"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Oh, I just thought of something I wanted to add to my page," he replied typing frantically.
"You know, you're taking a final," I reminded him.
"I know, it'll just take a minute," he answered.

My student was clearly obsessed. But was he addicted? A few months ago the New York Times started running serious articles [e.g., Belluck, December 1, 1996. NB: you have to be a registered member of the NY Times site to access articles] about symptoms of Internet withdrawal — some of which sounded as devastating and painful as those experienced by drug addicts.

CNN Interactive joined in, featuring stories about kids dropping out of college because they were spending all day in the labs hooked on the Net instead of in class. Psychiatrists hung out their shingles for "Internet Addiction Disorder" support groups and clinics were started. Yes, clinics were started.

Interneters Anonymous formed, and began to meet — where else — in chat rooms on the Internet. Doctors started to debate the issue's gravity. Parents held their children a little closer when the America Online commercials came on. So, I decided to do some investigating.

"The problem is that we don't have any research," Dr. John Grohol, director of the Mental Health Net and an online psychologist, told me. He said the jury is still out on whether or not people can be addicted to the Internet in the same way that they're addicted to drugs. "That kind of research takes years to do," Grohol said. He added, "But in most people's cases, they use the Internet as a coping mechanism to deal with something in their lives."

As for physical withdrawal symptoms, like those reported in the New York Times (Dec 1, 1996, CyberTimes), Grohol said he'd never heard of such problems. "I think they (the reports) are interesting, but they're only singular case studies. We don't come up with diagnoses after single case reports."

"What we've seen in the media are people who aren't dealing with the problems in their lives, so they're turning to the Internet," Grohol repeated.

Traditional media, especially the Net-skeptical print media, have nonetheless seized upon the idea of this new plague. The stories of pedophiles lurking about in every corner of cyberspace have always been pervasive in the news. Now the Net is addictive, too. Students, employees, housewives, kids in summer camps... by all accounts they're dropping like flies. Pretty soon people are gonna think TV is addictive...

Even media organizations much more familiar with technology and the Internet went for the story. PC Week reported that:

Online addiction is no joke, although most CEOs and Human Resource professionals may doubt its existence....On the World Wide Web most sites that claim to deal with online addiction are satirical in nature. Fortunately, however, there are a handful of legitimate resources, and their number is likely to grow as addiction grows.
— PC Week, Dec. 2, 1996

One such legitimate (or is legitimacy, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder?) resource is the Center for Online Addiction. The center is run by University of Pittsburgh associate professor of Psychology Dr. Kimberly Young. According to the center's Web site, Young has been interviewed by no less than two dozen major news organizations from The Wall Street Journal to NPR about her research and is "internationally recognized as an expert on the subject of Internet addiction."

Her extensive empirical research consists of a long survey taken by about 500 people, nearly 400 of whom considered themselves Net junkies prior to taking the survey. Young agreed with them, and modified American Psychiatric Association's criteria for addiction so that those surveyed could read a little list, answer "yes" to three or more of the questions, and be classified as an addict.

Here are a few of the questions Young suggests mental health professionals ask their patients:

Does your client experience a tolerance in that he or she has a need for increased amounts of time on the Internet to achieve satisfaction? (Like a drug, do you need more to get high once you hit a threshold?) Does your client experience signs of psychological withdrawal (e.g. work-related problems, academic problems, family problems)? Has your client made unsuccessful attempts to cut down on the time he/she spends online? Does your client spend longer periods of time on the Internet than originally intended?

For a fee, Young offers consultation to companies and other "mental health professionals" who are faced with the ever burgeoning problem of IAD.

Of course, people do get addicted to patterns of behavior. Take "Sally," for example. She's got problems in her "real" life, and she uses the Internet as a welcome distraction. She jumps online as soon as she's home from work, browses, surfs, and roams through the Web for hours.

But is this an addiction? I'm no head-shrinker, but it's just not likely. People who are naturally obsessive in other parts of their lives are likely to obsess about their Web pages. Or for that matter, the Internet in general. They fill the spaces left by their interactions, or lack of interaction, with people in their lives by spending time online, looking for distraction and company. People do it with shopping, with books, with TV, with food, with sex, with work, and now they've got another outlet — the Internet.

Still, Sally's not going to rob a liquor store for cash so she can get unlimited access to America Online. She's not going to go through the painful physical symptom of withdrawal that she would if she were to say, stop taking smack. And as for the young man who was making changes to his Web pages during his final exam — he got a B, maintaining his unwavering B average for the course, and returning to school in the fall for what will probably be another stellar academic year.

I ran through the Internet "Addiction" checklist with a majority of the employees at Tripod. Half of us qualified as having an addiction — the other half must just be in deep denial.