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The Internet

Internet Addiction Quiz 94

Posted by Hemos from the are-you-in-danger dept.
joshv writes "Virtual Addiction.com has an online Internet addiction quiz to determine if you yourself are addicted. The survey is kept over here. It appears that it does not give immediate results, your answers will only be included in their research. But from the questions that are asked you can get a good idea of what the researches think is addictive behavior writ the Internet. " I love being a case study. *grin*
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Internet Addiction Quiz More

Internet Addiction Quiz

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  • Big big problem with this: The only people who are taking it are ON THE INTERNET. Gee, I wonder how skewed the results are going to be...

    ------------------
  • Not only is my box connected 24x7, but I give my friends accounts on it, too, and have been known to sell space on it...

    I'm not just an addict... I'm a dealer!
  • If so, they'd get better results doing an anonymous survey of people attending Sexaholics Anonymous, or in fact, any 12-step group. Assuming the group gave them permission, which is somewhat unlikely, given the attitude of the investigator(s).

    Besides, they cannot "prove" a link, this way. Statistics only works when you try to disprove something, as the tests are only valid for checking against the null hypothesis.

    (In layman's terms, they can only give the probability of there NOT being a link between the two. Nothing more.)

  • The questionnaire seemed heavily flawed. There seemed to be few verification questions (questions where the response can be determined from the response to prior question(s)), seemed very heavily focussed on sex, and asked almost nothing on those subjects known to be related to addictions.

    In short, I don't know who this expert is, but I honestly question their expertese, either in asking questions or of addictive behaviour.

    If you think you could be addicted to computers or the Internet, you're much better off going to the local bookshop and looking for anything by Bradshaw or Whitfield. Either that, or popping into an AA meeting and getting a Big Book. These aren't the Last Word on addictions, as there aren't any Last Words. But I guarantee these guys know a damn sight more than this pompous twit does.

  • you answered the questionaire... 8-)
  • Where's the option for "Planning to have implant surgery to install wireless link, retinal bypass graphics and thought controlled browser"?

  • I don't know, I included my palm III and newton 2100 in the count. I mean, I have laptops that run less software than those two.

    I didn't, however, include my Lego RCX bricks in that count.

    Of course, I'm sure they meant what you said, but I just liked the idea of putting down "14" and having them wonder "what the hell is one person doing with 14 computers? He must be a serious addict."

    Though most of those are either in storage or on loan to friends and relatives.
  • I'm not sure that this guy is actually looking for internet addicition with this survey. The rest of his site had little to do with addicition, and more to do with relationship problems that involve the internet (read as: "the internet stole my husband!").

    So I think what he's really looking for is data to back up his assesment that the internet causes people to get horny and be more likely to cheat on their significant others.

    Which, of course, is as much of a crock as internet addiction. If the relationship is so weak that sitting for hours typing one handed is more exciting than actual physical contact there's something else going wrong, something that can't be blamed on a global collection of computer networks.

    But of course, it's much easier to make people feel better by blaming something they can't control than by actually getting them to admit that it's their own damn fault.
  • When the quiz asks you if you have a computer, it is referring to a typical system with monitor, desktop or tower case, keyboard, and mouse. (Or a Laptop.)

    Handheld Computers don't count. If they did, I would have added 2 more to my total.

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • I took the freedom to quote you in an email to said PhD Greenfield:

    Sorry to be perhaps a bit expressive below; however, I'm trying to criticize a few points in your survey that I found most touching (as in me feeling quite concerned by the matter). To offer you a secondary clue. Also, judging by a quick glance to http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/08/24/123325 3 it seems what follows are feelings concerning the same survey dealt by quite a few of my fellow netizens. I might take the freedom to post this there too, for reference.

    Quoth a fabled fellow at slashdot:
    "The problem I've got with this little test and with the rest of the site is that it focuses on netsex and chatting with strangers."

    "That's not MY problem, though I admit I seem addicted. I'm NOT a net-junkie as such though, I'm an info-junkie, and to a certain extent a debate-junkie who actually enjoys a good argument."

    Your virtual addiction test (actually a survey, isn't it?) at https://drac.safe-order.net/virtual-addiction/surv ey2.html seems to me a bit unfavorably tilted toward sexual matters. I am a 100% net addict by the ways of both a respectable profession and an emerging lifestyle, yet the survey seems unable to figure my problem and only seems to try to force some correlation among net usage and some kind of sexual harrassment/addiction. I do not feel insulted, but left out of something I feel a need to express myself at.

    The biggest problem I do have with the net is that I skip taking care of my partner's sexual and my overall environment's social needs as I try but fail to concentrate on work. This has something to do with some kind of _information_greed_ I've developed. However sexuality-related that might be in a Freudian view, I do not hunt for porn/babes in the net, but rather for intellectual challenge. Even that can be a problematic addiction, believe it or not :)

    Also, as my home is in the company intranet, and I work and spend all my free time on this very same chair, your questions of dividing time between work/home usage just plain fail. There is no such distinction, not for us; remember, it's a lifestyle. We are not your traditional average family fathers; yet, we count in hundreds of thousands.

