Читать книгу Overcoming Internet Addiction For Dummies - David N. Greenfield - Страница 20

Stock trading and online investing are a perfect match for the Internet. Just like shopping (see the previous section), it allows you ease, convenience, and relative privacy, and it makes trading stocks and other investments simple and near instantaneous.

The problem is that sometimes you need time to think about your investments, and you can easily make an impulsive move online. There is a tendency with all online transactions to end up in a pick-and-click pattern that feels good in the moment but may not always be the best choice. Granted, you can make bad investments offline as well — but again, when you are online, there is no threshold to cross, no one to easily call and speak with on the phone, and no one to run things by. Sometimes all that is fine, and if online stock trading is the end point of a well-researched and thought-out choice, then it can work. But as with online shopping, it is just you and your screen, so there is some potential for higher risk in an online transaction.

Our research shows that users tend to be more uninhibited and impulsive online than with other modalities. When you are online, you are in essence isolated and more apt to make riskier decisions. The addictive component is also important to note here in that each time you buy a stock or make an online trade, you’re getting a small hit of dopamine. This occurs irrespective of whether that investment is a good one or not and therefore may be misleading in terms of your judgment. See Chapter 8 for more about online investing.