The Cyber Effect (8 page)

It is so memorably ironic that one of the great pioneers of computer and online gaming, Dani Berry, remarked: “No one ever said on their deathbed, ‘Gee, I wish I had spent more time alone with my computer.' ”

Most studies of Internet addictive behavior—and there have been literally hundreds now—build upon the work of Dr. Young, who has been studying compulsive online behavior since 1994 and had the prescience to open the first Internet addiction clinic in the United States the following year. Young's groundbreaking study compared the addiction-like behavior online with compulsion disorders and found many similarities. Her TED Talk on this subject in 2015 offers more interesting insights and warnings about what she calls the
dangers of being “too connected.” In research papers and psychological journals, this behavior is sometimes called
Internet use disorder
and
Internet addiction
. As neither of these are formal conditions, I will use the broader term,
Internet addictive behavior
.

In everyday language, the word
addiction
is applied to almost anything that a human being can have a craving for—from eating ice cream to singing in the shower. But to meet the clinical criteria for addiction, there must be a biochemical or chemical component. And for an individual to be diagnosed as having an addiction, they have to experience “withdrawal” and demonstrate a developing “tolerance.” In other words, there has to be evidence that an individual has an escalating need—wanting to use the Internet more and more. (That's tolerance.) And when the Internet is removed, it causes distress (withdrawal).

A telephone survey conducted by researchers at Stanford University a decade ago showed a rate of 12.5 percent of the U.S. adult population sample reporting they had “at least one problem” due to overuse of the Internet—often email checking, gaming, visiting cybersex sites, or shopping.
The cravings they described were similar to drug and alcohol cravings among addicts. As the years have passed, that statistic—12 percent of the population—seems to have remained fairly consistent, but numbers vary depending on who's doing the research, how the questions are asked, and how “addiction” or “misuse” or “excessive use” is defined. And what is considered “normal use” of the Internet can change from country to country. In South
Korea, where the issue of Internet addictive behavior has mushroomed into a much-discussed, much-researched, much-diagnosed, and much-treated condition, studies indicate that about 10 percent of Korean teenagers are Internet addicts. In fact, some demonstrate difficulty in living their everyday lives due to the level of their addiction. Slightly higher numbers have been reported in China, with 13.7 percent of Chinese adolescent Internet users meeting the criteria for “addiction.” It has been reported that addictions to video games are the fastest-growing forms of Internet addiction, especially in China, Taiwan, and Korea. Interestingly, the highest numbers come from a sample of
Italian adolescents—36.7 percent reportedly showed signs of “problematic Internet use.”

A study of more than thirteen thousand adolescents in
seven European countries in 2014 found that 13.9 percent of the participants demonstrated what was described as
dysfunctional Internet behavior
due to compulsive and frequent use that resulted in problems at home, in school, or in general. In a breakdown of excessive usage, social-networking
sites like Facebook gobbled up a lot of their online time, along with watching videos or movies, doing homework, downloading music, sending instant messages, and checking email. Boys were significantly more likely to be at risk for the more serious condition of Internet addictive behavior, with boys from Spain and Romania scoring the highest rates, and boys from Iceland the lowest. The more educated the parents, the less likely the adolescents were to show problems.

The study concluded that about 1 percent of adolescents exhibited Internet addictive behavior and an additional 12.7 percent were at risk. Together, this totaled 13.9 percent who could be said to demonstrate dysfunctional behavior. That means that more than one in ten of these adolescents are at risk.

Along with Kimberly Young, another pioneer in the field of addiction to technology is Dr. David Greenfield, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and director of the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction. In 2014, in conjunction with AT&T, Greenfield conducted a telephone survey of one thousand subscribers and concluded that around 90 percent of Americans would “fall in the category of
overusing, abusing, or misusing their devices.” Greenfield, who is also the author of
Virtual Addiction: Help for Netheads, Cyber Freaks, and Those Who Love Them
, says the incidence of Internet addictive behavior among Americans is around 10 to 12 percent, according to his research.

What are people checking on their phones? The first-quarter results for Facebook in 2016 showed that its users spent an average of fifty minutes a day on the site, which is, according to a
New York Times
article, just a bit less time than most people spend each day eating or drinking.

In Greenfield's survey of phone use alone, 61 percent of respondents said they slept with their mobile phone turned on under their pillow—or on a nightstand next to the bed. More than half described feeling “uncomfortable” when they forget their mobile phone at home or in the car, travel somewhere and are unable to get service, or break the phone. Greenfield's research found that while 98 percent of respondents said that they are aware that texting while driving is dangerous, nearly 75 percent admitted having done it. This is effectively extreme
risk-taking, the sort of lack of behavioral control that is usually associated with impulsive and compulsive behavior.

A few years ago, a research colleague of mine proposed to do a study assessing mobile phone addiction. He prepared the research proposal and set about recruiting participants. The idea was that all participants would hand over their mobile phones for a period of time, five or six days, while their levels of anxiety would be measured. Not one person approached was willing to participate in the mobile phone separation-anxiety project—which sort of proves the case.

So what can we do?

Internet addictive behavior expert Kimberly Young recommends three strategies:

In other words, it's a revision of Timothy Leary's 1960s mantra,
Turn on, tune in, and drop out
.