    Third, most of us are not American. Nor aim to be :)

    I hope you will work toward a more accurate preset in any real scientific research you decide to take on in the future. As of now I refuse to be a part of your survey. Still, not to say most of it weren't good. I just don't want to be used to show a correlation I am not part of.

    Come to think of it, what does it tell about us that we find social behavior (such as seeking contacts in the net) conspicuous but not any effects that force people to adapt that behavior (ie. importance put on working and owning computers with net access, instead of keeping up more first person "waste of time")?

    Looking forward to be one more case on our blessed social security unless I can help myself out of wasting my life in search for stunning news, cheers.

    Well, now that my problem's been pointed out, I guess I'll start dealing with it. Just ask work roots to configure firewall to drop all connections to slashdot ;)

    Not really. Couldn't do it. Hurt too much. Maybe if this doesn't go over by itself in a few years.
  • 14) Have you felt anger, loathing, or disgust at certain keys on your keyboard? (If you say yes, your keyboard may self-destruct).

    Well, there's that stupid windows-key... :-)
    (Which I don't have. Vintage IBM keyboards rule!)

  • Gee, much longer than it needs to be, let me some up the quiz...

    1) Are you having sexual relations with the internet?

    2) Are you gambling on the internet?

    3) Are you having sexual relations with the internet?

    4) Do you think you have a problem with the internet?

    * Multiple choice:
    5) Should government regulate the internet (Yes/Yes/No)...

    Maybe it's just me, but I wasn't too impressed. Let's do an alternate poll.

    1) Do you feel that some people are trying to make a buck pointing out problems with other people?

    2) Do you have a problem with government restricting your rights?

    3) Do you feel that since you are reading this on the net that you cannot control yourself and thus should give up your rights to use the net as you see fit?

    4) Do you have a obsessive compultion to answer silly and annoying polls on the net?

    Lando
  • and vee have determined that you need extensive therapy at $120/hr vith 2 sessions per veek for the first year, ya, dot should do it (read vith thick austrian Sigmund Freud accent).

    It amazes me how these fads and trends go thru the psychiatric community - once upon a time it was 'repressed memory' and we had all kinds of people accusing family members of sexual harassment and launching court cases based on nothing more than some fantasy they have while under drugs, with the therapist, like a gypsy fortune teller, steering the patient/victim toward a preconceived prognosis.

    I can't look at the word 'therapist' w/o seeing "The Rapist".

    Anything to drum up business, I guess.

    Chuck
  • in "Network Computing" magazine? "Oh baby, a rack of routers w/ the covers off, ohhhhh! Yeah!!!"

    Chuck

  • Determining if you're an internet addict is far simpler than trying to determine the percentage of each week/day/minute that you're online. Those figures are meaningless and merely indicate the level of participation and interest that a person has with the internet (that's not addiction)

    Determining how addicted you are to the internet is as simple as determining the level of your frustration when you jump on your machine to go to Slashdot or some other regular haunt and you suddenly discover you don't have a network
    connection.

    Your ISP is busy, your DNS/proxy/router/network card has taken a bullet, or a backhoe operator just dug up your ISDN line. It really doesn't matter what the reason is, the bottom line is that there's just you and your hard drive.

    No slashdot. No surfing. No email. No newsgroups. No news.

    Just this nagging frustration that you can't
    quite justify in the back of your mind as you
    try to find something else to occupy your time.

    Addiction is not how often or how much of a particular thing a person does - its how much
    they crave it when its taken away unexpectedly.


    M@T
  • "The biggest cause for me refreshing /. 5 times an hour"

    Only 5 times an hour? Heh. Try 5 times a minute. :)

    Hey. I gotta keep up to date, don't I?

  • 1. Do you own a computer? If yes, how many?

    Do you own and regularly use any computers located outside a 2000 mile radius of your home?

    2. a. How long have you been using computers? b. How long have you been using the Internet?

    Did your first computer cost more than my last car?

    3. Do you use a computer at work?

    Could your present job possibly be accomplished without a computer?

    What do you use your computer for? Check all that apply.

    Does your average bandwidth satuation exceed 90%?

    5. Do you purchase any products or services on the Internet?

    Is paper money almost meaningless to you?

    6. Do you have an Internet account at home?

    Do you have enough backup dialup and shell accounts to survive Armaggeddon without logging off?

    b. At work?

    Do you still regularly saturate your corporate T3?

    7a. In an average week, how much time do you spend on your computer AT HOME and what percentage of time is spent on the Internet?

    Is the Internet so closely integrated into your real life that attempting to distinguish the two would result in a completely meaningless number figure?

    b. In an average week, how much time do you spend on your computer AT WORK and what percentage of time is spent on the Internet?

    Do you stick around after hours just for the bandwidth?

    8. On an average day, how many hours do you spend on the Internet (both at home and at work) and during what part of the day?

    Is the only time you're without Internet on your daily commute, and only because you have a personal gripe about paying $.05 per packet?

    9. Do you ever find that you remain on the computer much longer than you had planned?

    10. Do you ever find that you remain on the Internet much longer than you had planned?

    Was your plan actually to log off sometime in the next month or so?

