So read an article on BBC today about a warning call on “Techno Addiction”, and I couldn’t help but be reminded about *another* article I read on Cory Doctorow at BoingBong.net, about his own opinions on the subject (via a newsburp at the time about how some children in Korea were being sent to boot camps, because of their own addiction to the World of Warcraft Internet).

Anywhoo, there seems to be this prevailing notion that someone cannot be addicted to something like the Internet, and saying such is merey an indication of the over-parenting malaise that’s struck the Millenial generation, and / or an effort to overmedicalize natural behaviours by the Medical Establishment (cue in big pharma conspiracies, and the ’shocking’ rise of psychiatric diagnoses in children …. now.)

Well, disclaimer — I am not a psychiatrist, nor an addictions specialist, but my own humble opinion with respect to these kinds of behaviours, i.e. *addiction*, can certainly happen in the context of something that doesn’t require you to literally change the chemicals in your brain with other chemicals … such as alcohol, heroin, GHB, or other psychotropic substances.

An example you say? How about an addiction to gambling. It can ruin your life, your bank account, and the lives around you, but never leaves any physical signs (making it difficult to pick up for a physician to diagnose).

What are addictions anyway?

They are a complex set of behaviours and reactions that occur, that involve terms like “tolerance” (where you need more and more of a certain thing to achieve a certain effect), and “dependence” (your body misses it if you don’t have it), and “abuse” (where you will miss your occupational and familial obligations to do it and / or do illegal things — such as cheating or stealing — to obtain it or get the chance to do it).

{so yes, it is definitely possible to have the first two and not the last; cancer patients are often worried about becoming “morphine addicts” when they have pain problems. It can happen, but while most people do notice they need more for the same effect, and their body misses it if they don’t have it — very, very, very few will go out and rob their local convenience store to get funds to buy more morphine}

Google all of these terms if you want, but the acid test for *me* if a set of behaviours ends up changing your life — for the worse. I go with a “functional” definition of things, in that if it changes *how* you function day to day, then … well, you might have a problem (otherwise, its just an idiosyncrasy). What does this mean? To put it starkly:

• If you’re not going to school, or …
• If you’re not hanging out with your friends, or …
• If you’re not enjoying any of your previous hobbies, or …
• If you’re not able to perform at your job, or …
• If your marriage / relationship with your significant other is “getting in the way” …

– and you don’t *care* because you just need to do that *thing* –

… whether its playing games on the internet, or hitting up the slots, or having sex with other people –

Well, yeah.

That’s a problem.

And you can see — with all due respect to Mr. Doctorow — that it doesn’t matter what thing “thing” is (it could be eating Cheerios), it doesn’t need to be a chemical to begin with, and its not a larger dissertation on how The Establishment is trying to narcotize everyone into being “normal”.

There’s something about the brain, which makes some people more susceptible to these behaviours, and I suspect that some people are born with them. Couple that with the circumstances in how they were brought up, and the kind of stimuli (or not) that affected their development, makes them more or less vulnernable to things like “addiction”.

So, does “Techno Addiction” really exist? I’m sure for some people it does. It may not have any specific to do with the phenomonology of “phantom buzzing” when you’re not wearing your Blackberry (because any Intern will tell you that they also, in addition to “phantom buzzing”, also *hear* “Phantom Ringing” of their pagers, and believe me — they are *NOT* addicted to either!), but it *may* have to do with the consequences of being in and around the Internet, and how some people are changing their lives — at the expense of things they previously held dear, like family, and work — to accomodate this part of their lives.

If its for the worse, then yeah. You know what? Maybe it *is* something like an addiction.