MANY INTERNET users know the feeling: the clock has inched past midnight, you've got to be up early, but you are in the midst of checking out a website or replying to a post on a discussion board. The next time you glance at the clock, it's an hour later. Karlin Lillington reports
Yes, you once again have squandered time on the net, and are going to be wishing you'd had that extra hour of sleep tomorrow morning at work, but are episodes like this a sign of a bigger problem - an actual addiction to being online?
Some psychologists say yes, and have given it a name: internet addiction disorder (IAD), and they claim 5 to 10 per cent of the population suffer from it.
There are even professional centres to address the problem. Internationally, South Korea - the most net-connected nation on earth, with more than 90 per cent of homes on inexpensive high-speed broadband - takes the issue very seriously, with more than 140 internet addiction counselling facilities, many of them government-run.
In a state-funded national study last year, a researcher at the country's Hanyang University stated that 30 per cent of Korean children under 18 are at risk of becoming net addicts. The country has seen highly publicised deaths from excessive time spent online competing in online games, a national obsession.
East Asia is probably where the proposed disorder is best documented and researched, but it is also increasingly highlighted in North America and Europe. Venerable institutes such as Harvard University have an affiliated Computer Addiction Study Center, for example. And the Centre for Internet Addiction Recovery in Pennsylvania offers a range of treatment services and resources.
The centre is headed by Dr Kimberly Young, who developed a 20-question quiz called the Internet Addiction Test (IAT) that has gained professional acceptance as a means of measuring whether internet usage is sliding into addiction.
The centre defines internet addiction as "any online-related, compulsive behaviour which interferes with normal living and causes severe stress on family, friends, loved ones, and one's work environment".
No one single behaviour defines addiction, according to the centre, but symptoms include "compulsive use of the internet, a preoccupation with being online, lying or hiding the extent or nature of your online behaviour, and an inability to control or curb your online behaviour".
Some psychologists break down internet addiction into obsessions with certain types of activity online, including looking at pornography, online gambling, playing multi-user games, online affairs, compulsive net surfing, and even obsessive use of Ebay. The centre states that more than half of people that seek treatment for IAD are also addicted to alcohol, drugs, tobacco or sex.
However, not all psychologists accept internet addiction as a disorder. Dr John Grohol writes on his psychology website, Psychcentral.com: "It's not the technology (whether it be the internet, a book, the telephone, or the television) that is important or addicting - it's the behaviour. And behaviours are easily treatable by traditional cognitive-behaviour techniques in psychotherapy."
But TCD psychology lecturer Dr Michael Gormley, whose research focuses on addictive behaviour and cognitive disorders, believes IAD is a valid concept: "Such things can be a true addiction in a psychological sense, similar to gambling."
While noting that there does seem to be some academic debate on whether compulsive overuse of the internet is an "addiction" or a "dependence", he says that it could definitely be defined as an addiction under the criteria stated in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the standard reference work in the area.
Addictions are defined by nine criteria, such as: whether one's home and work life are disrupted; whether the behaviour is hidden from family and friends; or whether the person is preoccupied with the addictive substance or activity in between usages.
But he would also separate out a compulsive need to be online, from using the internet as a tool to, say, gamble excessively. "Someone who is addicted to gambling and happens to use the internet for gambling is still a gambling addict, and gambling is the primary addiction, not internet addiction," he says.
Simply spending a lot of time online doesn't necessarily constitute an addiction, he says, just as someone who enjoys a regular flutter at the racetrack isn't necessarily a gambling addict.
Excessive use truly has to be interfering with one's normal life to a significant degree. Staying up until 3am reading websites on the second World War one weeknight is different from repeatedly staying up late online so that one cannot function at work during the day.
"The way to think about the difference is whether internet use is a normal activity that doesn't become an obsession," says Gormley.