Does your life feel meaningless when you are not connected to the Internet? Or do you have an alarming loss of sleep due to excessive amount of time in front of the computer? Then you are definitely in the danger zone! By far the fastest growing media is the Internet which today is used by 45 million users. Daily approximately 10 000 people connect to th global network which has, during the last two years, expanded with 143%!

In this wide space you are being welcomed by high availability and swiftness and with overwhelming advantages the Internet is regarded as the greatest technical progress since the televion came during the 1940. Due to the rapid response more and more people, in particular youths, are enticed to connect to the tremedous source of information. A furious technical development with faster computers and greater graphic makes the Internet a constantly renewed adventure. In pace with growing usage of Internet, an addiction is developed among the users, an addiction similar to those in alcohol and drugs. One of the hidden disadvantages with the Internet is accordingly to be addicted of the Internet, to be an Internet addict. Of course there are various causes to that, but one difficulty in the context is to appoint who is an addict. But if you are beginning to neglect work or school and real social contacts to spend time surfing on the Internet instead, those are noticeable warning signals. In Sweden, there are so far no examinations done in this area, but several extensive reports have been carried out in the USA where it is calculated that eight million people have developed some kind of addiction. If the numerals are being transfered into Swedish measurements, it is approximately 40 000 who are in the same situation. Besides, Sweden is a considerably more “computer tight” country than USA. David Greenfield, doctor of psychology, introduced a terryfying statistical report in 1999. More than 4 % of the 18000 participating Internet users admitted they had serious problems and showed symptoms similar to those which usually are associated with drug addiction and alcolhol abuse. The study also showed that Internet addicts have a connection with the highest degree of social isolation and depression. Greenfield believes that the significance of the Internet is astounding. - Internet can expand your world but you must almost isolate yourselves to obtain access to it! The differential of Internet addiction, unlike other more concrete addictions, is that there are vast amounts of excuses to conceal the symptoms. These vague excuses allow the addict to temporarily forget about the problem, but in reality, this only worsens it. However is the satfaction, which causes some kind of an emotional relief, the same as to other addictions. Persons who get caught in this addiction are often suffering from other mental complaints. More specifically of what is the underlie for Internet addiction is more or less individual. Men drooling over online pornography, women abandoning their husbands for chat-room lovers and people losing their life savings on gambling Web sites are just a few of the stories peddled in today's press. Psychologists and others have a tendency to name this phenomenon in a quantity of ways – computer dependence, Internet addiction, cyber addiction and so on. A very well orientated man in the subject is doctor Kimberly Young who categorizes Internet addiction in five specific types:

1. Cyber sexual dependence – contains persons who are engaged in watching,       downloading and exchanging online pornography or people who are participating in       pornographical related chat rooms. This sexual activity can easily become an addiction due to       its availability and anonymity.       2. The dependence of the cyber relationship – those who suffer from this are being way       to deeply involved into online relationships or have committed so called virtual unfaithfulness.       The physical friends of the individual are getting less important than “online friends”.       3. Online games– consider online gaming, shopping or share trading. Those who are       classified to this category use virtual casinos, interactive games or Internet auctions. This can       consequently lead to great loss of money and privation of employment and friends.       4. Exaggerated surfing – this is a kind of an obsessive behaviour which ”force” some       individuals to spend several hours a day by gathering and organizing information. The large       amount of accessible information on the Internet results in inhibited social and real lives.       5. Computer dependency – a phenomenon which affected many companies during the early       90’s. The employees devoted the day to computer games instead of working. This computer       gaming era is characterized by non interactive and less complicated offline games. Many different studies show that Internet addiction is most common among the male gender. But other studies intend that women are at least as addicted as men, yet in another way. Due to the Internet is still relatively young, there is no abundance of examinations and researches. But a generalization still shows that women are more likely to spend time flirting or having “cybersex” with others in sexually oriented environments, while men are drawn to porn web sites. "Men prefer visual stimuli and more focused sexual experiences, while women are more interested in relationships and interactions," says Cooper, who is training coordinator at Stanford University. Today, according to my knowledge, there is no special treatment to the one who is stuck in Internet addiction. If you would like to receive help you will have to contact a psychiatric care. In Sweden of today, broadband connection is more or less considered as a standard and consquently more people will get caught in this addiction. Internet addicts will now have the possibility to be constantly connected to Internet, which surely will worsen their situation. Our substantially computer influenced country will probably be hard affected by this matter of fact and Internet addiction must be considered as a real problem in order to be able to fight it! Great parts of the problem are located in the very “camouflage” of this addiction. Many refuse to admit the problem, perhaps in the fear of losing something, losing something which in reality does not exist at all.

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