Tag: Digitalgespräch

It’s not unusual to be online all day. Many aspects of our daily lives—from communication to shopping and signing contracts, to entertainment and gathering information—naturally take place on the internet, often even on a single device: the smartphone, which seems to combine an endless array of apps and possibilities. We’ve grown accustomed to the constant availability of digital services, and if they’re unexpectedly unavailable, it can be frustrating and trigger stress, discomfort, or nervousness—and in the case of so-called “Internet use disorders,” even genuine withdrawal symptoms in some people. There are apparently elements of the digital world that can be addictive, much like we know it to be with substances. But not every teenager who spends hours scrolling through social media, and not every adult who regularly spends the entire weekend playing online games, has a problem severe enough to be classified as a disorder—even if some studies or newspaper reports seem to conflate excessive internet use with addictive behavior. There is a form of normalcy associated with constant internet use that, at least from an addiction perspective, isn’t problematic: The significant amount of time we sometimes spend online for work, school, college, or vocational training isn’t even taken into account when determining whether we’re “internet-addicted.” So what do experts look for when assessing an internet use disorder? What are the warning signs that an addiction might be developing? And how can online addiction be treated, given that abstinence “from the internet” is no longer even an option in our digital society?