    11. When on the Internet, do you ever lose track of time or are you often surprised by how much time has elapsed?

    Have you ever been surprised to realize that family and real life friends don't operate on Greenwich Mean Time?

    12. Do you find the Internet to be intellectually stimulating?

    Do you regularly set your comment threshold level to over 3?

    13. Do you find the Internet to be sexually arousing?

    Are you male and between the ages of 12 and death?

    14. Do you ever log on to adult or sexually explicit Web sites?

    Have you ever tagged more than a thousand articles in a.b.p.e and let uudecode sort it out while you got another cup of coffee?

    If so, how many hours per week do you view such materials?

    Do you change the nudie pic in your WM background regularly?

    15. Have you ever purchased any sexually related material on the Internet?

    Have you ever wondered why people would ever have to purchase material with all this free stuff lying around in Usenet?

    16. What is your average monthly cost for Internet access?

    Does your Internet access exceed your car payments or combined other essential utilities?

    17. When on the Internet, do you experience or engage in any of the following? Check all that apply.

    Is the full range of your emotions while online strikingly similar to those in real life?

    A sense of disinhibition (feeling free to express yourself)

    Do you regularly post as A.C.?

    Intense feelings of intimacy while communicating with others using e-mail, chat rooms or personal ads (i.e., more intense intimacy than you typically feel with in-person relationships)

    Are you really sure that StalkerChick69 isn't a guy?

    A need to spend greater amounts of time on the Internet to achieve satisfaction similar to previous events

    Deja.com just not as thrilling as the old Deja anymore?

    A need to seek greater sexually stimulating material in order to achieve the same result as previously

    a.b.p.e or a.b.p.e.oh.man.is.she.really.doing.that?

    A feeling of restlessness or irritability when attempting to cut back or stop using the Internet

    Do you dream in code?

    Spending what you consider an excessive amount of time on the Internet and vowing not to do so the next day, then finding yourself back the next day or soon after

    Did you hack Slash code all last night again?

    18. Do you experience an irresistible urge to log on to the Internet every day?

    Is your home T1 already connected when you roll off the futon?

    19. Do you find yourself keeping secrets from people regarding the amount of time you spend on the Internet?

    Are you still a closet geek?

    20. Do you find yourself looking forward to spending time on the Internet and feeling you can't wait to get to the computer?

    Are you ever more than 20 feet from some sort of terminal?

    21. Do you tend to seek out certain individuals in Internet chat rooms?

    Have you ever set more than 80% of channel participants to /ignore?

    22. Has your use of computers or the Internet interfered with any of your personal relationships, work or recreational activities?

    Have personal relationships, work or recreational activities ever interfered with your use of computers or the Internet?

    23. Have you ever experienced any serious, adverse consequences because of your Internet use?

    Has an idea you created ever been purchased by Andover.Net?

    24. Have you or others ever thought that you were addicted or dependent upon a substance or behavior?

    Have you ever worked at an ISP?

    --

  • The original slashdot article indicated that the data entered into this form would become part of some research, but the paragraph at the top indicates that Dr. Greenfield is just trolling for customers. This test is for people who already think they are already addicted. To quote from the first paragraph on the form, "Do you think you may be addicted to the Internet or to your computer? Is your spouse, friend or family telling you you spend too much time online? If you think you may have a problem with the Internet but are not sure, take our Virtual Addiction Test (VAT)." The test doesn't define if they include company intranet as being "on" the Internet or not. I earn my living creating applications on my companies intranet so I spend five or so hours a day dealing with it. Does that make me an addict? Well, if I were to fill out that test you could think I was. I don't want this kind of thing used by anti-Internet folks to try to regulate it so I didn't take it. (Just in case Dr. Greenfield is going to publish some stats based on this non-scientific collection of data.
  • No kidding. I felt kinda embarased putting in that 99% of the time I spend at a computer is time spent 'online', but it's true, sometimes the computer is off while I change a card, but I work at an ISP dammit, I'm always online...
  • That is, say you're "logged on to the Internet" 18 hours/day, but that you've never lied to anyone about it, or felt guilty or whatever. See what they make of THAT.

    Um, but that's the truth... wouldn't that mean their statistics would be more accurate?
  • I have the same problem. I'm currently a software tester testing an internet product. So of course I spend 40 hrs per week at work on the internet. Also I have a cable modem at home so I'm on the internet 100% of the time there. Ahhh I must me the worst addict ever, er wait I forgot where I was. Silly survey, tricks are for kids.

  • Yeah, especially those ones about gambling on the internet. Awfully suspicious.
  • Seem to be a lot of very strong responses to the survey.

    If you want to get in contact with the author(s) of the survey, their website is www.virtual-addiction.com [virtual-addiction.com]. Click the feedback button.

    -josh
  • You obviously aren't really a geek then. You don't deserve to be feasting your eyes on this website. Of course the Internet is Sexually arousing....

