How to avoid Internet addiction

Three million Italians can't help but surf compulsively. Yet, a few simple steps are enough to avoid becoming intoxicated.

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the internet is bad and a waste of time
La Internet addiction It has different forms, some more serious, but they all converge towards a huge waste of health, time, and human relationships. Compulsively navigating the virtual world distances us from the real world, and prevents us from developing relationships and contacts that require encounters, places, and physical contact. But avoiding addiction doesn't mean giving up the internet—something that's absolutely impossible today (for all generations)—but simply regulating it with some limits, especially when the first symptoms of this form of intoxication appear.

Symptoms

There is now a vast literature on the various symptoms that characterize Internet addiction.
  • Stress, nervousness and irritability
  • Mood swings
  • Difficulty in following the natural day-night and sleep-wake cycle
  • Poor social relationships
  • Listlessness
  • Mental fatigue
  • Trends in searches for porn and gambling-related sites

Email addiction

Another source of addiction, and not just psychological, linked to the Internet is that of communicating through email. Who can give up email? Virtually no one. But if we become slaves to emails, checking them in real time, minute by minute, second by second, on our computer or cell phone, if we are prisoners of email, we have wasted time and we have entered, as scientific research also demonstrates, into the shadow of anxietyIn Italy, email inboxes are almost double the size of the population. And around the world, approximately 291 billion emails are sent every day. Email addiction is easily measured by our daily behavior: when we're affected, we start checking our emails as soon as we wake up, and we finish in the evening, before falling asleep (often even in bed, with our smartphone still on to scroll).

Why do we sail so much?

It is not true, and statistics prove it, that we are always forced to surf the Internet.

Many people do this for:

  • boredom
  • stress or anxiety
  • avoid real problems

Recognizing this is crucial: if you are struggling for one of these reasons, you need to address the cause rather than the behavior.

Tips to avoid addiction

And now we come to the tips to avoid being overwhelmed by the Internet.

  • Set a time limit on browsingAvoid it, for example, in the morning until you start your work and your brain isn't busy. And in the evening, after dinner, and before bed.
  • Set a limit in terms of space. You can leave your smartphone at the entrance when you return home. And in any case, never leave it at the table while you're eating, or in the living room while you're chatting with others.
  • Cyou try to do, during the day, some short breaks with mini-digital detox.
  • In offline time, When you have no other commitments, try to relax, find other ways to occupy your time (the musts are: reading, saving, sleeping) and dedicate yourself to cultivating your passions.
  • If they are not essential, Delete all notifications (emails, news, alerts): they only create anxiety.

Italians addicted to the Internet

According to the Italian Society of Psychiatry, approximately 3 million Italians can be considered Internet addicts (especially between 15 and 40 years old). In Europe approximately 28% of people say they are “almost always online”

Risks of compulsive social media use

Among the risks associated with the web and excessive internet use, social networks play a specific role, with specific dangers, as they are increasingly followed across various platforms by internet users. Among the most significant dangers:
  • Loss of privacy and unwitting disclosure of personal data to third parties, which is then likely sold or misused.
  • Falling into the traps of pedophiles, also due to narcissistic parents who fill social media pages with images of their underage children.
  • Identity theft and cyberbullying.
  • Image theft.
  • Confusion between virtual life and real life.
  • An exponential increase in social media connections, but a decline in real-life ones. With a growing isolation from others.
  • Loss of interest in other activities and other types of communication.

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