Are We Addicted To the Internet?

ARE WE ADDICTED TO THE INTERNET? 68.9% The Internet is a tool that many of us use on a day-to-day basis. We use it to communicate, interact socially, keep up-to-date with news, play games look up information and provides us with an un-ending supply of inspiration and entertainment. These days we are spending more and time online not of US residents are considered regular internet users* just at home, but at work and on mobile phones too. Are we becoming addicted to the Internet? 13.7% 8.7% 5.9% find it hard to stay away conceal non-essential use from family and friends of relationships suffer as a result of excessive use from the Internet for a few days While the American Medical Association has yet to officially classify Internet addiction as a recognized mental health disorder, the statistics show that this certainly a serious issue – with potentially dangerous side effects. Between 5% and 10% of Web surfers suffer from some form of Web dependency. 00000 1 in 8 individuals show signs of problematic use 1.8 billion 2000 million 1500 1 billion 1000 E 393 million 500 39 million 2 million Total number of Internet users worldwide 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 Year 27 billion hours September 2009 That's the equivalent of one person online for 3 million years Time spent online per month 3.9 billion hours 2.5 billion hours 1.7 billion hours 1.4 billion hours Microsoft sites Google sites Yahoo sites Facebook 22 billion hours September 2008 67% of employees admitted using the Internet for personal reasons during work hours 60% of companies had disciplined employees for inappropriate Internet use 30% of companies had fired employees due to inappropriate Internet use News Internet in the Workplace** Gambling 6% 8% 18% 23% 24% Auctions Pornography Online shopping Daily Internet activity on mobile phones per month (US) 63.2 million access news or information on their phone each month 22.4 million do so, daily 9.3 million Social networks 10.8 million did so in '08 3.3 million Finance 2.5 million Business 22.4 million 5.5 million 3.1 million Movie information News and info Entertainment news Sources: Internetworldstat.com Netaddiction.com Stanford University's School of Medicine Cyber Psychology and Behaviour Journal Comscore World Bank Flowtown. Tech Crunch