I'm sure everyone who has used the Internet (preferably more than once) has asked themselves "Am I addicted to the Net?" Most likely you have answered "No way…I can quit whenever I want to." I have asked this question many times and I am proud to admit that yes, I am addicted to the Net, and no, I could not leave even if I tried. I have admitted my problem, but the question is, what to do next?

How do I know I was addicted? Well, no matter where I was I would have to find some way to get onto the Net, whether it meant kicking off an 8 year old searching for articles on frogs, or playing a game of musical computers -I would have to win. All in the quest to check my mail. But why would I do this? Buggered if I know. I'm just lucky the 8 year old understood my problem, and decided not to sue me for damages.

A few weeks back was also a turning point. I realised I was connecting to the Internet daily just to check my mail, and see who else was surfing. I'm addicted to chatting on the Net. That is just about the only thing I do on the Internet. That and mail the people I also talk to on the Net. The time I spent actually surfing would take up maybe 5% of the time.

I was thinking about starting a homepage (HP) for quite a long while. Rather than learn HTML (and waste too much time learning it when I could be in front of the computer), I bought some software, that made publishing your page easy. And I could make the page up off the Net, so I didn't have to be online. Clearly, I wasn't addicted then…So I made up my page. Looked brilliant. Then when it was done, and I wanted to put it online, I couldn't get it published on the Internet -my pulse raced and my temperature rose. I spent hours trying to publish it, and it still wouldn't work. So I put off that project. March came, and I decided to try again. I still couldn't publish my pre-made page, so then I had to make it online. You can imagine my thoughts. And those of my net buddies, as they took the backseat -they didn't see me for hours, as that was all it took to get my page underway. Then I returned to the world of 'real life'. Now my thoughts are consumed of ways to improve it. And it's only my first page. There is a lot to be done. But now my Net buddies are back in the front seat, until I find a new time consuming task.

Starting University was another big thing. In every lecture, the lecturer says "check the Internet Site for further, detailed, up to date information". Imagine -four classes, all of them requiring the likes of me using the Internet. I thought "Bingo". My ISP thought "oh no". All of those sites say "check weekly for lecture notes". I thought I was really organised when I downloaded the terms lecture notes for Accounting. Boy was I wrong. For the last two weeks they've changed the lecture notes almost daily, up dating them -particularly the morning of that lecture. So that means I have another excuse to go on the Internet. Just think…four classes, four groups of notes to collect, and all of that time to fill in while they're downloading.

I remember when we first got onto the Net. I wasn't the least bit interesting. Then my sister showed me a chat room. I stayed there for 3 hours, before my ISP cut me off. At first I would only go on if I had nothing to do. Then it became a weekly ritual. Then came twice a week, four times a week, and then even on the weekends (when previously I couldn't even get near the computer). Finally, it has become daily. Checking my mail everyday, adding something new to my page, sending another e-mail. I had my own computer but it did not know anything about the Internet. It didn't know what it was about, what it did, what it was capable of. It hadn't even met a modem. Hell, it would have laughed at me if I tried to explain. I was using the family computer to access the Internet, and with more and more things happening, I got less and less access to the Internet. It came to the 'daily' stage, when I finally got my very own computer upgraded. I had the software, the modem, and it was time to get connected. The computer was in my room, modem hooked into the phone line, and it was time. Oh the sweet sound. Everything worked smoothly and it worked first go. Now my computer has to be one of the most literate Internet persons, oops, computer I know. It is very articulate. It knows me so well. One day does not go by when it is not turned on. What am I going to do if it gets arthritus?

When I first got hooked up to the Internet all those years ago (well, ok, you got me, 2 years ago) I received an e-mail from a net buddy titled "You know you are addicted to the Internet when..." Here is that list. Most of these do not apply to me. The rest do:

