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People do not need criteria to be published in medical journals in order to know they have a problem. Thus many the world over are seeking individual or group counseling for issues relating to compulsive internet use. And at least one New York City physician, working in conjunction with a pharmaceutical company, began treating patients with an antidepressant.
However, online behavior and Internet addiction expert Dr. John Grohol does a fantastic job summing treatment considerations at his web site , writing that “Psychologists have studied compulsive behaviors and their treatments for years now, and nearly any well-trained mental health professional will be able to help you learn to slowly curve the time spent online, and address the problems or concerns in your life that may have contributed to your online overuse, or were caused by it. No need for a specialist or an online support group.”
In the introduction I noted some of the aliases of internet addiction—net compulsions, internet addiction disorder, compulsive surfing, web dependency. This many different names might be symptomatic of a wider problem: namely that while pattern recognition within human behavior is essential for understanding why we act the way we do, in the case of so-called internet addiction there is an evident interest on the part of proponents to match its characteristics, one for one, with clinically established disorders and addictions.
This has proven to be misleading, especially when picked up by news outlets. The medical community follows a firm protocol involving the scientific method, peer-reviews, and the publication of research in the proper journal, among other aspects. Thus far internet addiction has not been adequately addressed as such.
Consequently, while the jury is not out on a variety of mental health issues and compulsive behaviors, technically it is still out on the actual nature of behavioral relationships involving the internet, regardless of the term one person or another might use to describe them.
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