Online Dating Addiction: Signs and Recovery

03.09.2018

Over the past decade, the Internet has become an integral part of life for the majority of the population. Today, any modern person at least once a day visits the World Wide Web for communication, work or simply searching for the necessary information. Undoubtedly, the Internet is of great importance in the modern world and brings great benefit to mankind: as an inexhaustible source of information, an accessible way of acquiring skills and knowledge, as an indispensable assistant in work and business, as a means of conducting and planning of leisure, as a place for acquaintances and a way of maintaining communication. The Internet facilitates the selection and purchase of necessary goods and services, and also allows saving on these purchases...

Well, okay, I will not list all the advantages and benefits of this realm of unlimited possibilities, you already know them. In this article, I would like to talk about one negative aspect accompanying the spread of the Internet in the world - Internet addiction, while mainly focusing on online dating addiction.

What is Online Dating Addiction

Internet addiction is a disorder in the psyche, accompanied by a large number of behavioral problems and, in general, is the inability of a person to leave the web in time. It is also the constant presence of an obsessive desire to enter. Dating addiction is just a form of it.

Online dating sites focus on people's problems with communication. The lack of social and communication skills immerses them in a virtual world that replaces them with a circle of friends. Those are being the main signs of online dating addiction. Researchers studying the phenomenon of Internet addiction found that people who haven’t been caught into the "web" of the Internet as well as those who have, get in touch with friends and relatives online (although their main purpose of being in the "web" is to search for information), but this communication is mainly limited only to the maintenance of existing contacts. People addicted to online dating, however, tend to socialize at the expense of new acquaintances.

Online dating addiction statistics say that to a large extent this certainly applies to people of adolescence, and not only because they grew up in the age of the Internet. The reason for the emergence of Internet addiction in adolescents is the period of hormonal adjustment of the body, when it becomes problematic for young people to communicate, make new acquaintances, establish contacts with the opposite sex (of course, this does not apply to everyone, but it does to many).

Communication on the Internet gives teenagers the opportunity to exist in the images of their dreams, and without going beyond the boundaries of these images, to realize that necessary and desirable, yet impossible in reality, communicative activity. This is the main cause of Internet addiction in teenagers, and the provoking factor that stimulates the development of this dependence is anonymity and the inability to verify how much information about one’s self is valid.

Another reason for the appearance of Internet addiction, which is closely related to the previous one, is the impossibility of self-expression. A man with difficulty expressing his thoughts, unable to defend his point of view, fearful of public appearances, afraid of condemnation of a real society, in general, a man unsure of himself, can safely say on the web everything that is bothering him, without the fear of disapproval and misunderstanding.

Another closely related type of Internet addiction is the so-called cybersex addiction - it is an obsession with viewing porn films on the web and cybersex. It is common among men addicted to online dating.

While seemingly innocuous, dating app addiction is a very serious problem. Today, many married couples break up or stand on the verge of collapse because one of the spouses is addicted to dating sites to satisfy their sexual needs via the Internet. People who suffer from this dependence do not have enough time for ordinary communication, so the emotional gap in relations with real people is gradually increasing - family, children, friends, work and study fade into the background, while internet dating site addiction takes over a person.

Recently, the popular English newspaper The Daily Mail published the opinion of a number of scientists, which said that online pornography gave rise to a younger generation, unable to be excited in the course of normal sexual contacts. The publication concluded that impotence is younger now and is no longer a problem for only middle-aged and elderly people.

What causes dating site addiction? Generally, it is sexual dissatisfaction (both for teenagers beginning sexual life and for people of all ages), deterioration of sexual relations with partners, lack of communication, disagreement in a family. The Internet features (accessibility, anonymity, permissiveness, lack of commitment and psychological need adjust to a partner) only contribute to the emergence of internet dating site addiction.

