But yeah, man. Think about it. People know who we are IN JAPAN because of time we spent on the net. What’s the alternative? Actually fly over there and try to get props in the street? If I go live and have people from France, England, Israel & the USA drop by and all chat with each other, I’m sorry… that’s a HELL of a lot better than playing stickball!

Now to my reply and You know what. I really didn’t even think about that! I don’t know how I let that pass me during my thought process when writing. Another thing thats funny is that from all of the sites I checked regarding this so called “disorder” not one of them even mentioned what you just stated here.

I think HOW you spend your time on the net TOTALLY changes up everything. Ok so now with that said I feel a bit better, lol. Seeing as how I do spend a lot of time on the net but a lot of that time is spent productively.

I think the main question in determining whether one’s internet use is an addiction or not is what they get out of the net vs what they get out of IRL interaction. For instance, instead of spending an hour on Facebook, interacting with people that you’ve met around the country and around the world, is it really better for you to spend an hour sitting in a pizza shop having a slice and a soda? Is it really better for you to be sitting around at the park, checkin’ out chicks?

By better, I mean is it more progressive.. Are you getting the most out of your time and maximizing your effectiveness for the day? If you spend that hour looking over your stats and maintaining your website, does that contribute more to your skillset and understanding of the net? Isn’t that a benefit, like going to school? Aren’t you improving yourself?

I think this term can apply best to people that spend a lot of time on the net DOING NOTHING, like watching youtube and mass-emailing jokes to people. Those people are addicts. Get a life! OTOH, there are people whose connection to the internet makes them MORE gregarious, not less. It makes them MORE visible than if they walked around in the street for that hour.

So I figure the status of “addict” depends on whether there’s actually anything BETTER for that person to do than be jacked-in.