    Why, just thinking of all that bandwidth makes me hot... all those, "Pipes" *shudder*, the "OC12", *yeah baby!* "Peering Points", *Ahhhh* "HYPERtext TRANSFER protocol", *Ooooohhhh* "Finger", *Give it to me baby* and who can forget, the "Serial Interface". *Mmmmmmmm*

    Why, by insinuatiing that the Internet is NOT sexy you've just shown us all how much of a poser you really are! I wave my dongle in your general direction.
  • I've gotten to the point where I don't even think of the "Internet" as something seperate from my computer. The network is as much a part of my computer as my hard drive is. Addiction to computers and technology is a different story...
  • Ditto on pretty much everything you said. I don't think it's a bad thing though. You probably don't either.

    Being that way is how people get smarter and get good, interesting, hopefully well paying jobs.
  • The survey has some serious errors.

    Activity
    The survey does asks for the time you spend on a list of activites such as e-mail, surfing, chatting, etc. But programming isn't even incliuded. Or is that "work", even if I don't get paid?

    Spending time "on the Internet"
    I have a direct connection, so I'm allways "on the Internet", as defined in the survey... Altough I do not surf the web often, I have a biff on my desktop, so I can se new mails arrive. Is that to check the in-box constantly? Is if to "use the Internet" to ssh to somewhere else and run emacs there to write a novell? The definition is quite fuzzy... Or I'm just to detail-focused?

    Anyway, I think those thinking you may be addicted to the Internet hasn't understund anything. You may be addicted to chatting, or a-miling. It's a bounch of fenomens, not one single. And is everyone having a great hobby an addict to his/her hobby?

  • The only thing I've ever been addicted to was caffine - and I'm not joking. I used to need to drink a strong mug of coffee just before I went to bed otherwise I couldn't sleep.

    thats when I knew I had to cut back a bit.
  • Just a point, but did anyone else notice that tobacco was missing from the list of "other addictions" that one might have had? Drugs (Illicit and prescription) just doesn't seem to cover that for me.

    (Sidenote - I must be predisposed to addiction based upon how many of those on the list have been a long part of my life, but fortunately none of them have ever become too detrimental - yet!)

    Heh! - appropriate .sig here;
  • Absolutely right.

    That and my JenniCam slashbox ;-) (The biggest cause for me refreshing /. 5 times an hour)

    Now I've gotta get back to figuring why this fricking VBScrap Dictionary onject isn't doing what it's advertised to!

  • ... I can give it up any time I want *sniff*...

    ... besides - there's always heroin to fall back on!



  • Hey, the form submit mails them to an AOL account.

    Figures.
  • First of all, voluntary open surveys have zero statistical value. You have to pick a random sample BEFOREHAND and then apply the survey. The other "Internet Addiction" story had this same problem.

    So I thought, "I'll have some fun". I started filling the survey out inaccurately ("How long have you been using the Internet" "82 years"). But this just got boring and I quit

    If YOU want to have fun, though, do this: Give reasonable but high figures for your Internet usage, but report no symptoms of abuse. That is, say you're "logged on to the Internet" 18 hours/day, but that you've never lied to anyone about it, or felt guilty or whatever. See what they make of THAT.
    ---
    Put Hemos through English 101!
    "An armed society is a polite society" -- Robert Heinlein
  • Addiction is when you feel an uncontrollable urge to do something, a bit like a compulsion. Or it is a dependancy on something. Either way, it is uncontrollable.

    What you describe sounds more like a way of killing time to get away from a boring job than an addiction.

    I for one have no problems if I have my net access cut off, so long as I have somehing else to do. I don't have any cravings, I don't become irratable: none of the signs of an addiction.

    I find myself doing almost exactly what you describe. I don't go to chat rooms, I don't frequent porn sites, and I don't gamble.

    I just enjoy aquiring information, for no particular reason other than to alleviate boredom.
  • "Do you find the Internet to be sexually arousing?" What sort of a question is that?
    If I could be bothered to look, I could probably use the Internet to find stuff that is sexually arousing. But the Internet itself?

  • Addicted to the net, or by the net? (Score:3)

    by Awel ( 28821 ) on Tuesday August 24, 1999 @04:21AM (#1728842)
    I think a lot of this questionnaire is less to do with the Internet being addictive per se than to do with using the Internet to feed your (possibly pre-existing) addictions. And, that being the case, I think it`s missing the point. An addict is going to use whatever means are available to further their addiction; if not the Internet, then something else. The trouble is that when you mix up the two sets of people (those addicted to the net, and those using the net to further their addictions), you end up with skewed statistics.
  • Yeah. The only problem with that is that I would rather like to be online for more like 10 hours than the paltry 12 or so I manage at the moment... ;)

    I think I did manage the high-figure-no-addiction thing fairly well, including a sensible answer to question 21: "have you ever lied to anyone about...?" "Yes. Just NOW!".

    ~Tim
    --
  • I've considered my palm a computer, though a primitive one, ever since I learned to XOR the position of one finger against another. Naturally, it becomes far more powerful when hooked up to the standard "peripherals": a paper and pencil; or networks with a far more powerful computer through a keyboard interface.

    8P
  • I like the old drug culture saying

    "STRUNG OUT"

    sounds better

    when I was much younger I was strung out
    on TV.

