Quoted in the short read but invariably the most accurate piece of information found in research regarding Online Addiction thusfar, New Yorker writer Maria Konnikova in her article Is Internet Addiction A Real Thing stated that with how the Internet, "is changing too rapidly for researchers to keep up, and, though the immediate effects are fairly visible, there's no telling what the condition [of Internet addiction] will look like over the long term."
Patricia Netzley's small book, topically titled Online Addiction is a useful overview in regards to its subject matter. Navigating the unsettled dust of digital existence overlapping with physical, nails it quite nicely on the head as it would seem in its short explanations. The addiction to online activity she purports stems from a variety of converging factors offline-- other mental ailments and compulsive habits-- and the Internet becoming merely another notch to scratch onto the belt; like the habitual masturbator's case divulged by Anne Lembke in her book Dopamine Nation. Where it would seem outdated however, and differing from other addictions is that within the modern scape of acknowledging addiction to the Internet there is a high awareness of it, to the point of extreme meta-irony rather than shameful admissions of guilt from the acquired compulsions. Why have shame over something so nearly unavoidable with its constant proximity and accessibility?
The book is beneficial nonetheless, and in fact as aforementioned acknowledges its almost instantaneous out-dated data as the landscape of the World Wide Web is so constantly updating and changing shape.
Coagulating an explanation based on current affairs and contents of the book however is seemingly possible: in the modern epoch of all-access abundance mixed with incessant, near constant 'once-in-a-lifetime generational events', and all-around volume seemingly at maximum screaming coming together in moments of stillness; boredom as the being is so used to being under some form of strain, duress, that scrolling provides sufficient stimulation. Stagnant, seemingly social yet altogether solitary after an hour sitting on the toilet, screen in between knees.
In shorter, less wordy detail the gist of Netzley's book is that extreme boredom in a more lax era of existence is to an ape with an evolved overactive imagination.
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