Debates over Internet Addiction: Does It Exist?

There is a strong debate concerning the issue of Internet addiction. Although there are huge numbers of people around the world who believe that Internet addiction is harming mental health in increasing fashion, a massive number of people do believe in the opposite. The later group of people believes there is no such thing as Internet addiction; rather the use of Internet can actually improve mental health. They affirm it is not due to the Internet addiction that leads people to become isolated or depressed in their personal life, but it is their existing maladaptive condition of mental health that leads them to act this way. Those who do not prefer to coin such concept like Internet addiction argue that the definition of Internet addiction is specially based on a bizarre notion since it makes references of 'usage amount' or 'the time spent online', but not over the activities the users are engaged into. Furthermore, they argue that Internet is nothing but a medium, so the focused activities are much more important here in order to understand the real nature of addiction. Those who are engaged in Internet and are considered to be categorized under pathological Internet users are actually found to engage in different distinguished activities like gaming, chat and pornographies. Hence, there is no question of considering Internet addiction as a whole; rather it is the specific activity over which the concerned individual is actually addicted.

It is not only whether Internet addiction actually exists in real or not, but there is an ongoing debate about how to describe the addiction even if it exists in real. While some people prefer to refer it as 'Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD)', some strongly argue with 'Computer Addiction', since there are huge numbers of people who are addicted over computer even before Internet took its shape. Some people consider it from a broader perspective, hence would like to term it as 'Cyberspace Addiction', which implies addiction over any virtually available things. There is a strong debate about the good side and bad side of addiction as well. One group of people strongly argues that not all addiction are bad as if we are addicted over a nice hobby is not at all a bad thing.