Shraga18 – The difference between you an me is that you read a wikipedia article and I am currently studying for a degree in the subject. In fact a few weeks ago I was doing the research for an assignment that’s coming up for which I spent hours observing the actual physical effects that cocaine and amphetamines have on brains. See there is a huge difference between physical addictions such as nicotine, alcohol or narcotics and psychological addictions such as shopping, gambling etc. To understand why, here’s a bit of (extremely over-simplified) basic background info. The brain has hardwired into its system various response pathways, several of which are loosely-termed ‘reward pathways’, i.e. the brain ‘rewards’ the body by releasing one of several neurotransmitters that create pleasurable sensations when presented with certain stimuli. In physical addictions these pathways are hi-jacked, so-to-speak, by the chemicals in the addictive substance and ‘trick’ the brain into ‘thinking’ that the only way to activate these pathways is through the external substance. In psychological addictions the systems remain pretty much intact but ‘get used’ to being stimulated by certain activities and therefore come to ‘expect’ these activities in order to reactivate the pathways so that the body can get the reward it wants. Therefore these addictions are much lighter and much easier to break than physical addictions, as the latter is now a ‘necessity’ whereas these are only very strong desires.
Even having said all this, you yourself admit to jbaldy that the very existence of internet addiction is “a complex issue being argued about on the highest levels of the psychology profession”, which hardly makes your case that much stronger.
Finally, even if we were sure about internet addiction and were going to run with your alcohol analogy I’m sure you’d agree that not everyone who enjoys the occasional whiskey or a pint or two of beer on a weekend is an alcoholic, so why assume that everyone who prefers a smartphone to a kosherphone is addicted to the internet?