Some people also spend too much time reading, watching television, and working, and ignore family, friendships, and social activities. I think not. It's the tendency of some mental health professionals and researchers to want to label everything they see as potentially harmful with a new diagnostic category. Unfortunately, this causes more harm than it helps people. What most people online who think they are addicted are probably suffering from is the desire to not want to deal with other problems in their lives.
Nothing is different except the modality.
What some very, very few people who spend time online without any other problems present may suffer from is compulsive over-use. But compulsive behaviors are already covered by existing diagnostic categories and treatment would be similar. And behaviors are easily treatable by traditional cognitive-behavior techniques in psychotherapy. Case studies, the alternative to surveys used for many conclusions drawn about online overuse, are just as problematic. How can we really draw any reasonable conclusions about millions of people online based upon one or two case studies.