For instance, those who are considered alcohol-dependent meet at least three of seven criteria listed in the manual, including withdrawal from other activities because of drinking, unsuccessful efforts to cut down or quit, and a tendency to consume larger amounts over a longer period of time than they had intended. Of the 1,078 participants who said they used the Internet, Mr. Anderson reported, more than 100 of them met at least three of the seven criteria for dependency. The students who were characterized as Internet-dependent spent an average of 229 minutes a day online for nonacademic reasons, compared with 73 minutes a day for other students, Mr. Anderson said. The outcomes were not good, they reported. Grades decline, mostly because attendance declines.
Sleep patterns go down.
Technology could be a really wonderful thing, but if we don't start looking at some of the consequences, we'll take the ostrich approach, with our heads in the sand, and let the problems sneak up on us. As part of the study, students were asked to rate the degree to which their Internet usage was affecting their personal relationships, academic success, participation in extracurricular activities, sleep patterns, and opportunities to meet new people. The participants were students from American International University, Black Hawk College, the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Rensselaer, Siena College, the State University of New York campuses at Albany and Buffalo, and the University of Ulster, in Northern Ireland. They were evenly divided between men and women, and they represented 18 different majors, from liberal arts to hard sciences. Respondents filled out paper surveys while they were in class, and the extreme Internet users may have skipped class that day, among others, to remain in cyberspace, he explained.