Confessions of an Internet Addict

Newsweek's latest cover story deals with digital addictions, and the mental health risks associated with them. Money quote:

The brains of Internet addicts, it turns out, look like the brains of drug and alcohol addicts. In a study published in January, Chinese researchers found “abnormal white matter”—essentially extra nerve cells built for speed—in the areas charged with attention, control, and executive function. A parallel study found similar changes in the brains of videogame addicts. And both studies come on the heels of other Chinese results that link Internet addiction to “structural abnormalities in gray matter,” namely shrinkage of 10 to 20 percent in the area of the brain responsible for processing of speech, memory, motor control, emotion, sensory, and other information. And worse, the shrinkage never stopped: the more time online, the more the brain showed signs of “atrophy.”

According to the experts on addiction, one of the more telling signs is spending more than 38 hours online per week. By that measure, as the author points out, we're all addicts now. What's more, there would be little point in trying to deflect these findings. I feel the brain rewiring happening, too: the way we think has been completely altered. It's a very small thing I've noticed, but these days, when I'm having trouble sleeping, I will reach first for my perennially-present iPhone in search of a quick Twitter hit; only once I'm satisfied that the digital realm has been properly surveyed will I reach for a book —which, it must be said, is the ideal late-night tonic.

Alexis Madrigal feels this too, and expresses it in a rather fancy third-person prose style:

There was no doubt that he felt the magnetic power of his phone and its tentacled apps at inappropriate times (dinner, watching movies, Christmas Eve). There was no doubt that sometimes the medium overtook the messages. He would tweet something solely so it would be retweeted. He would check Instagram twice in 10 minutes. The means to connect would become an ends; the feedback mechanism, the game mechanic, would flatten real connections into numbers. This quantified social life was much less rewarding and rich than he wanted it to be, but it was cheap (time is money).