    I'd have to get a commercial account if I wanted
    to match my wifes TV time.

    DIG ON IT
  • Listen people. This quiz is clearly not for us people who *WORK* on the 'net or 'net related services for a living. (Most of the marketing is not for us, anyhow.)

    The real target of all this internet addiction stuff are those who hold non-internet/computing related jobs, i.e., your mailperson, a teacher, most people in business, etc, as well as those who shouldn't waste their life clicking away (go out and play, read, whatever. However, those people don't read /.).

    Would you like your UPS guy carrying your latest linux box to take a break and spend 5 hours surfing the 'net? Or how about your company accountant spending time in chat rooms instead of issuing the payroll? Or how about a child who sees his mom/dad at home, eyes glued to the computer, instead of parenting [or doing housework]? Better yet, what about your lawyer defending you for something you didn't do (say, export cryptography), or trying to get the latest computing law removed, spend time on the 'net rather than making the case?

    Most /.'ers here do *not* fit into this category, because we likely work in fields where internet access is required (i.e., sysadmin, tech support for ISPs, and suchforth).

    A *lot* of things on the 'net sound silly to us, but are perfectly reasonable to someone else. Re: iMac. Geeks rarely will buy one. But they sell.
  • Ah, but tobacco isn't addictive; the cigarette companies say so and they know best of course.
    </sarcasm>

    ObGripe: asking me how I thought the Internet influenced American society. Grr. You'd have thought that, when conducting an Internet survey, they'd realise there are rather a lot of people outside the US who use it.

    "What do you want to boot today?"

  • Question #1... (Score:3)

    by schon ( 31600 ) on Tuesday August 24, 1999 @05:21AM (#1728848)
    1) Are you having sexual relations with the internet

    Umm... how would one go about that, exactly?

    Would you use your computer? (sorry, mine only takes a 3.5" floppy :)

    Or would you "interface" directly with the router (sounds painful to me :)

    Ahh.. Humor... at 8:00 AM everything is funny :)

  • The (true?) story of an internet addict (Score:3)

    by sela ( 32566 ) on Tuesday August 24, 1999 @05:24AM (#1728849) Homepage
    Until recently I was a rather normal guy. I went to work in the mornings, went out in the evenings, had a wife and two kids, and everything was just fine.
    Yes, I did surf the internet once in a while - nothing special. Only the light sites. I managed to avoid the highly addictive ones, like slashdot. Everything seems to be under control. Which is, as I later discovered, how most of us start. "It will not happen to me" - you think. Yeah, right. That what I thought.
    And then, one day, I read in the paper something about internet addiction. "I'm not an addict", was my first defensive thought. But then another, disturbing thought, creeped into my mind: "But I do surf the net ... and what if I will become one?".
    I had to know more about internet addiction. To learn how to avoid it. So I started looking for information. I did not find much more about it in the papers, so I started searching the net. I've read page after page, and the more I've read, the more I wanted to know. Each day I was searching altavista again for "internet addicition", to find if there was any new information, fresh reaserch, a survey, a new support group. The more I heard stories, the more horrified I became. I thought about all those innocent hundreds of millions of people, surfing the net, not knowing what fate awaiting them. I had to warn them. I went to chat rooms, news groups, bulletin boards, and at each place I've warned anyone I just could about internet addiciton. In the meanwhile, I continued to look for more information. I no longer searched altavista alone. It is well known each search engine index only small part of the web. So I started using multi-search pages that search through lycos, excite, infoseek, GoTo, thunderstone, hotbot and opentext. I searched dejanews for new discussions on the subject, 5 times a day. I was visiting regularely 200 sites dealing with internet addiction each day to look directly for more information.
    I became obsessed with it, spending each day 12-16 hours on the net, searching, reading and writing to people on the subject. I stopped sleeping regularely, I've missed work days. I neglected my wife and children. I got fired from work. My wife left me. My kids would not speak to me. And then I realized I am in deep trouble.

    So I went to the nearest rehabilitation center. "What do you know about internet addiction disorder?" Dr. Strausse asked me at the first interview. Hearing this question made me shake with excitement. The dopamine level in my brain reached new hights. I spilled facts and numbers. Quoted reaserches and surveys. Told him real life stories about internet addicts, until he stopped me.
    "Sorry", he said, "I am afraid I can't help you. You are a lost case. You long crossed the point of no return".
    "But there is more", I told him. "Don't you want to listen?" I begged, "I know more" ...

    He had to send for the nurse to drag me out of his office, while I was begging to tell him more about the dangers of internet addiction. "But wait, there is this new survey which is about to be published ... Oh gosh, it is going to be published today. Quick, do you have an internet connection somewhere? I must check it. I must!"

    The nurse pushed me into the cab, with explicit instruction to take me straight home. "Stop!" I shouted as I spotted an internet cafe on the way. "I want to get down here!".

    Few days later they found me unconscious, my shirt all dirty from stains of coffee and pizza, my head lying on the keyboard. When I woke up, I found myself tied to an hospital bad. "What am I doing here?" I asked. "And why can't I move my arms?"

