Internet addiction

My opponent has failed to produce an valid argument. He has not proven that internet addiction exists. What he says is that people show symptoms of addiction to the internet. Or else their actions are similar to people who have an addiction. Since I do not have anything to rebut, I will further dismantle his attempts to show why internet addiction exists, which has already been thoroughly refuted by my previous post. In his second paragraph, Pro cites and quotes various people who have commented on the issue of internet over-use in younger generations. Note how the closest to internet addiction these 'professionals' come is to admitting that there may be something called 'Internet dependence.' My opponent uses this as proof to say that internet addiction exists. Well, the obvious truth is that these people never once mention the ability to be addicted to the internet and do not give any information at all that backs up my opponents claim that internet addiction exists. These quotes are all completely useless to him! In his main body of text, my opponent quotes a study that was conducted on people who he believed to be suffering from an addiction to gaming. He then goes on to say how these people suffered all sorts of negative consequences to their health due to spending too much time in front of a computer. He also says that these people contemplated suicide at times. But through all this he has failed to prove how this is internet addiction. These are simple stories of people who didn't use their time well at all. There are stories of this that relate everything imaginable that have nothing to do with any sort of addiction. This is no different. From the way my opponent argues, I am given the impression that he believes 'addiction,' is any case where the affected person is constantly using a substance or performing an activity. I must remind him to re-check my arguments on what an addiction is, unless he wants to refute them, they will hold over the course of this debate. His next big blunder was to take a quote from an interview of Mr. O'Brien and use it as proof to state that internet addiction is real. In his words: "We think [Internet addiction] is something." Now, you don't need to know anything about debating to know that this is an invalid source of evidence. For a start, Mr. O'Brien starts by saying 'We think,' implying that he has insufficient evidence to prove his claim. Secondly, the opinions of this gentleman do not hold any credibility in this debate and do not advance my opponents case at all. Thirdly, Mr. O'Brien makes the same mistakes as my opponent, (or else my opponent has learned from him). He works from the assumption that internet addiction is a scientifically asserted fact. In this case actually, Mr. O simply treats internet addiction as a description. So these people who he mentions use the computer so much it looks like they are addicted. He never provides any reasoning to show why the internet addiction exist. He never even attempts to. My opponent yet again cites useless sources and people in the vain attempt to support his case. In the last part of his main body of text, My opponent explicitly states that internet addiction exists: 'the study of Internet addiction is still relatively new, but it really exist.' This study he refers to is not the study of internet addiction but the behaviour of people who over-use the internet. He makes no attempt to back up this claim but instead just refers to it as a habit, which is completely in league with my arguments. Thank you Pro for finally waking up. My rebuttals end here, and normally I would defend my arguments or raise new material, but he has made no attempt to attack my second and third arguments, and my first I have defended in the rebuttals. So I guess I'll close up by again stating my arguments. There is no such thing as internet addiction. As mentioned in round 2, it is not physically possible to be addicted to the internet. I've explained how gaming causes the neuro-transmitter dopamine to be released for the sense of pleasure. This applies wherever euphoria occurs. As far as I'm concerned, there are no known cases where people are addicted to any other neurotransmitter. An addiction requires dependency and tolerance to be present. Neither are present in terms of internet overuse. So how can you call it an addiction when its not? Lets give my opponent the benefit of the doubt for a moment, assume there was such a thing as the ability to become addicted to the internet. The affected user suffers from dependency and withdrawal symptoms. (ridiculous as it sounds) I challenge my opponent then, to state how this addiction would be harmful to us. In addictions to drug use and alcohol, the person is harmed by the substance being abused. But if a person is addicted to the internet, there is nothing there that can harm him. He may have to forfeit a strong presence in the immediant social life, but such an addiction would cause him/her to replace it with an online social life. The user would therefore be a completely normal person, who just uses the internet much more than what is considered appropriate. Furthermore, I also wish to argue that an internet addiction is beneficial to some people. The internet is the worlds largest cache of information, I'm not going to look for a source to back that up since it is obvious, my opponent can feel free to find evidence against that claim though. The benefits of an internet addiction would be that: a) The addicted person is extremely knowledgeable in his interested areas/topics b) The person has a strong understanding of the internet and thus can find employment via that skill c) The person has a strong presence online especially in social networking sites like facebook. This may give him/her a life. My final point is that, giving my opponent even more benefit of the doubts and assuming it is possible to be harmed by an internet addiction, (which I have shown that it doesn't exist) then this harm ministered to them does not fit my opponents general argument that 'Internet addiction is a serious threat.' A serious threat is a threat that is serious, obviously. Its a threat that needs our immediant attention or else we will all suffer dire consequences. Assuming there is such thing as internet addiction, and assuming it is harming us, we don't need to say it is 'dire' or a 'serious threat' to us. That is just over-the-top. Its melodramatic, and doesn't need to be here in this debate. Concluding, There is no such thing as internet addiction, my opponent did nothing to further his claim. Have a nice day. (An after thought, my opponent used material which was copied straight from an exterior website without actually indicating that he got it from there. -'This 17 years-old young boy said that he felt like online games were "pulling him" away from the real world. Others said they had contemplated suicide or played for up to 20 hours per day. The obsessions came with real consequence for these young men. Some had damaged relationships with family members; one found himself unemployed and unable to dig out of a rut.' From http://edition.cnn.com...... Depending on what country you live in, this may not be legitimate. For the purposes of this debate, I ask you to refrain from copying directly from a website or exterior source without permission or without indicating that it is someone else's material).