Social Promlem project on Internet Addiction Essay

Social Promlem project on Internet Addiction - Essay Example Moving further, we will look into various types of internet addiction. After this, we will be exploring the effect of gender difference on the internet addiction. Furthermore, the discussion would be led to the causes and the development of the internet addiction. Last, but not the least, we will be looking over various treatment options for the internet addiction. So we can say, in general terms, that addiction is the process of getting habitual to the use of something. In the same connection, internet addiction is, in layman terms, the habitual use of internet or being compulsively occupied with the use of internet. "Technical addictions... non-chemical (behavioral) addictions which involve human-machine interaction. They can either be passive (e.g. television) or active, (e.g. computer games) and usually contain inducing and reinforcing features which may contribute to the promotion of addictive tendencies". (Griffths, 2000) Various experts have also called it cyber addiction. "Cyberspace Addiction: an addiction to virtual realms of experience created through computer engineering... Some cyberspace addictions are game and competition oriented, some fulfill more social needs, some simply may be an extension of workaholicism". (Suler, 1999) All in all, internet addiction, with whatever term it may be referred, is the excessive use of internet to the extent that a person become compulsively engaged in using the internet. Types of Internet Addiction The internet addiction can be classified into a number of typologies. However, the most commonly used typology among the scholarly circles is that based on the usage. On this basis, the internet addiction can be divided into following types: Addiction for Internet Sex Addiction for Games over Internet Addiction for Making Money over Internet Addiction for Chat Addiction for Web Surfing This typology has been adapted from the works of Young (et al. 1999) and Davis (2001). Addiction for Internet Sex According to some estimates, the total worth of the online sex industry is somewhere between 1 and 5 billion US Dollars. Moreover, the sex industry over internet has become one of the major contributors among the total revenue generated through the paid websites (McDonald, 2001). There are also some estimates that the highest search queries on various search engines, such as Google and Yahoo etc, are related to pornography, especially among teens. The internet is heavily with the sex related material. That includes, sex related text (stories), images, video, audio stories and entire DVD format full length