Introduction to "Caught on the Net" - a book about Internet addiction - signs, causes and how to recover from Internet Addiction.

My extensive, worldwide study of Internet Addiction was triggered in 1996 by a distress phone call from my friend Marsha, a high school English teacher in North Carolina.

"I'm ready to divorce John," Marsha announced. I was taken aback. Marsha and John had been together for five years and had what I assumed was a stable marriage. I asked her what had gone wrong: Did John have a drinking problem? Was he having an affair? Had he been abusing her? "No," she replied. "He's addicted to the Internet."

Between sobs, she filled me in on the problem. Every night, he'd come home from work at 6 pm and head straight for the computer. No kiss hello, no help with dinner, or the dishes, or the laundry. At 10 pm, he'd still be on-line when she'd call him to come to bed. "Be right there," he'd say. Four or five hours later, he'd finally log off and stumble into bed.

It had gone on like this for months. She'd complain to him about feeling neglected, ignored, confused about how he could get sucked into cyberspace for forty or fifty hours every week. He didn't listen, and he didn't stop. Then came the credit card bills for his on-line service, $350 or more per month. "We were trying to save our money to buy a house," she said, "and he's pissing away all our savings on the Internet." So she was leaving. She didn't know what else to do.

I listened to my friend as supportively as I could, but when we hung up my mind was abuzz with questions: What could anyone be doing on the computer all that time? What would lure an ordinary person into such an obsession with the Internet? Why couldn't John stop himself, especially when he could see that his marriage was in danger? Could Internet users really become addicted?

My professional curiosity was aroused, further piqued by my longstanding interest in technological wonders. I'm a clinical psychologist, but I've known the ins and outs of computers for years. I have an undergraduate degree in business, concentrating in management information systems, and I once worked for a manufacturing firm as a computer specialist. I spend as much time browsing through Internet Today as I do perusing the latest copy of Psychology Today. And like millions of people all over the world, my work day begins with a quick check of my e-mail as I sip my morning coffee.

But before that distress call from Marsha, I had regarded the rapid growth of the Internet in the early '90s as nothing more than the technological and communications marvel it was touted to be. Sure, I could remember seeing swarms of students filling the computer labs at every hour of the day and night at the University of Rochester, when I was completing my clinical fellowship at the medical school there. A strange sight, but maybe free computer access was simply encouraging students to invest more time and energy into their research papers, I figured at the time.

I also vaguely recalled a few tongue-in-cheek remarks in the media about obsessive use of the Internet. The business magazine Inc. made a remark about 12-step programs for Internet addicts. CNN commented on how the surge of modems suddenly appearing in households throughout the country was "creating a society of on-line addicts."

Now I listened to such comments in a new light. Ironically, the morning after my phone call with Marsha I happened to see a Today show report on an Internet chat room. This group spent hours on the Internet every day debating the guilt or innocence of O.J. Simpson during the ongoing criminal trial, and the chatting cost one woman $800 a month in on-line fees. Sounds strikingly similar to the effects of gambling addiction, I mused. Was there something sinister going on in cyberspace?

It was time to find out. Drawing upon the same clinical criteria used to diagnose alcoholism and chemical dependency, I devised a short questionnaire to pose to Internet users. I asked:

* Have you ever tried to hide or lie about how long you use the Internet?

* Do you spend longer periods on-line than you had intended?

* Do you fantasize about the Internet and your activities on-line when you're away from the computer at work, school, or in the company of spouse, family or friends?

* Have you lost interest in other people and activities since you became more engaged in the Internet?

* Have you tried to cut down your Internet use but found you couldn't do it?

* Do you experience withdrawal symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, or irritability when you're off-line?

* Do you continue to use the Internet excessively despite significant problems it may be causing in your real life?

I posted the questionnaire on that November 1994 day on several Usenet groups - virtual discussion places where Internet users can send and receive messages on specific topic areas. I expected perhaps a handful of responses, and none as dramatic as Marsha's story. But the next day my e-mail was stuffed with more than forty responses from Internet users from Vermont to Oregon, as well as messages from Canada and overseas transmissions from England, Germany, and Hungary!

Yes, the respondents wrote, they were addicted to the Internet. They stayed on-line for six, eight, even ten or more hours at a time, day after day, despite problems this habit was causing in their families, their relationships, their work life, their school work, and their social life. They felt anxious and irritable when off-line and craved their next date with the Internet. And despite Internet-triggered divorces, lost jobs, or poor grades, they couldn't stop or even control their on-line usage.