In addition to alcohol and nicotine, another major addiction that is being prevalent in the today’s society is the addiction of social media. You must have seen as how many Facebook friends update their status on a regular basis. As per a prediction, Facebook has already reached 1 billion users by August 2012 and Twitter is reported to have 100 million active users as of September 2011.
Extent of Internet addiction
61 percent of the people comprising of every age group feel addicted to the internet. Out of both the sexes, the female respondents are more likely to feel addicted than males. According to a survey, only 43.13 % U.S. population used the internet in the year 2000 but today, every four out of five people are online.
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Men versus women internet users
According to BroadbandExpert.com, both men and women consider internet access as an important parameter among all the daily activities. Both the sexes were reported to use the internet for various day to day activities such as email, working, educational research, social networking, news, online shopping, gaming and watching movies. About 48 % of men and 46 % of women spent more than twenty six hours of time online every week.
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Facebook psychology
Recently Taiwan, Korea and China have identified Internet Addiction as a psychological problem. More than 25 % of teens in these countries are considered to be addicted to the internet, mainly to the social media and the online gaming. Research shows that the people addicted to internet have 10 to 20 percent smaller brain areas that are responsible for the speech, memory, motor control and other sensory information. In the year 2013, United States will also consider internet addiction as a real psychological disorder.
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Role of Smartphones in internet addiction
According to survey report, 65 % of people curiously said that they can’t live without their iPhone. 40 % of the people said that they would rather give up coffee than the Smartphones. According to a Nielsen study, the various applications of the Smartphones that people download and use are related to different categories such as games, weather, music, social networking, maps, entertainment, finance and shopping etc.
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Internet addiction disorder
The internet addiction has a profound effect on our mental circumstances. According to a research report, the average attention spans of humans have dropped by 40 percent since the year 2000. The average amount of time that the teens spend in front of a computer screen has risen from 3.43 hours per day to 7 hours per day.
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