by Grace Angel

Created on: March 02, 2010   Last Updated: April 04, 2010

Internet addiction is becoming a growing problem in our society today. The sad part is that many people do not even realize they have this problem until it has had a negative impact upon their personal relationships. When this happens, it is very difficult to repair the damage and treat the addiction problem at the same time. Still, the Internet has become such a part of our culture, that many people with addictive behaviors toward Internet use believe that they are completely normal.

There are many reasons that people become addicted to the Internet. Some have an incredible thirst for knowledge. Others use the Internet as a social outlet because they are not comfortable in the physical presence of other people. There is a whole other demographic of people that use the Internet to find a potential life partner, or relationship because they lack the self-confidence to pursue relationships without the anonymous nature that the Internet provides. On their own, none of these reasons for using Internet technology is bad, however when a person’s social life is defined by a machine, there can be problems.

Many people become addicted to the ability to know everything. This has been created because of online research sources. The problem is that many of these research areas are not checked for credibility, so there are many people that have information that they believe is correct only to find out later that this is not the case. Sometimes the search for knowledge in itself becomes an addiction, because knowledge can make people feel powerful. This does not only apply to factual information, but also to knowing about what is going on in the life of people that are close to us.

If you’re spending more time with your online friends, then you do with people in real-life, this can hinder your social development. Some people with Internet addiction problems actually become emotional when they do not have access to the Internet. It can cause anger and panic because these individuals are afraid they will not receive a message in timely fashion. The problem with this is that many of the messages do not have any long-term impact on that individual’s life. Certainly, work-related issues are important to maintain information about, however some people get nervous when they do not have access to finding out what their friends did over the weekend.

Some people actually become addicted to social networking sites. They get power from getting the highest number of

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