Internet addicts

By Luis Pellegrini

Alcohol, cigarettes, and hard drugs are starting to go out of fashion. Other drugs, made of pure virtual reality, are taking their place. Who today doesn't know a teenager who no longer goes out with friends, who has abandoned sports and lost the will to study, but, in compensation, turns on the Internet as soon as they get home and, until the wee hours of the morning, exchanges normal and healthy social interaction for virtual chats on one of the many chat rooms and social networking sites available? They are victims of a contemporary pathology that worries and mobilizes psychiatrists and psychologists: "Internet addiction".

This teenager is far from being a unique case. There are millions of them worldwide, and not just teenagers. Serious research, such as that done by the American physician Kimberly Young, from Center for Online AddictionThey report that the global number of people suffering from the syndrome is between 6 and 10% of all internet users. These are people of all ages, professions, and social classes who share the common trait of being unable to control the irresistible urge that leads them to spend between 50 and 60 hours a week connected to the internet.

In some countries, public health authorities have already begun to adopt serious measures to combat this addiction. Switzerland was the first country in the world to create an institution exclusively dedicated to the treatment of "Internet addicts": approximately 50 individuals in the country. In Paris, the Marmottan Hospital – one of the world's leading clinics for research, treatment, and prevention of substance abuse – is now developing a department specializing in Internet addiction.

Brazil is not lagging behind in this race. In São Paulo, the Paulista School of Medicine develops the Program for Guidance and Assistance to Addicts (Proad), which has a sector specializing in non-chemical dependents, such as internet addicts. The telephone number for this sector is (011) 5579-1543, but it can also be contacted through the website. clicking here.

In Rome, Italy, where a man was recently hospitalized after spending three days and three nights non-stop browsing the Internet, psychiatrist Tonino Cantelmi is sounding the alarm: "This is a situation that causes social and relationship problems, a true pathology characterized by withdrawal symptoms and economic problems."

In terms of psychopathology, Cantelmi does not hesitate to include Internet addiction within the scope of classic addictions, such as heroin and cocaine, and behavioral addictions, such as gambling and compulsive sex. "Patients are almost always multi-dependent: not only on the Internet, therefore, but also on cocaine, marijuana, alcohol and, above all, gambling and other substances or behaviors that generate dependence," he explains.

How does someone become a victim of Internet addiction syndrome? Scholars explain that, initially, the sufferer only perceives the need to increase the time spent in front of the monitor. But they quickly realize that they cannot stop, much less give up, using the internet. The psychological characteristics of victims of Internet addiction are almost always the same as those of classic addicts: individuals who suffer from loneliness, depression, and difficulty communicating.

These people tend to hide behind this new medium, seeking refuge in a virtual world where they can invent a new life for themselves, an alternative identity more rewarding than their real one. These are people who suffer from difficulties in achieving normal social integration. Added to this, according to some scholars, is a genetic predisposition. And, importantly, the risk increases considerably for those who are required, due to their work, to spend many hours in front of a computer, such as programmers, researchers, and journalists.

Information dependency, the latest novelty.

One of the most recent discoveries reveals an unusual type of addiction amplified by the Internet: "information addiction." The constant bombardment of news provided not only by the Internet, but also by television and other contemporary media tools "addicts" the person and creates in some of them an ever-increasing need to consume information. This consumption can become obsessive, and in this case, the "information addict" begins to manifest the same symptoms as any other form of addiction. They enter a state of pathological distress when forced to spend a long time without accessing and consuming information.

A study developed by the University of Pennsylvania attempts to explain this strange process of virtual intoxication. It reveals that the hypertext mechanism, for example, which allows users to quickly navigate and access scattered documents on computers around the world with a simple click of the mouse, can induce some users to develop a kind of feeling of omnipotence. For these users, hypertext becomes a tool that provides an exciting and inexhaustible exploration of the world of news, and this ends up exhausting the physical and psychological energies of those who use it.

Like in an amusement park, the information addict experiences, through the computer, sensations such as speed, the elimination of distances, the overcoming of space-time barriers, and anonymity – all factors that alter the brain's biochemistry and can produce a strong state of excitement. While it remains under control, this state is pleasant. But it can turn into a nightmare for those who make it their main life goal.

According to another Italian psychiatrist, Michele Sforza, the Internet is only partly responsible: “In my view, the real problem is something else entirely, called Net addiction, that is, a whole series of pathological behaviors that lead to dependence on any means of communication. Not just the computer, but also television, the telephone, the cell phone, newspapers and magazines.”

What would be the appropriate therapy to combat these addictions when they begin to disrupt the lives of the patient and those around them? For Michele Sforza, this therapy is “first and foremost pharmacology, when the presence of an invisible obsession with the Internet or any other addictive factor is detected. Immediately afterwards, psychological support. It is only by breaking the patient's repetitive behaviors, helping them to regain control of their own actions and social contacts, that definitive rehabilitation can be expected.”

Marc Valleur, chief psychiatrist at Marmottan Hospital in Paris, believes that Internet addiction “is an emerging phenomenon that continues to intensify. The patients who come to me have often sacrificed their work, their studies, their social or love life to isolate themselves in the virtual world. They realize they are ruining their lives, but feel unable to disconnect from the Internet. In these cases, we can speak of a true addiction.”

Valleur distinguishes three families of "cyber addicts": 1) Patients between 17-25 years old who play video games for up to 12 hours a day. 2) Those who never leave chat rooms and discussion forums. 3) Adults who immerse themselves in pornographic websites. A common point among all of them, according to Valleur: "In these virtual universes, the person feels recognized, respected, and loved. Which is not always the case in real life." According to Valleur, "the internet doesn't create pathological behaviors. Internet addiction arises on top of pre-existing problems. The personalities that are most drawn to machines are those who are afraid to throw themselves into life, the phobics, and the introverts. The danger appears when the person can no longer have normal relationships."

We cannot, therefore, condemn the Internet and other addictive devices as responsible for this evil. An instrument is not responsible for its misuse. Far from it, addictions are emblematic diseases of modernity. They are forms taken by psychic suffering in today's culture, and it is in this culture that the causes of the problem, as well as its solution, must be sought.

There's no question that the internet is here to stay and is now an essential and extremely useful tool in modern life. But the compulsive use of its resources is neither harmless nor a game. Just as with chemical drugs (addiction), non-chemical addictions carry a serious risk of madness and alienation from reality.

NON-CHEMICAL DEPENDENCE

Cell phones, bingo, work, television, food, sex, physical exercise: everything in excess can turn into non-chemical addictions.

Internet addiction is far from being the only one in the wide range of non-chemical addictions. Video games, compulsive shopping, cell phones, work, religion and esotericism, food, compulsive sports and fitness exercises, compulsive sex, and gambling are some examples of this new line of addictions typical of modern times. Even certain forms of romantic and emotional dependence are now understood as forms of addiction.

An episode of the American TV series ER (Plantão Médico, in Brazil) recently featured the case of a young man admitted to the emergency room due to a compulsion to masturbate about ten times a day. In Denmark, a young man sought help at a detox clinic: he had developed the habit of sending more than 200 SMS messages a day; at the end of each month his cell phone bill exceeded two thousand euros (about six thousand reais).

The leading cause of non-chemical addiction appears to be gambling addiction – pathological gambling. This encompasses not only traditional games of chance – especially bingo these days – but also computer-based games such as video games, solitaire, etc. There is a huge number of cases of repetitive strain injuries (RSI) in the hand and arm muscles due to the compulsive practice of video games and solitaire, which require intensive use of the mouse.