Are you one the few suffering from Internet Addiction? Surprisingly if you type in google “Internet Addiction” there are 1,260,000 search results for this word.

The few most common patterns from an Internet Marketing, Web Development Professional (me) perspective that I find most addicting is:

1. Turning off the computer

2. Wanting to check emails continuously, particularly from clients.

3. Checking clients rankings continuously to see if the keywords they are ranking for are increasing in the search engines.

4. Submitting links continuously to websites, directories, forums, blogs and social sites and tweaking SEO as much as I can.

5. Reading the News, Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Tech sites to be up to date with the latest information.

6. To continuously work whether it means finding new clients, designing websites, programming, development, preparing invoices or SEO, I am driven to succeed past the success level and further to success that success has no meaning.

7. Buying and Selling Domain names - There are always great bargains or domainers wanting to flip a good domain which I always try not to miss.

8. Buying Websites - I rarely buy websites, but it’s more like I don’t want to miss a great business opportunity if I can find a bargain website of interest for sale.

The type of symptom I feel when I am not doing all of this, is I feel that I could be missing out on something which has not been acted to immediately or I have not found because I was away from the computer.

I was also amazed to see that there really is alot behind the addiction noted by Bratter and Forest which define addiction as “a behavior pattern of compulsive drug use characterized by overwhelming involvement… with the use of a drug and the securing of the supply, as well as the tendency to relapse after completion of withdrawal.

Like all other addictions, Internet addiction is a psychophysiological disorder involving tolerance (the same amount of usage elicits less response; increased amounts become necessary to evoke the same amount of pleasure), withdrawal symptoms especially, tremors, anxiety, and moodiness), affective disturbances (depression, irritability), and interruption of social relationships (a decline or loss, either in quality or quantity). Well im lucky I have an understanding wife here.

But none the less I think if you are happy with what you do, the addiction is worth it all!

Let’s all not feel embarressed here, can anyone else express how they feel or if you have an addiction I would like to hear about what it is that brings you back to the world of the web.