Imagine that you move into your new dorm room only to find that your internet connection isn’t working. Do you feel a little frustrated, mildly anxious, or totally panicked?

If you chose Option C, you might just be an internet addict. Don’t laugh—a growing number of doctors believe that internet addiction is a serious problem, one that’s on par with established dependencies like alcoholism and compulsive shopping. There’s even a brand-new internet rehab center in Fall City, Washington called reSTART that aims to cure netheads of their wicked ways in just 45 days by reconnecting them to “the real world.” Ironically, the treatment center is located less than 20 minutes away from Microsoft’s corporate headquarters in Redmond.

So far, reSTART has treated a grand total of one patient: 19-year-old Ben Alexander, who says that he used to spend up to 17 hours playing World of Warcraft before he checked in. Ben’s paying a whopping $14,500 for the privilege of participating in rehab activities like “Discovery Quest” and “Weekly Shopping/Planning” (seriously, look at reSTART’s sample daily schedule). That’s more than the price of tuition for PA residents at Penn State’s flagship campus.

Don’t get me wrong—I definitely agree that spending 70% of your day slaying goblins online (or whatever it is people do in World of Warcraft) certainly isn’t healthy. Still, I’m skeptical about the whole idea of “internet addiction.” As two psychologists point out here, it makes as much sense to say that people are addicted to the things they’re doing on the internet—gambling, chatting, even looking at porn—as it does to say that they’re addicted to the internet itself. And underlying problems like chronic depression are likely what prompt so-called internet addicts to act the way they do; unless those issues are treated, just quitting the internet cold turkey isn’t likely to make them any happier.

Then again, it’s possible that I’m dismissing the idea of internet addiction because I’m worried that I’m a borderline web junkie myself. When I traveled this summer to a country where my iPhone didn’t work, I did get nervous about the fact that I couldn’t check my email as often as I usually do—around every fifteen minutes. Maybe I should go ahead and take the internet addiction test (sample question: “How often do you block out disturbing thoughts about your life with soothing thoughts of the Internet?”). I’ll let you guys know how it goes.

Does it seem funny to anyone else that the only way to find out whether you’re addicted to the internet is by taking a test that’s only available… on the internet?

I write the following with the understanding that no matter how annoying Facebook can be, it will never be more annoying than Myspace. (Editor’s Note: I am not so sure…) And I will not stop using Facebook because of these things.

10. People You May Know. Otherwise known as “People that you don’t know well enough to be friends with”, “People who have rejected your friend request”, or “People you hate and would never friend even if their lives somehow depended on you friending them.” Facebook has been around long enough that if you haven’t found your friend yet, and he or she hasn’t found you, then you probably aren’t very good friends to begin with.

9. The Mini-Feed. Because you need constant reminder of the things you’ve recently done or said. Or applications you’ve added. Or songs you’ve listened to. Or things you’ve edited. The mini feed takes up like ¼ of your page (unless you are a dirty application whore: see below) and when you try to delete things, it keeps adding other things from days and weeks ago.

8. The Education and Work box. I say this is annoying, but it’s honestly the first thing I look at on someone else’s page. I do it because I am a masochist and I like to hurt myself by seeing how well these people that I hardly know are doing in places that I would love to move to.

7. Bikini profile pictures. Yes, you are young and skinny and attractive and you have great times at the beach with your girlfriends. I get it.

6. Picture-takers. One of my best friends is one of these people and has, last count, 60 photo albums on her page. 60! That’s not 60 pictures, 60 albums. And so, on any given day, there will be ten or twenty new pictures of her on my news feed. I love her to death, and I never tire of her face, but girlfriend has 1462 pictures on facebook. Seems a tad much.

5. People who spend too much time on facebook. And totally take over my news feed with twelve different, whiny status updates a day (“Douchebag Jones…is still in love with her.” “Douchebag Jones…wishes she knew how this feels”) and the copious addition of applications. Which leads me to…

4. People who update facebook with the minutiae of their lives. “Douchebag is sleeping”, “Douchebag is eating cheese” “Douchebag is playing World of Warcraft”. “Douchebag feels lonely”.

3. People who have way, way too many applications on their page. Applications make the page totally unreadable and impossible to navigate, not to mention totally obnoxious and boring. I propose a 5-application limit. Which leads me to…

2. Stupid g*ddamn applications. Flair, pin-up quizzes, movies, books, causes, werewolves, vampires, scrabulous, Entourage, super walls, heroes ability, which Sex and the City character are you?, lolcats, growing pets—all. too. much. And totally uninteresting to anyone that goes on your page. And honestly, do you keep up with them? My least favorite one is the compare people application, because there is always that one friend that is #1 in everything! Makes me feel like crap.

1. Application invites. They make me turn-into-the-hulk mad. I don’t want to be on your zombie army and I don’t care what stupid thing you have written on my fun wall. And if I wanted to see what superlative you nominated me for, I have to download the whole effing application to do so. And then the application tricks you into sending invites to everyone on your friends list who, if they are anything like me, will resent you for it. And I’ve yet to find the “turn off all application invites” option if such a thing exists.

Getting that off my chest should make me feel better, but I find myself so. tense. Maybe one of my friends will send me a FB drink to make me feel better….

Video games can be, well, addicting. God knows how many late nights I spent trying get out of that one dungeon, or unlock that one sword, or kept saying to myself, “Just one more level…” Still, I draw my limits on things like World of Warcraft.

In case you aren’t up on the MMORPG (that’s Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Game) front, World of Warcraft is the most popular MMO out there, with well over six million – yes, million – players. I know people who are hopelessly addicted, people who have no social life, people who dropped out of school so that they could spend more hours playing Warcraft. So when I read about a married couple of six years that divorced because of this game, I could only say one thing.

Wow.

Jocelyn and Peter had been sweethearts since they were 13. They got married in 2002. in 2004, Jocelyn decided to buy Peter WOW for Christmas. As time passed, he got predictably more hooked. They reportedly starting having real issues in May. Issues like the fact that as soon as Peter got home from work, he got straight on the computer and didn’t get off until it was time to go to bed.

Issues like him not doing his share of work around the house or even so much as paying bills. Issues like the time when Jocelyn tried to set aside a meager 30 minutes to watch TV with her husband, and Peter couldn’t dare pry himself away from his computer.

Jocelyn moved out in September, and even though they’re split, Peter still plays WOW, even though he reportedly is weaning himself. I don’t buy it.

I refuse to play WOW. It isn’t the fact that the game upsets me, and I’m sure if I played it, I’d adore it. My issue is that I know how quickly and easily I get addicted to video games. I was bad enough with MapleStory, a free, more cartoonish version of WOW, and the only reason I quit that was because the server it uses is blocked on my campus.

The server WOW uses isn’t blocked, because so many people play it. I know quite a few people who play, and though some of them still have healthy social lives – like R. and A., two friends of mine who are a very happy couple that play WOW together – some are clearly hopelessly addicted.

I, however, will not be touching World of Warcrack. I have nothing against the people who play it, don’t get me wrong. Still, I know I’d get hooked. People who are easily addicted would be wise to stay away from any MMORPG, and may want to find safety in a game that does eventually end. As for me, I’ll stay away. I wouldn’t want to danger any of my relationships because of a video game. (And hell, my girlfriend already hates it when I play Guitar Hero; I’m pretty sure she’d drop me like a hot potato if I signed up for Warcraft.)