Signs of Online Dating Addiction

We can consider the following to be the main online dating addiction signs:

• You feel great joy before each new session, and without Internet access, you experience sadness and despondency. That is the most straightforward of the online dating addiction signs.
• You cannot be dragged from the monitor by the ears, and you cannot be lured out on any pretext.
• You do not go outside, rarely meet with friends, i.e. slowly lose contact with people offline.
• You constantly update a page on social networks, often check e-mail, an account on a dating site, etc.
• You discuss computer topics, even with people who are hardly competent in this field.
• You lose the sense of time. Expecting to spend a few minutes, you get stuck in front of the screen for several hours and do not notice how fast the time flies.
• During Internet surfing, you forget about job duties, studies, home affairs, meetings, and arrangements.
• You do not visit websites to find the information you need but go to them aimlessly and mechanically.
• Spend a lot of money on the Internet, as well as to ensure constant updates, both various computer devices, and software. You also try to hide it from your family.
• At the physiological level, you feel the consequences of prolonged sitting in front of a computer: pain in the eyes, aches in the joints, disturbance of sleep and diet.
• You experience the influence of information from the web on your psychological well-being - negative news or messages cause a storm of negative emotions in you, such as rage, sadness or anxiety.
• Notice how close people are increasingly beginning to express their indignation over the fact that you spend too much time on the Internet. And this is a clear sign of Internet addiction. The most excessive interest in the Internet can be difficult to notice.

Online Dating Addiction Recovery

So how exactly do you stop online dating addiction? What is the path of online dating addiction recovery?

Not surprisingly, the treatment of Internet addiction has become part of the job of psychologists and psychiatrists, because people with unhealthy cravings for the "World Wide Web" is becoming more and more prevalent. Dependence on the Internet affects both men and women, both young (to a greater extent) and adult citizens, and their number is growing every year. The inability to get rid of the internet addiction leads those unsuspecting of the negative consequences of the online life users to medical institutions, where they are treated for mental disorders that have become a manifestation of attachment to the Internet, and not from Internet addiction, since the diagnosis "Internet addiction" does not exist yet.

However, if the international community has not yet fully realized the scale of the disaster, in some countries, Internet addiction is officially recognized as a disease and its treatment is sometimes carried out with very radical methods. So, for example, in China, where the first clinic for the treatment of Internet addiction appeared back in 2005, patients are assigned an electric shock - a device giving a voltage of thirty volts to the body. That is quite a savage way, in my opinion, to handle online dating addiction recovery.

When contacting the clinic, Chinese specialists first conduct a diagnosis for the person's dependence. Further, medication, acupuncture and physical exercise are prescribed. In such clinics, a strict schedule is set for patients: within 10-15 days (that's how long the treatment lasts on average) a person gets up at six in the morning, goes in for sports, sings laudatory songs, takes antidepressants and gets discharges of electric current. Also, in China there are special barracks camps for teenagers under 18 years old. There they are brought by parents for up to six months. All this time, teenagers, who are dependent on the Internet, are on the territory of the centers, study the training system and, like adults, they are treated with electricity discharges.

Such an Internet dependence treatment is not understood in the world, and even some local doctors are against it, especially if it concerns the treatment of children: "Such methods are too cruel, and on the contrary, they inflict deep psychological trauma on children, nevertheless, they are used everywhere. Today in China there are many clinics for the treatment of Internet addiction. Most of them are practically uncontrolled by anyone and are not professional, "says a well-known Chinese psychologist from Beijing, Tao Hunkai.

In Finland, the internet addicts are treated with greater pity, they are provided with a respite from military service: "For teenagers, day and night playing online games and having a Facebook account, instead of real friends, military service can be a great shock" - says one of the military commanders of Finland, Jirka Kiwels.

But in the end, the Internet is of great benefit, and this article is only a warning, so it should not be concluded that the Network is unconditionally dangerous and harmful. Educate yourself in the culture of Internet use, make this realm of unlimited possibilities a means to achieve goals and solve real, not virtual tasks. Use the World Wide Web to acquire the necessary and important skills (for example, to learn English or to learn fast typing, etc.) and to obtain information of practical importance.