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More research is being conducted to explore the way
people use--and misuse--the Internet.
BY TORI DeANGELIS
If you believe what you read, "Internet addiction" is
about to make us a nation of derelicts. 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.
But despite the topic's prominence, published studies
on Internet addiction are scarce. Most are surveys, marred by
self-selecting samples and no control groups. The rest are
theoretical papers that speculate on the philosophical aspects
of Internet addiction but provide no data.
Meanwhile, many psychologists even doubt that addiction
is the right term to describe what happens to people when they
spend too much time online.
"It seems misleading to characterize behaviors as
'addictions' on the basis that people say they do too much of
them," says Sara Kiesler, PhD, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon
University and co-author of one of the only controlled studies
on Internet usage, published in the September 1998 American
Psychologist. "No research has yet established that there is a
disorder of Internet addiction that is separable from problems
such as loneliness or problem gambling, or that a pa
ssion for using the Internet is long-lasting."
But more psychologists are plunging into Internet
addiction research, fascinated by its emotional, psychological
and social implications. In their work, they are finding a
subset of people who spend so much time online, especially in
sexual encounters, that they report problems in their
marriages, families and work.
In addition, researchers speculate that certain unique
aspects of the Internet may lure people into trouble they
might otherwise avoid.
"The Internet is unlike anything we've seen before,"
says David Greenfield, PhD, founder of the
Center for
Internet Studies (http://www.virtual-addiction.com/).
"It's a socially connecting device that's socially isolating
at the same time."
Who's vulnerable?
Greenfield has conducted one of the largest surveys on
the topic to date: a 1998 study of 18,000 Internet users who
logged onto the ABC News Web site, abcnews.com. He found that 5.7
percent of his sample met the criteria for compulsive Internet
use. Those findings square with figures from smaller studies
done by others, which range from 6 percent to 14 percent.
Study participants who met Greenfield's criteria (adapted from
criteria for compulsive gambling) were particularly hooked on
chat rooms, pornography, online shopping and e-mail, he found.
About a third said they use the Internet as a form of escape
or to alter their mood on a regular basis.
In addition, the "addicted" people were far more likely
to admit feelings of losing control in their dealings on the
Net than "nonaddicts." Greenfield believes that the loss of
control is just one indication of the potency of the
psychoactive nature of the Internet. Other signs include time
distortion, accelerated intimacy and decreased inhibition. For
instance, 83 percent of those who fit the addiction criteria
reported a loss of boundaries when they used the Net, compared
to 37 percent who didn't meet the criteria.
Meanwhile, 75 percent of "addicts" said they had gained
"feelings of intimacy" for someone they'd met online, compared
to 38 percent of "nonaddicts." Of those who met Greenfield's
criteria for Internet addiction, 62 percent said they
regularly logged on to pornography sites, spending an average
of four hours a week viewing the material. And 37.5 percent of
that group masturbated while online, they said.
"Regardless of the technical definition of Internet
addiction, there is clearly something unique and powerful
going on here," Greenfield says. "The most widely affected
areas seem to be marriages and relationships due to compulsive
pornography, cybersex and cyberaffairs."
Chat rooms and porn sites
Many studies, including Greenfield's, also report a
preponderance of male Internet addicts. In an unpublished
study of 1,300 college students by Keith Anderson, PhD, of
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 91 of the 103 students who
met his criteria for "Internet dependence" were male.
But other studies, including one of the first studies
on Internet addiction, by Kimberly Young, PhD, find that women
are addicted as often as men--just in different ways. Young,
who treats people with Internet problems, is executive
director of the Center for On-line Addiction (http://www.netaddiction.com/),
founded in 1995. Hers is the first behavioral health-care firm
to specialize in Internet-related disorders, offering
outpatient and online treatment.
Men and women "addicts" seem to prefer sites that fit
behavioral stereotypes of their own gender, according to a
study by Alvin Cooper, PhD, and colleagues in the March 2000
issue of Sexual Addiction and Compulsion: The Journal of
Treatment and Prevention. Their research--which is the only
analysis to specifically focus on Internet sexuality--found
that women were more likely to spend time flirting or having
"cybersex" with others in sexually oriented chat rooms, while
men were 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's counseling and psychological services
center, Cowell Student Health Center.
In a study in the May 1998 issue of Professional
Psychology: Research and Practice, Cooper also found that more
than 91 percent of Internet users spent less than 11 hours a
week logging on to sexual sites. About 82 percent spent less
than an hour doing so, "with very few negative repercussions,"
he says. (Full text of these research articles appears at http://www.sex-centre.com/.)
But men and women "addicts" who spent the most time
each week online--11 hours or more--said it was their chat
room behavior that most interfered with important aspects of
their lives. Cooper will investigate further exactly what
those problems are, such as whether online sexuality leads to
sex offline, why people might go online when they're already
in a sexual relationship and how such compulsion affects
people's home and work lives.
The Internet also seems to invite both genders to
experiment in ways they might otherwise not, Cooper finds. A
full 12 percent of women in his sample of 9,265 respondents,
compared with 20 percent of the men, have accessed pornography
at least once. Cooper speculates that women who visit porn
sites may "just be experimenting and wanting to see what the
big deal is."
The available research leads psychologists to question
whether those involved in cybersex have sexual addictions, or
whether they otherwise wouldn't engage in illicit sexual
encounters but find the Internet an easy medium in which to
experiment.
Cooper labels about 17 percent of his sample "at-risk"
users--people who "wouldn't otherwise have gotten involved
with sexuality in a problematic way, were it not for the
Internet." Certain qualities of the Internet--its
accessibility, affordability and anonymity--make it more
difficult to resist the temptation of online sex, Cooper
believes.
But for now, this and other questions about Internet
use will remain unanswered until more controlled studies are
done, critics say. An article in the Feb. 4 issue of the
Chronicle of Higher Education outlined what those studies
should investigate. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
psychologists Joseph B. Walther, PhD, and Larry D. Reid, PhD,
suggest that future research include:
*
An empirical look not just at problem use, but at healthy use
as well.
*
More theory and research on why the Internet compared with
other outlets is so attractive to some people.
*
More study of which comes first, Internet "addiction" or
previous mental health or social problems.
It's also important to examine whether people's
Internet use ebbs and flows over time and why, Kiesler and
colleagues note.
Tori DeAngelis is a writer in Syracuse, N.Y. | 
