive Internet use on campus (Murphey, 1996).

Occupational Problems

Internet misuse among employees is a serious concern among managers. One survey from the nations top 1,000 companies revealed that fifty-five percent of executives believed that time surfing the Internet for non-business purposes is undermining their employees’ effectiveness on the job (Robert Half International, 1996). New monitoring devices allow bosses to track Internet usage, and initial results confirm their worst suspicions. One firm tracked all traffic going across its Internet connection and discovered that only twenty-three percent of the usage was business-related (Machlis, 1997). There is growing availability of such monitoring software as employers not only fear poor productivity, but they need to stop the use of valuable network resources for non-business related purposes (Newborne, 1997). Managers have been forced to respond by posting policies detailing acceptable and unacceptable Internet use.

The benefits of the Internet such as assisting employees with anything from market research to business communication outweigh the negatives for any company, yet there is a definite concern that it is a distraction to many employees. Any misuse of time in the workplace creates a problem for managers, especially as corporations are providing employees with a tool that can easily be misused. For example, Evelyn is a 48 year old executive secretary who found herself compulsively using chat rooms during work hours. In an attempt to deal with her "addiction," she went to the Employee Assistance Program for help. The therapist, however, did not recognize Internet addiction as a legitimate disorder requiring treatment and dismissed her case. A few weeks later, she was abruptly terminated from employment for time card fraud when the systems operator had monitored her account only to find she spent nearly half her time at work using her Internet account for non-job related tasks. Employers uncertain how to approach Internet addiction among workers may respond to an employee who has abused the Internet with warnings, job suspensions, or termination from employment instead of making a referral to the company’s Employee Assistance Program (Young, 1996).

ASSESSMENT OF PATHOLOGICAL INTERNET USE

Symptoms of Internet addiction are ones that may not always be revealed in an initial clinical interview; therefore, it is important that clinicians routinely assess for the presence of addictive Internet use. In order to properly assess for pathological Internet use, I need to first review controlled drinking models and moderation training for eating disorders which have established that certain triggers or cues associated with past alcohol, drug, or food use will onset binge behavior. Triggers or cues which may initiate binge behavior come in different forms such as certain people, places, activities, or foods (Fanning & O’Neill, 1996). For example, a favorite bar might be a trigger for excessive drinking behavior, fellow drug users with whom the patient used to party might trigger his or her drug use, or a certain type of food may lead to binge eating.

Triggers go beyond concrete situations or people, and may also include negative thoughts and feelings (Fanning & O’Neill, 1996). When feeling depressed, hopeless, and pessimistic about the future, an alcoholic may resort to drinking. When feeling lonely, unattractive, and down about oneself, an overeater may binge on whatever is in the refrigerator. Depression or low self-esteem may act as triggers which initiate binge-like behavior in order to temporarily run away, avoid, or cope with such negative thoughts and feelings.

Finally, addictive behaviors may be triggered or cued in reaction to an unpleasant situation in a person’s life (Fanning & O’Neill, 1996; Peele, 1985). That is, major life events such as a person’s bad marriage, dead-end job, or being unemployed may trigger binge related behavior associated with alcohol, drugs, or food. Many times, the alcoholic will find it simpler to drink in order to cope with recent news of being unemployed than to go out and search for a new job.

Addictive behaviors often act as a lubricant to cope with missing or unfulfilled needs which arise from unpleasant events or situations in one’s life. That is, the behavior itself momentarily allows the person to "forget" problems. In the short term, this may be a useful way to cope with the stress of a hard situation, however, addictive behaviors used to escape or run away from unpleasant situations in the long run only end up making the problem worse. For example, an alcoholic who continues to drink instead of dealing with the problems in marriage, only makes the emotional distance wider by not communicating with one’s spouse.

Addicts tend to recall the self-medicating effects of their addictions, and forget how the problem grows worse as they continue to engage in such avoidant behavior. The unpleasant situation then becomes a major trigger for continued and excessive use. For example, as the alcoholic’s marriage gets worse, drinking increases to escape the nagging spouse, and as the spouse’s nagging increases more, the alcoholic drinks more.

In this same manner, Internet addiction operates on triggers or cues which lead to "net binges." I believe that behaviors related to the Internet have the same ability to provide emotional relief, mental escape, and ways to avoid problems as do alcohol, drugs, food, or gambling. Therefore, origins for such net binges can be traced back to the following four types of triggers which need to be assessed, (a) applications, (b) feelings, (c) cognitions, and (d) life events.

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