Addiction?

Everyone has been affected by an addiction at some point. More commonly heard of addictions are to drugs and alcohol. These addictions start with the intake of one of the two which triggers a release of serotonin in the brain. Serotonin makes you feel good and so it leads to an ongoing battle between people and their desires until the body becomes reliant on the substance. That’s the beginning of the worst case scenario. However, recently, researchers have found that addiction to the internet may be just as real as these addictions. On Rock Center with Brian Williams, resident professional Dr. Nancy Snyder interviewed many people with this new “disease”. However it seems that new addictions are popping up every day and “we didn’t always call them addictions”. The report was supported with MRI scans of addict’s brains. The areas that are affected include “decision-making, emotions, and self-control”.  It’s hard to grasp that an activity as simple as getting on the internet, where no form of physical intake is involved, can have the same effect on your brain as drugs or alcohol. Dr. Snyder interviewed a woman who said her son was addicted and it changed his entire personality, but it also affects the addict’s social skills. Many researchers think that more research needs to be done in order to officially diagnose this addiction. Like I said, it’s a hard addiction to grasp because it seems like “goofy science”, but for those who are experiencing it themselves and living it, it is a real addiction. Restart is the name of a rehab center that was created to help people who are addicted to the internet turn their lives around. Ironically named, they restart their lives rather than restarting computers or gaming systems. The problem with Restart is that it costs about $400 a day and by the end of an average stay $40,000. However, if you are spending all of your time on the internet and don’t have a job, paying for your treatment could be really difficult. It’s hard to say whether or not being addicted to the internet is a real addiction. In this day and age, people come up with so many “diseases” when really we are all just different. We all learn differently and have different tolerances to substances and activities but I guess we cannot say that an internet addiction isn’t real when we don’t feel like we or our loved ones are experiencing it.