Internet Addiction: A Public Health Crisis?

Is the Internet addicting? Is reading? Or learning? Or teaching? We can lose ourselves online, or find ourselves. We can do harm, or good. We can be brainwashed, or influence. The net’s a tool, not a disease. It’s a disruptive force, but conservative & risk-averse individuals and organizations often avoid innovation & disruptive change. It makes new things possible – scary to some; enlightening and empowering to others.

I posted the above paragraph on my Facebook wall and as a reader comment to Internet Addiction: A Public Health Crisis?, an article by Michael Friedman, L.M.S.W. Friedman is  Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia University’s schools of social work and public health. He writes regularly about health issues for Huffington Post and has given me permission to include some of his stories here. In this case, however, I’d rather you read the article at Huffington Post.