With a week to go in the holiday shopping season, it’s evident some of the hot ticket items are computer related gizmos and gadgets.

Out of the roughly 260 billion to be spent by Americans this holiday season, and around ten percent of this is expected to be on electronics, many of which are related in some way to computer use.

So here’s something to think about: are we fueling a rise in internet addiction with the gift wrapping of software and laptops?

This is like a lot of things that can turn into addictions; it slowly creeps up on people.

Internet addiction is often a grey area; but with all the surfing and downloading being done these days, not doubt, some people are spending a pathological amount of time on the computer, to the detriment of the important remainder of their lives.

And this holiday season, we might very well be promoting a problem through our purchases for loved ones.

“I was thinking of getting him a computer, a lap top because he needs one and he doesn’t have one,” says Kristen, a holiday shopper about her fiancé.

Troy says, “Maybe I’d like adobe photo shop if I had to come up with something so, so something high tech.”

Brian adds, “I think I am going to get myself an I-pod this year.”

So when does all that surfing and emailing and downloading become a downright addiction?

Dr. Eric Hollander, a psychiatrist with the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, has studied and treats folks with internet addiction. He says, “We found that on average people spend about 35 hours per week in unnecessary internet usage and on average when people come into see us they have had this problem for three years and it is significantly interferes with their social relationships and it really detracts from their work related function and it really does interfere with their social functioning as well.”

If a person is spending more and more time on line and maybe having a hard time cutting back, he or she may have signs of internet addiction and maybe you want to rethink buying something that might contribute to the problem.

“It gets to be a problem with instead of doing their work they are stuck on the internet and it is really interfering with their performance at work, instead of spending time with their wife or husband at night they are down in the office at night spending many, many hours on the internet searching for information, or addicted to pornography on the web,” says Dr. Hollander.

And Dr. Hollander says the holiday season can be a particularly difficult time, especially with the explosion of e-commerce. People are either buying for others or themselves.

“We know there are some people who have compulsive shopping problems and in fact compulsive shopping is pretty similar to this internet addiction. So people can spend endless amount of time searching for electronic paraphernalia or I-pods things like that on the internet,” Dr. Hollander states.

That’s not to say these internet items are all bad. In fact they can be educational and enhance our lives.

But as with anything else--be it holiday spirits, or holiday food--the internet should be used in moderation.

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