    "Relax", told me an authorative voice. "I'm prof. Uffliner. I came here as soon as I could. Dr. Strausse think I'm the only one that can help you". "prof. Uffliner!" I was totally excited. "I'm your greatest fan! I've read all about your work ... you're my hero! So what are the latest numbers, do you know? How many ..."
    "I'm sorry", he said. "I am afraid I can't let you get exposed to any additional information right now".
    Yes, I knew all about prof. Uffliner's methods. Total deprivation of any on-line connection. Isolation from the net, for as long as it takes until I'm rehabilitated. Its a torture! I didn't know if I could take it. I felt as if my whole body was on fire. I asked for it. I begged for it. My face twisted and I had foam at the mouth. "just one minute to check deja-news!" I begged. They just ignored me.

    Those where the longest and most horrible three months of my life. At the end of those three months they untied me.My wife came for me. "I've heard all you've been through", she said. "they say there is a chance you may get back to normal, but you need a year of total isolation from everything that have anything that talks about the net. No newspapers. No TV no radio. I just know what we need! We'll go to my father's summer-house in the mountains. It will be a great opportunity to rebuild out relationship! Just like a very long second honeymoon!" She said with excitement.

    Well, thats about it. I'm still in a support group, and from time to time I have this urge to go back to the keyboard, but I manage to resist it. My wife and kids are very supportive. They really help. So that's my story.

    But be warned. Not all are as lucky as I've been.
  • another Epistemophiliac [sp?]...

    i have the same problem. thus why i answered

    4. What do you use your computer for? Check all that apply. for each item checked, please indicate the approximate percentage of computer time spent. Percentages should total 100.

    my "other" was refreashing slashdot....

    just wait one day we will have an Epistemophilia Pride March on DC...


    nmarshall
    #include "standard_disclaimer.h"
    R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
  • The worst is when that stuff becomes admissable evidence in court.

    The court also believes those silly, carnival, "lie-detector" tests.

    Here's something. Put on a lab coat (I have one right here, which I wear whilst making printed circuit boards), declare youself a "scientist" (I'm sure most of us has some physics/chemistry experience) and use that to destroy your enemies.

    "Sure Bill Gates raped her. The defibyonerator says so."
  • I have a strange feeling this is not an Internet addiction quiz. It seems to be more like a poorly shaded attempt at garnering marketing information. The domain that hosts this site is owned by a marketing firm. The questions are poorly worded and don't quite look like they'd belong on a real psychological evaluation.
  • I hate the phrase "log onto a web site." I couldn't read any more after seeing that one.

    I guess Jeff Foxworthy could (finally) update his act: "If you take online quizzes, you might be an internet addict."

  • so they ask how many computers i own. I own 5, an ibm 266, 2 commodore 64's an apple ][ and a palmIIIe. I only use two of these, the palm and the ibm, so do i say i own 5 computers or 2? and is my palm conciderd a computer, because if you concider my palm a computer then my playstation should also be a computer shouldn't it?
  • Your questions actually go to a shrink who's going to analyze them, send you a polite response then make millions by doing a lecture tour denouncing internet addiction.
    Oh and let's not forget the geek profiling...
    ---
  • I didn't realize until now that my workplace has fostered an environment in which I could develop such a terrible disease as internet addiction. I dare say that my employers may have even unconciously encouraged me down this perilous route. Implied in my technical position is the mandate that I keep up with the latest technology, or perish. The only way to keep up is to get on the stuff (the net). I need the stuff to get the insights that I use to maintain my position in this ultrasupermegapsychoaccerlerated cybersociety.

    I wonder if my affliction means that I'm eligible for workman's compensation. I wonder if they should pay for my home internet service, since this problem has obviously spilled over into my personal life (I do it at home all the time, usually by myself). Maybe they are responsible for my problem and should be responsible for weening me off the junk! Let them buy my methadone (e.g. cable TV)!

  • sort of like sean connery?

    I'll take 'The Rapists' for $100, Alec.

    But you're right, therapists are master BS artists. Hell, some even believe their own hype. I read an article that some of my friends and I had a laugh over. It was a well thought out study about 'shadow syndromes'. Basically, it says eeryone is a little crazy, ie, Jon Doe is a little paranoid and a tad schitzo, Mary has a dash of clostrophobia, etc.

    The joke was the look of glee on this shrinks face when we saw him reading it. You could almost see the big dollar signs replace his eyes a la Looney Toons.
  • think a lot of this questionnaire is less to do with the Internet being addictive per se than to do with using the Internet to feed your (possibly pre-existing) addictions.

    You have a very good point there. Some of the questions nearer to the beginning seemed to be along the lines of, are you addicted to the net (such questions as "how much time do you spend each day on the internet?") though, as you pointed out, most of the questions were about being addicted to using the internet to do other things, such as buy products, view porn, talk to people, get sexual highs (orgasms, whatever you will), etc... but didn't focus on asking you if you felt a burning desire to be on the internet all the time, and whether or not you spent all time off the net planning the next you could be on the net.