Turn off, tune in, and reconnect.

There have been shopaholics forever, since the open-market takeout restaurants of the ancient Romans (yes, they had takeout in Pompeii). It is defined by compulsive, episodic purchasing of goods and is similar in many ways to gambling addiction. It is not recognized as a formal disorder due to insufficient evidence, but that would be cleared up quickly if a panel of experts studied a frantic sales line at midnight before Black Friday.

Shopping addiction
is also known as compulsive shopping, compulsive spending, and compulsive buying. It is often trivialized in the media, and the so-called fashion victims described are invariably female.
Like other problematic behavior, it can be easily amplified and escalated online.

Formerly, a tendency for compulsive shopping could be inhibited, and more easily self-regulated, by store hours, the need to transport oneself to a shopping site, not to mention the difficulty of carrying all those bags. A compulsive shopper, like anybody with a compulsion, has a lack of self-control. Now, because of technology, the obstacles to addictive shopping behavior have been removed. It is much harder for those with a tendency in this direction to resist.

Psychologist Elizabeth Hartney, an addiction expert, has studied compulsive shopping and explains that shopping online is particularly seductive to real-world shopping addicts because it appeals to many of the same motivations behind real-world shopping addiction, which are “
the need to seek out variety in and information about products; to buy without being seen; to avoid social interactions while shopping; and to experience pleasure while shopping.”

Recognize yourself?

Why do people feel compelled to buy things they don't need? And spend money they don't have?

The psychological explanations for compulsive shopping depend on the approach or school of thought. Traditionally, the behavior is believed to be triggered by a need to feel special or less lonely. Suffering from low self-esteem, the compulsive buyer is thought to be in a search for self—and looking for identity and stability in purchases, objects, or the social status that they feel is granted them once the new object is in their possession. Many suffer from associated disorders such as anxiety, depression, and poor impulse control.

It is also a form of addiction that is strongly encouraged by our consumer culture and the corporations that drive it. As Donald Black, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, has pointed out, “In America, shopping is embedded in our culture; so often, the impulsiveness comes out as excessive shopping.”

Some experts have argued that compulsive shopping is a form of OCD. Just as mobile phone technology makes it harder for compulsive individuals to avoid checking emails, online shopping offers more enticements
or “signals” to seduce the compulsive shopper—with intrusive advertising, pop-up coupons, pop-up sales, and many more images of goods to buy.

There are also new competitive, and patently more exciting, forms of shopping online—like the brilliantly designed eBay, which has a clock to tell you exactly how many seconds are left before the auction you are bidding in will be closing. And if you need another reminder, eBay will happily send an alert to your phone.

If you ask around for anecdotes, you'll find that there aren't too many eBay regulars who haven't gotten up in the middle of the night to watch the bidding close on an object they want—and they will tell you in great detail how exciting it was to try to beat the other bidders. This fun was lessened when robot services like BidRobot and Auction Sniper could be hired to do your bidding for you. That's when online auctions became a competition not just for goods but to see who has the better bot.

It's nice of eBay to offer a first-person blog about shopping addiction, otherwise known as “Retail Therapy Syndrome,” on its website. The blogger reports that the number of online shopping addicts is estimated at 13 million, but her page has had only 8,700 views, a tiny fraction of the 162 million
active users of eBay reported for the last quarter of 2015.

Whether or not her blog has helped many eBay addicts, it captures in a paragraph what multiple academic journals can only struggle to convey: “
I feel a literal rush winning auctions and getting items at great prices. I
LOVE
not having to leave the comfort of my home where I can browse stores online at any hour of the day in my PJ's, and guess what? When you shop online you will never see a sign saying: ‘No Shirt, No Shoes, NO SERVICE!' ”

Email checking and excessive texting have overlaps with eBay addiction, because of the immediate rewards and the fever quality of the auction environment escalated by the cyber environment. As Kimberly Young writes in her blog,
Netaddiction.​com
:

In evolutionary terms, I believe, the compulsive online shopper is engaged in accelerated “seeking.” The cyber-shopper feels the rewards of foraging and finding, hunting and gathering. Like the other real-world addictive behaviors, there's a vicious cycle of online escalation: In order to try to feel better, the shopper experiences a high from online shopping and spending that is followed by a sense of disappointment and guilt, which can precipitate another cycle of impulsive shopping and spending in order to feel better again. According to Ruth Engs, Professor Emeritus of Applied Health Science at Indiana University, some people will take their purchases back because they feel guilty, which, once again, can trigger another shopping spree. Compulsive shopping is a way of self-medicating, but it leads to more stress, anger, isolation, disappointment in oneself, or depression. This is the classic roller coaster of addictive behavior.

As the shopper's debts grow, his or her behavior is often conducted secretly. Compulsive shopping is similar to other addictions: While alcoholics will hide their bottles, shopaholics will hide their purchases. When this level of shame is reached, and the purchases are either hidden or destroyed (before they can be discovered), the consequences can be devastating. Marriages, long-term relationships, and careers can be threatened or ruined. Further problems can include ruined credit, bankruptcy, and even in some cases suicide.

What are the warning signs? Rick Zehr, formerly of the Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery at Proctor Hospital and now president of the Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, offers the following list. Want to take the test? Answer yes or no to the behaviors you have engaged in.