Internet addiction. What is Internet addiction? How does it affect a person's life? How to recognize it in time? Are there treatments for this addiction? How dangerous is she? First, let's define the term addiction, what is it? Addiction is a person’s tendency to perform certain actions, during which he receives some “dose” of pleasure. The dangers of addiction are directly related to the fact that the longer the addiction lasts, the more you need to increase the dose of pleasure, and the loss of control over the use of the active substance begins. Internet addiction is a persistent behavioral disorder caused by a constant obsessive desire to enter the Internet, and the inability to stop and exit it in time. There are several types of Internet addictions - addiction to staying on social networks in search of communication, aimless surfing on the Internet, gaming addiction, it can also be addiction to watching online movies, uncontrolled downloading of video and audio files, shopping in online stores. There is also this type of Internet addiction - this is addiction to watching porn sites and engaging in virtual sex. Why then does a person develop a stable addiction to the Internet? In fact, there are many reasons and all these factors together influence the formation of a person’s need for the Internet. Let's now figure out in order what these factors are. Self-affirmation Complexes Excess free time Boredom Sexual dissatisfaction Thirst for easy money Desire for primacy And this is not a complete list of factors that can influence the formation of the need for the Internet. By what signs can you recognize that a person is addicted to the Internet? Loss of control over reality. A person is not able to control the time spent on the Internet. Every time he interacts with a gadget, he gets great pleasure. Every free minute he goes on social networks, checks his mail, updates the page. Loss of pleasure from live communication; Deterioration of physiological abilities (vision, memory, pain in back and limbs). He spends all his free time visiting the Internet. In the absence of connection with virtual reality, there is anxiety, apathy, the person does not know what to do, he ceases to be interested in things connected with the outside world. When a person needs to find specific information, he forgets about the basic goals, gets carried away by extraneous topics, wanders away from planned plans. While surfing the Internet, he forgets about his main responsibilities, loses his sense of time and control over the situation. Cannot get off the Internet. In some severe cases, a person may lose control over many important areas of life; the great danger of Internet addiction is that one no longer wants to, returns to the real world, and if one still has to interact with “real” people, one may lose the usual communication functions and skills. What consequences does Internet addiction entail? Most often, a person does not understand that he is dependent on the World Wide Web and therefore, without outside help, it is difficult to identify the addiction in the early stages. And this does not make it possible to begin timely intervention to eliminate the disease. The second danger of Internet addiction is a decrease in physical and mental functions and skills, and loss of cognitive abilities. The longer a person stays online, the more functions such as memory and attention deteriorate, and the ability to think analytically is lost. What happens at the physiological level is that a person’s performance decreases, he becomes irritable, and his vision deteriorates due to constant use of gadgets. Due to a sedentary lifestyle, the musculoskeletal system also suffers - diseases such as osteochondrosis, scoliosis, and arthrosis occur. The functioning of the gastrointestinal tract, cardiovascularsystems, which subsequently leads to diseases such as arrhythmia, tachycardia, hypertension, gastritis, ulcers. The third danger is loss of the ability to communicate. A person’s communication skills decrease, he becomes uninterested in “live” communication, he begins to go out less often and spend less time with friends and loved ones. It is easier for a person who craves communication on the Internet to communicate online than with real people, and when they have to communicate offline, fears often arise, they cannot establish contact, and control their emotions. In fact, most people on the Internet are looking for what they lack in real life. There is not enough communication - a person finds it on the Internet, lacks emotions - he starts playing computer games, they cannot find themselves and realize themselves in life, they try to do it in the virtual world, because everything is much simpler and more beautiful there. The Internet is a definite substitute for a person who cannot find himself. And the biggest danger of Internet addiction is that if it is not identified in time, then a person can not only ruin relationships with family, spoil health, lose a job, but also lose the meaning of life; the Internet becomes not just a part of life, but becomes a person’s life itself. How You can also help yourself and your loved ones if you suddenly discover signs of Internet addiction. The first thing to do is not to panic, because if there is awareness of the problem, it means that the person is already on the path to solving it. What can you do for yourself and how can you get out of this addiction on your own? The first thing you need to do is start controlling the time of interruptions on the network. You can do this by using an alarm or timer and reducing your internet usage every day until your goal is reached. The main thing is to do this not abruptly, so that there is at least a painless way out of this addiction. Spend more time with friends and loved ones, try to be alone as little as possible. But if you still can’t, try, load yourself up with any household chores, for example, cleaning the apartment, washing windows, doing laundry, cooking something tasty. If you don’t have enough emotions, look for them in real life: sports, board games with friends, theater , watching films in the cinema, visiting various exhibitions, going to the forest, communicating with nature, it really helps to fill yourself with energy and new resources! It’s time to find a suitable hobby for yourself, to do something that you have long wanted to do, but couldn’t do due to lack of time (by the way Procrastination is putting things off until later), most often people with Internet addiction suffer. They wanted to embroider a picture with beads or start swimming in the pool. Now is the time to start fighting your fears and addictions!!! Don't forget to praise and encourage yourself for the work you've done. You can start keeping a diary of your achievements and write down your victories there, then you will clearly see the result of what you managed to achieve on your own. But it happens that you cannot get out of the state of addiction on your own, then psychotherapy can help you. A specialist working with addictions will help you choose a method to solve the problem, identify the cause and teach you how to work with addiction. But here I would like to immediately warn you that you need to carefully approach the choice of a specialist. Find out about his education and what addictions he works with. Beware of charlatans who may offer to solve your problem with pills or hypnosis. There are no magic pills that get rid of addictions; only the desire of the person himself and work on himself can help overcome this illness. Everything else doesn't work! A psychologist or psychotherapist will help you decide on the choice of psychotherapy. This can be group or individual psychotherapy. If children have computer addiction, this may include family psychotherapy. Everything will be based on the reason and the person’s readiness for this or that type of therapy. Take care of yourself and yours!