    Therefore, even though I filled out the survey, whatever evaluation they send me is going to be basically invalid, because the survey was neither about one thing or another. Either way, I don't care.. but, I just want to add, you have a _point_.
  • Personally, I thought that was rather nice, Americans wanting to hear what I thought the Internet had done to their society.

    - Greater acknowledgement of inherent intellectual inferiority
    - Ain't not as many double negatives
    - Learning to eat with a knife and fork (that must be pure wishful thinking...)
  • Web stuff is what I do. When I get home at night, one of the last things I ever do is surf the web! Now if I did, well, that would be a real addiction!
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Input! Need input! (Score:3)

    by fable2112 ( 46114 ) on Tuesday August 24, 1999 @04:49AM (#1728862) Homepage

    The problem I've got with this little test and with the rest of the site is that it focuses on netsex and chatting with strangers.

    That's not MY problem, though I admit I seem addicted. I'm NOT a net-junkie as such though, I'm an info-junkie, and to a certain extent a debate-junkie who actually enjoys a good argument. (I'm beginning to suspect that I'm a Myers-Briggs ENTP after all, not ENFP ...)

    As I am unfortunately doing now, I will spend excessive time on the 'net or doing similar things other than focusing on my work when I'm stuck doing something boring and repetitive. If I'm doing something that requires brain cells, I'm fine, but if it's the copy-paste-reformat that I have to do right now I get bored silly. At one of my old, non-net-connected jobs, I used to spend a lot of time reading anything hanging out there that looked the least bit interesting. :)

    Unfortunately, the test doesn't seem to have much in the way of useful advice for folks like me (and I know I'm not the only one). I don't care about porn sites, but cut me away from my Slashdot connection or the SCA web pages I frequent ... ;)
  • Yea, I got a cable modem, so of course every time I'm on the computer, I'm on the internet. :) Actually, I really am on the computer almost exclusivly to get on the net, or do net related things, so I did put 100%
  • There is no feedback button, what there is is a fine print e-mail address link:
    Contact Dr. Greenfield by email, [mailto:psydoc39@aol.com]

    aol, huh? dont even need to comment on that...
  • Alright, there is a feedback button, i missed it, ok? It's little.
  • I'm addicted to the internet as much as I'm addicted to water.....
  • I think it's heavily sex-oriented because the same chemicals in the brain that cause us to "feel good" are the same chemicals that play a heavy role in addiction. (Seritonin, if I remember right)

    Basically, my thinking here is that they're trying to prove some sort of link between sex addiction and internet addiction (via similar responses to the same chemical.)

  • A few years ago, surveys and studies of this kind were very common. Generally, they ended up stating that people who used the Internet were avid addicts to pornography or worse. I even remember TV shows portraying internet users as child molestors by default.

    Over the next few years, something amazing happened - corporations started jumping on the Internet bandwagon like there was no tomorrow. Now, if you were on the "information superhighway", you were hip, cool, and incredibly sophisticated. People in starbucks casually flipped open their laptops and tapped away with ease while sipping their mochas.


    OK, big yawn. Gee-whiz and all that. Now we have the second invasion of the internet addiction thingie. The only problem is - it's too common! More people use the TV for more hours than they use PCs. But anybody doing a study on TV addiction would look like a moron ("Do you watch the simpsons every day?").

    My prediction is that the frequency of these surveys will die down when the net becomes pervasive. Much like the ones about "electricity addiction", "motor car addiction", and "television addiction".

    L.
  • Respond with your answers below. You will get a reply from a qualified Anonymous Coward commenting on your psychological status.

    1) Do you have a Shift Key? (Yes/No)

    2) Do you have more than 1 shift key? (Yes/No)

    3) How long have you been using the Shift Key?

    __ Years.

    3) What do you use the Shift Key for?

    a) Entertainment
    b) Resumes
    c) Quake configs
    d) Porn
    e) Laziness

    4) Do you hate the Caps lock key?

    (Yes/No)

    5) Did you purchase any product on the Internet using the shift key? (Yes/No)

    6) Do you have a shift key at work? (Yes/No)

    7) Have you ever used the shift key out of curiousity or to see what happened? (Yes/No)

    8) Do you find yourself hitting the shift key for no reason? (Yes/No)

    9) Do you find the shift key sexually arousing? (Yes/No)

    10) Have you lied to anyone about using the shift key? (Yes/No)

    11) Do you find the shift key to be:

    a) A way to escape people or other keys
    b) A way to escape Quake enemies or other keys
    c) A tool for spiritual growth
    d) A way to get sexual pleasure
    e) A way to improve your financial status or the status of your caps lock key.

    12) Should the govt. regulate your use of the Shift key?

    13) How many times have you used the shift key in answering online surveys

    a) 0-3
    b) 4-9
    c) 10-99
    d) hundreds and hundreds of times, practically millions

    14) Have you felt anger, loathing, or disgust at certain keys on your keyboard? (If you say yes, your keyboard may self-destruct).

    (Yes/No).


    15) Did you DELIBERATELY press the shift key at any time during this survey? (You pervert!)
    ----------------

    L.




  • Learning to eat with a what?

