Physical vs. Mental

What is addiction?

A classic definition could be that an addiction is when an individual physically needs a substance, or they suffer withdrawal symptoms. This definition can be expanded to differentiate people that are abusing a drug with people that addicted to a drug by requiring an "addiction" to also result in extremely negative life consequences. The expanded definition partially shows the physical/mental dichotomy present in thinking about addiction. If addiction is a physical disease, withdrawal represents its symptoms. However, if addiction is a mental disease its symptoms are that it causes negative life consequences. I would suggest that addiction is both.

We've discussed a number of times in this class how the online world can have a physical effect upon people. In the example of LambdaMOO the online assault of individuals in a chat environment mostly just led to hurt feelings. However, in other contexts cyberbullying has led to suicide, and it has almost certainly led to depression in a number of cases. Positing a defining line between a purely online "mental" experience and a "physical" experience is a stretch.

In addition to the possibility of these negative interactions, the internet gives us the opportunity for many positive or pleasurable interactions. Just to name two examples, people can find community interaction, and people can find games that offer incentivizing achievements (think Farmville). Both of these can have a physical effect on an individual even though they exist in a cyber realm.

By this standard, I think that internet addiction can exist because any mental action has some physical reaction even if the withdrawal symptoms are not as physiological as a drug addiction.