Читать книгу Overcoming Internet Addiction For Dummies - David N. Greenfield - Страница 89

People sometimes want to know how the Internet and digital screens can be addictive. After all, how can you get addicted to a screen behavior? Part of the reason for this question is that it evolves from the idea that addiction is about ingesting a substance and that it is the substance itself that creates the addiction through the body’s physical dependence on it.

The problem with this analysis is that it’s wrong. This isn’t how addiction really works. Yes, the body can become physiologically dependent on a substance (drugs or alcohol), but if that is what solely created an addiction, then once people detox from the substance, the addiction should be gone. However, this is not what typically happens. Addiction is the combination of many variables that involve learning, memory, emotions, social factors, physiology, behavior, and neurobiology. Often there are co-occurring psychiatric problems that contribute to an addiction, or the addiction may be a way to deal with emotional pain or negative circumstances. Let’s face it: Addictive behaviors can be an escape.

With addiction, there is always a disruption of the reward system in the brain, but the addictive substance or behavior (in this case, Internet use) is not really the primary issue. It is certainly a factor, but the addiction process is as much about learning to deal with triggers and to manage one’s emotions as anything else, and what we see with excessive screen use is like what we see in many addictions: Addictive behaviors start out as a solution that then becomes another problem.

Being online is a pleasurable and stimulating activity that impacts the brain’s reward system and elevates dopamine; it has a similar potential to create an addictive experience as drugs and alcohol, although physiological dependence is less of an issue.