  • . . . well it is, of course :-) But it reminds me of a story a friend of mine told after he did work experience at a printing company.

    His first task was to typeset a simple invitation card. So, with the supervisor guy watching over his shoulder, he fired up the DTP thing they had and started typing.

    The supervisor immediately gasped and demanded to know how he'd done that. "That", it turned out, was typing the initial letter of a word in capitals.

    This is really true. The entire (small) company had been unaware of the Shift key, and when they wanted things in caps they typed them in lowercase, selected the first letter, and selected All Caps from a drop-down menu. Always. Whenever caps were required.

    The best bit is that after our guy explained what he'd done and how you ought to have noticed if you'd ever even used a typewriter, the supervisor thought about it for a bit and said "That's too complicated, I think. We'll just stick to the way we know."

  • . . . was the part where they said "Do you find yourself dependent upon [list of things] food or eating?"

    Man, if I don't eat pretty regular, you wouldn't believe what happens to my metabolism. I just gotta. I mean, I'm not addicted, not really, that's for wimps, but I dunno how I'd survive without food.

  • > 3. Have you ever experienced any serious, adverse consequences because of your Internet use?

    Yep. Everyone I know bugs me about fixing their computer or teaching them how to use it.

    Seriously though, despite the negative responses I'm seeing here, I've had friends who've lost jobs because they were MUDding 14 hours a day. I used to be far more dependant on the 'net, but fortunately I got a little better at desciplining myself. But this kind of study, silly as it may seem, is valid. You might argue that it's not the net though, thats addictive, its the services available through the net. (ie gambling, MU*s, prOn ... )

  • If they're looking for addiction, give it to
    them. About time they learned:

    1. No one cares about such studies, only paranoid parents who are terribly busy trying to get smut removed from the net. Go family values!

    2. Unless you're paying money you can't really expect good data. Its the internet, haven of liars and assholes.

    3. How about a report on how writing up addicted to the internet surveys is itself an addiction.

  • I will not be marginalized by someone building a one-dimensional model of an aspect of human behavior that puts me at one extreme. I suggest that we give him honest answers, from a large number of people who share certain characteristics. I would guess that it is fair to say that the average Slashdot reader is more saavy about the net, has more experience with it, is more likely to be a programmer, etc. than the average net user. Perhaps he needs to hear about long hours spent collaborating with innumerable others on open source projects. Or perhaps he needs to hear how we have gotten excellent free software and improved it. Or even all of the people we keep in touch with from around the globe and how inexpensively we can do it.

    The good doctor has provided adequate room for comments. Wouldn't it be nice if he had to write up a section in the next edition of his book describing how some online communities have made excellent use of the internet as a mechanism for collaborative work? Does anyone want to provide him with the URLs for some of Eric Raymond's articles?
  • I'm not addicted... I just can't live without it ;-)

    ----------
    Have FreeBSD questions?
  • ganz rigtig

  • I checked it out... Another instances of YABPSS!
    Yet Another Bogus Psuedo-Scientific Study.
  • I don't like things like this 'cause they try and evaluate your "time online" just like they do your TV watching. What does it mean to be "online"? With a T-1 at work, and DSL at home I am always "online". I almost always have a web browser open to some page and some telnet window open, irc window, aim window, etc. Does that make me "online"? I tend to use a ton of online documentation, does that make me "addicted".

    Of course I can't suggest anything better, but it just doesn't seem liek a very good way to measure stuff.
  • Yah...like mainlining AOL. Ouch, that one gave me gas.

  • As someone who has been involved in this area of research and theory since it first began, let me just say that the ABCNews survey was pure crap. Here's why...

    First, the suggestion that a person could be addicted to the Internet is too broad. What exactly are they addicted to? Chats (e.g., social interaction!?!?!?)? Gaming (e.g., entertainment)? Information/researching (e.g., knowledge)?

    Second, the survey was a self-selected population of people who chose to take it via only one commercial news Web site. We have no idea whether those people are representative enough of the general population to have the results also generalize.

    Third, IAD is currently atheoretical. That means there is very little theory about how or where it comes from... "Researchers" are simply aping another disorder's symptoms (one which has nothing in common with Internet usage -- pathological gambling) and assuming they are similar enough to each other to be valid. Good researchers don't make such ludicrous assumptions, since on the face of it, pathological gambling has little, if any, redeeming social value.

    Fourth, why the intense focus on the Internet? Americans spend on average nearly 4 hours a day watching television (according to Nielsen Media Research), a very passive, non-social activity. Teens spend hours a day talking on the phone. Where's the uproar about these behaviors? This attention on the Internet may very well be a result of the "newbie effect," where it takes time for new people to the online world to get acclimated to it and use it in a responsible manner.

    Fifth, there is an immediate assumption, backed by *no* research, that online relationships are more negative and less fulfilling than RL relationships. In fact, what research does exist shows that online relationships are often more intense, and more "real" to the people involved in them than their RL counterparts.

    I could go on, but you get the point... The media love negative news, especially when it has the legitimacy of being backed by a news organization of ABC's stature. But in the end, it's still pure crap.

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