I find myself up late tonight, pondering many things, as I often do. Late at night is when I think most clearly, and have the most cogent inner dialogue (with myself).
What came to my mind today was the question of addiction, and its relation to the internet, and if/how it is any different from addiction to a substance, like alcohol, or nicotine.
What spurred the process was my realization that I still spend too much time online, especially in toxic communities. I used to be able to tolerate toxicity, because it was all I had ever known, growing up, and also because as a lonely teenager/young adult, it was all I could ever dream of being accepted in.
Anyone who knows me, knows that I've significantly cut my internet time in the past several years. There existed a time where I was definitively in a state of addiction, as I used to spend 15+ hours a day on the internet, when I was living on the floor of my grandmother's living room. It feels so long ago, but it was a rough period in my life where there was no escape. I know, without question, that I was caught in an addictive cycle where I felt I needed something that I believed only the internet could provide someone like me.
Fast-forward, and I am not nearly that addicted. I spend maybe three hours a day on the internet, and largely, only to do my side job as a baseball writer, looking up information, relaying it to a community, and helping boost the enjoyment of a game we all love. But it's brought up the question of whether I can still say I'm addicted at all, and when addiction both begins, and ends.
Speaking truthfully, I believe I can live without the internet, to as much a degree as anyone else can. I think the internet is deeply ingrained in our lives now, so it's really difficult to live entirely without it. However, I believe I have cut it out as well as anybody who is really contributing to society from my generation really can.
Yet still, I am plagued by things that make me wonder: "Perhaps, that is just me making an excuse for my behavior". After all, what's to stop me from pulling the plug? I'm on this website, typing this up, right now, as it is. Instead, I could be in bed, sleeping, preparing for tomorrow. But instead of doing that rational, logical, and right thing, I have dived into the internet, to try and get an answer (or not, maybe I just like hearing myself talk) to something that's bothered me tonight.
Normally, thoughts pass in and out of my head, I solve the problem on my mind, and I grow as a human being. But tonight's problem isn't one I feel I can solve on my own, because it would require me to be able to be wholly objective about something, when someone who is addicted to something absolutely cannot be wholly objective about it.
It is because I respect the idea that the internet is as harmful for someone's mind and body as a hallucinogen or hazardous substance, that I find myself needing to ask this question.
So, the tl;dr version is this:
When does addiction start? When does it end? And is addiction to the internet any different than an addiction to a substance? I find myself up late tonight, pondering many things, as I often do. Late at night is when I think most clearly, and have the most cogent inner dialogue (with myself).
What came to my mind today was the question of addiction, and its relation to the internet, and if/how it is any different from addiction to a substance, like alcohol, or nicotine.
What spurred the process was my realization that I still spend too much time online, especially in toxic communities. I used to be able to tolerate toxicity, because it was all I had ever known, growing up, and also because as a lonely teenager/young adult, it was all I could ever dream of being accepted in.
Anyone who knows me, knows that I've significantly cut my internet time in the past several years. There existed a time where I was definitively in a state of addiction, as I used to spend 15+ hours a day on the internet, when I was living on the floor of my grandmother's living room. It feels so long ago, but it was a rough period in my life where there was no escape. I know, without question, that I was caught in an addictive cycle where I felt I needed something that I believed only the internet could provide someone like me.
Fast-forward, and I am not nearly that addicted. I spend maybe three hours a day on the internet, and largely, only to do my side job as a baseball writer, looking up information, relaying it to a community, and helping boost the enjoyment of a game we all love. But it's brought up the question of whether I can still say I'm addicted at all, and when addiction both begins, and ends.
Speaking truthfully, I believe I can live without the internet, to as much a degree as anyone else can. I think the internet is deeply ingrained in our lives now, so it's really difficult to live entirely without it. However, I believe I have cut it out as well as anybody who is really contributing to society from my generation really can.
Yet still, I am plagued by things that make me wonder: "Perhaps, that is just me making an excuse for my behavior". After all, what's to stop me from pulling the plug? I'm on this website, typing this up, right now, as it is. Instead, I could be in bed, sleeping, preparing for tomorrow. But instead of doing that rational, logical, and right thing, I have dived into the internet, to try and get an answer (or not, maybe I just like hearing myself talk) to something that's bothered me tonight.
Normally, thoughts pass in and out of my head, I solve the problem on my mind, and I grow as a human being. But tonight's problem isn't one I feel I can solve on my own, because it would require me to be able to be wholly objective about something, when someone who is addicted to something absolutely cannot be wholly objective about it.
It is because I respect the idea that the internet is as harmful for someone's mind and body as a hallucinogen or hazardous substance, that I find myself needing to ask this question.
So, the tl;dr version is this:
When does addiction start? When does it end? And is addiction to the internet any different than an addiction to a substance? |
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