There are people who go online only to make money, or find lucrative business proposals and inexpensive goods and services. They regard all talk about pathological Internet dependency, which has swept tens of millions of users, as utter nonsense. The same is true of those who browse for hours just for lack of something better to do during boring office hours. They shut down the hateful computer as soon as the clock strikes 6 p.m. I'm not talking about these pragmatics, cynics, or lazy bones. Strictly speaking, they are lucky. They belong to the half of Internet users for whom close contact with computer technologies has not become a dire physical and mental necessity. A lot of people keep Internet journals, share impressions with other users, e-mail their soul mates, look for useful information, learn, joke, and play without any damage to their real life. They even benefit from what the Internet has to offer. But this does not apply to all users. The other half cannot boast self-possession or perfect mental health.
This is what a Moscow "Internetoholic" told the Novye Izvestia newspaper about his withdrawal pains: "During the first day, I felt like something was missing, but it wasn't so bad. I could attribute my bad mood to foul weather, and irritability to lack of sleep. On the second day, I was craving for new information, but I could get it from TV. I had time to look through the mail which had arrived in the last few weeks, and take the time to reply to it. On the third day, I felt much worse, craving to hear the beeping ICQ. The barometer of my mood was in between storm and hurricane. The crisis reached its peak on the fourth day. My apartment was filled with loose papers, books, compact discs, and other trash. My tension had hit its highest point, and I was dying to relax. On the fifth day, I lapsed into deep apathy, which lasted until I went online."
Is this enthusiasm or sickness? Russian psychotherapist Vladimir Yesaulov has raised this question and answered it: this is a sickness which is turning into an epidemic in Russia. It threatens 15 million people - about half of all Russian Internet users. The United States and Western Europe, which were swept by an Internet epidemic a decade ago, have psychotherapy centers where doctors have been treating Internet addicts for several years now. American cyber-psychologist Dr. Kimberly S. Young, who was one of the first to address the subject, claims that there are four symptoms of Internet dependency. An addict is a person who has a craving to check e-mail, constantly wants to go online again, whose family is displeased with his or her being glued to the computer, and complains about growing Internet-related expenses. A feeling of euphoria, and a desire to escape problems in real life make some people spend hours at websites and in chat rooms.
One of Yesaulov's patients, a Muscovite named Yelena, told Novye Izvestia: "I spend several hours a day keeping a diary on Zhivoy Zhurnal (Live Journal). But it feels strange - I seem to be talking to people, giving them compliments, and discussing philosophy, but when I leave the computer, my head is empty, and I'm very sorry about the lost time."
"I have a 28-year-old married patient who was searching the web for her ideal man," Yesaulov recalls. "Her virtual love affairs immediately turned into real ones, and ended in failure in no time. Beautiful, smart, but childishly self-centered, the woman was losing her sense of proportion, thinking that a noble goal justified everything. As a result, her marriage ended in divorce."
Web pornography deserves special discussion. On average, porno accounts for a third of all global traffic. Cynics claim that if hard porn disappeared from the web, the world Internet industry would go down the drain. This is, of course, an exaggeration, but it has long been known that more often than not pornography seriously threatens the well-being of the user's family life. It is possible to protect children to some extent by introducing passwords and limiting their access to porn sites. But some adults are stuck to them like iron to a magnet. Dr. Yesaulov said that very often his patients lapse into cyber-sexual dependence - they cannot resist visiting porno sites or starting virtual romances. An adult man compares photos of naked beauties to his wife and grows bitterly disenchanted. As a result, he loses interest in her and his libido weakens. But this is not the only damage. From time to time, the Russian press reports on the ruined careers of officials, clerks, and even military men who were caught by their superiors looking at porno sites during office hours.
Novye Izvestia explains why Internet addicts go on the web: 37% of constant users spend their time in chat rooms, forums, and diaries; 28% play online games; 15% take part in teleconferences; and 13% check e-mail. It is easy to see that very few of them use the web as a source of information or an encyclopedia.
Will Russians manage to avoid Internet addiction or will Yesaulov's gloomy forecasts become reality? There are reasons for optimism. The U.S. and Western Europe, which have more computers per capita than Russia, have managed to solve the problem. We can do without repeating the mistakes of others.