1.You kiss your girlfriend's home page.
2.Your bookmark takes 15 minutes to scroll from top to bottom.
3.Your eyeglasses have a web site burned in on them.
4.You find yourself brainstorming for new subjects to search.
5.You refuse to go to a vacation spot with no electricity and no phone lines.
6.You finally do take that vacation, but only after buying a cellular modem and a laptop.
 7.You spend half of the plane trip with your laptop on your lap...and your child in the overhead compartment.
8.All your daydreaming is preoccupied with getting a faster connection to the net: 28.8...ISDN...cable modem...T1...T3.
9.And even your night dreams are in HTML.
10.You find yourself typing "com" after every period when using a word processor.com
11.You turn off your modem and get this awful empty feeling, like you just pulled the plug on a loved one.
12.You refer to going to the bathroom as downloading.
13.You start introducing yourself as "Jim at I-I-Net dot net dot au.
14.Your heart races faster and beats irregularly each time you see a new WWW site address in print or on TV, even though you've never had heart problems before.
15.You step out of your room and realize that your parents have moved and you don't have a clue when it happened.
16.You turn on your intercom when leaving the room so you can hear if new e-mail arrives.
17.Your wife/husband drapes a blond wig over your monitor to remind you of what she/he looks like.
18.All of your friends have an @ in their names.
19.When looking at a pageful of someone else's links, you notice all of them are already highlighted in purple.
20.Your dog has its own home page.
21.You've already visited all the links at Yahoo and you're halfway through Lycos.
22.You can't call your mother...she doesn't have a modem.
23.You realize there is not a sound in the house and you have no idea where your children are.
24.You check your mail. It says "no new messages." So you check it again.
25.You refer to your age as 3.x.
26.You have comandeered your teenager's phone line for the net and even his friends know not to call on his line anymore.
27.Your phone bill comes to your doorstep in a box.
28.Even though you died last week, you've managed to retain OPS on your favorite IRC channel.
29.You code your homework in HTML and give your instructor the URL.
30.You don't know what sex over three of your closest friends are, because they have neutral nicknames and you never bothered to ask.
31.You name your children Eudora, Mozilla and Dotcom.
32.You laugh at people with 2400 baud modems.
33.Your husband tells you he's had the beard for 2 months.
34.You miss more than five meals a week downloading the latest games from Apogee.t, or [C]ontinue?
35.You start looking for hot HTML addresses in public restrooms.
36.You wake up at 3 a.m. to go to the bathroom and stop and check your e-mail on the way back to bed.
37.You move into a new house and decide to Netscape before you landscape.
38.You tell the cab driver you live at http://123.elm.street/house/bluetrim.html
39.You actually try that 123.elm.street address.
40.You tell the kids they can't use the computer because "Mommy's got work to do" and you don't even have a job.
41.Your friends no longer send you e-mail...they just log on to your IRC channel.
42.You buy a Captain Kirk chair with a built-in keyboard and mouse.
43.Your partner makes a new rule: "The computer cannot come to bed."
44.You are so familiar with the WWW that you find the search engines useless.
45.You never have to deal with busy signals when calling your ISP...because you never log off.
46.You forget what year it is.
47.You start tilting your head sideways to smile.
48.You ask your doctor to implant a gig in your brain.
49.You leave the modem speaker on after connecting because you think it sounds like the ocean wind...the perfect soundtrack for "surfing the net."
50.You begin to wonder how on earth your service provider is allowed to call 200 hours per month "unlimited."
51.You turn on your computer and turn off your wife/husband.
52.Your partner says communication is important in a marriage...so you buy another computer and install a second phone line so the two of you can chat.

Getting that list was a turning point. I was new to the Internet, and I thought "Oh wow, how could anyone get that bad"? Re-reading this list quite a few months later I couldn't believe how accurate it was. Case point: I was on holidays in Adelaide, South Australia. A friend decided she was going to buy a new computer. Then she let me know "I also want a modem to get connected to the Net". My interest in the project rose considerably, and my mind started racing. Once the computer actually worked, and the modem was installed, it was time. I pressed the dial button, and was calmed at once by the familiar sounds when your computer is communicating with your Internet Service Provider (ISP). I stayed in Adelaide about 10 days, and even managed to go shopping and have a look around. Needless to say, my friend didn't even get a look at her new computer.

Here is how I knew I was addicted:
· I was checking my mail daily;
· My pulse would races, my temperature would rise, and my anger would burst when the line was busy to my ISP;
· When my internet connection is incredibly slow, my pulse races, my temperature gets hotter and I get so angry I could just about throw my computer out the window;
· When I'm not on the Internet, I'm thinking about it;
· If I'm not near a computer, my hands start to itch;
· I started paying my own Internet bills, when before someone else would pay for them;
· I can't count how many hours I spent on the internet, no matter if I try and calculate it daily, or weekly;
· I would never admit to my friends how often I'm on the Internet;
· I start to feel guilty when I haven't replied to a mail in a week after receiving it;
· I upgraded my modem to 56.6k, when my servers is only 28.8;
· The people I chat to don't even mail me because I see them so often;
· I have memorised my servers phone number in case of an emergency;
· I'm considering getting a third phone line.
I know there are more, but I cannot recognise any more of my symptoms. If you know what they are, tell me. There is no cure, and it cannot be treated, but it would make me feel better if I knew.

One day after I knew I was addicted to the Internet, I decided to do a quick search on it. I need help. I thought I could quit, cold turkey, whenever I wanted. So much for that resolution. I didn't even last two days. If I'm not saved soon, I never will be. So I had a look. One site said "You know you're addicted, what should you do now? We offer special counselling and guidance. Spend as much time with our trained psychologists as you need." Duh, I have to spend less time on the Internet, not more. Another said "Check this site daily for new ideas of how to leave the Internet". Yet another said "Daily stories of how people have overcome Internet Addiction." "New statistics and research findings will be posted soon regarding Addiction to the Internet" -problem was, I checked for weeks, and they still haven't posted those statistics and their research findings. Another suggested keeping a diary, and mailing it to their resident doctor to get it analysed. One site even made an incredibly bold statement "Internet Addiction does not exist". He obviously has never spent a few hours, everyday, for weeks, chatting, surfing, and e-mailing. How else can he explain thousands of people who compulsively dial up to the internet, and spent hours e-mailing, upgrading their homepage, chatting, or surfing looking for information that is already under their noses, if it's not Internet addiction? Two years ago I would have thought anybody doing that and calling it normal would be ludicrous. For me that is normal.

After looking at all of those 'help' pages, I've decided that there is nothing I can do. I can't leave. I thought I could but I can't. There are strings and magnets pulling me to my computer and coercing me to press the dial button, and there is no way I can cut them -the computer would miss me way too much, and I can't do that to her. These special forces have attached themselves to me and won't let me go. I don't know what will happen if I manage to detach them. Will I die? Or inadvertently kill them? I could never forgive myself. What can I do? I've tried everything. Then only thing I can do is give in to my habit. I'm not denying my problem, but clearly there is nothing to do.

As for getting a job in the future…I was thinking about reviewing web sites. Good idea or a time bomb?




One page "netaholics anonymous" has logged off. Does that mean that they were successful, or unsuccessful?

Another said "not found"