Former Theories

The Cause of Internet and TV Addiction?

www.causeof.org

Former Theories

Theory #1

Internet Addiction is Caused by a Desire to Increase Alertness

Internet addiction is caused by a desire to increase alertness.

Desire to Increase Alertness

A decrease in hemispheric communication leads to a desire to improve alertness.

Hemispheric Communication

A decrease in hemispheric communication may be caused by:

· fatigue, illness, prolonged close-up work, convergence insufficiency

· anxiety, accommodative insufficiency, muscle tension, etc.

An Increase in Alertness

A person's alertness may be increased by participating in activities which involve vigilance.

Activities which Involve Vigilence

Some examples of computer activities which involve vigilance may include playing computer games, shopping, or waiting for the computer, or another user, to respond to a user's request.

In this state of vigilance a person's alertness improves, while their mobility decreases. This decrease in mobility is referred to below as 'immobility'

Immobility

"[making a conscious effort to see clearly] is commonly accompanied by some degree of immobility of the eyes and body. The rate of blinking decreases; breathing becomes shallower and may, for a while, even stop. The muscles of the head, neck, shoulders, and perhaps other parts of the body too, may be unnaturally tensed, and all the time the eyes are fixed with increasing intentness on their target. As the eyes become fixed so does the attention, which only encourages the eyes to become yet more fixed, with a resulting impairment of both vision and perception.(P. 59)"

Book: Barnes, Jonathan. Improve Your Eyesight: A Guide to the Bates Method for Better Eyesight without Glasses. Souvenir Press, 1999.

Effects of Improved Focus and Immobility

Improved focus and immobility, while staring at a computer screen, leads to the conditions described above in the section 'Hemispheric Communication', and the cycle continues.

Habituation Causes Cognitive Dissonance and Dissociation

Habituation occurs as a person is repeatedly subjected to a stimulus, and their Orienting Reponse (OR) diminishes.

"With repeated presentations of a novel event the OR becomes weaker and weaker until it no longer occurs. Sokolov termed this gradual decrement in the OR with repeated presentations of a novel stimulus ‘habituation’. You might recognize this as a process called ‘familiarization’." http://publish.radford.edu/~jsking/Orienting%20Response.doc

"Producers of educational television for children have found that formal features can help learning. But increasing the rate of cuts and edits eventually overloads the brain. Music videos and commercials that use rapid intercutting of unrelated scenes are designed to hold attention more than they are to convey information. People may remember the name of the product or band, but the details of the ad itself float in one ear and out the other. The orienting response is overworked. Viewers still attend to the screen, but they feel tired and worn out, with little compensating psychological reward. Our ESM findings show much the same thing."

Scientific American: Television Addiction Is No Mere Metaphor

Once a state of habituation has been reached, a stimulus is no longer processed at a conscious level. It is instead processed at an subconscious level.

"What’s the big deal??? If one learns that the tone is unimportant and no longer processes it, then how is it that a change can be detected? While we may not consciously process the tone (and it no longer gets our attention) our brain must be processing the tone (albeit at a subconscious level) in order to detect the change." http://publish.radford.edu/~jsking/Orienting%20Response.doc

Some Examples of Habituation

· Consciously talking to someone while another conversation occurs in the background (mentioned on the web page referenced above)

· Reading a web page in which there is a provocative advertisement banner in the background

· Reading a web page with a brightly colored background, such as the color white. While someone consciously reads the text, their subconscious mind may focus on the bright background.

· Listening to the dialog or music of a television commercial while special effects such as flashing are perceived by the subconscious mind

· Someone listing to the dialog of a television or a radio commercial while distracting music is played at the same time.

· Listening to the radio while working or driving a car

This situation where a stimulus is no longer processed at a conscious level, but at an subconscious level, has similarities with traumatic dissociation.

"With increasing myelination we develop an ever more stereoscoping and coherent view of ourselves and our history. However, in traumatic dissociation a functional split recurs or intensifies between the hemispheres. The lack of self- awareness of the right brain is now used to protect the left brain and its linguistic consciousness from being overwhelmed. This is done by dissociation of traumatic information and storing it in nonverbal codes in the right brain. Joseph says, ".. our traumas [and] fears.. are mediated .. by the limbic system, [and] the non-linguistic, social-emotional right brain. And.. these experiences are stored in the memory banks of the right cerebrum.""

http://www.trauma-pages.com/valent-2001.htm

This "functional split" described by Paul Valent is similar to cognitive dissonance theory, as described below.

"Two cognitions are said to be dissonant if one cognition follows from the opposite of another. What happens to people when they discover dissonant cognitions? The answer to this question forms the basic postulate of Festinger¹s theory. A person who has dissonant or discrepant cognitions is said to be in a state of psychological dissonance, which is experienced as unpleasant psychological tension. This tension state has drivelike properties that are much like those of hunger and thirst. When a person has been deprived of food for several hours, he/she experiences unpleasant tension and is driven to reduce the unpleasant tension state that results. Reducing the psychological sate of dissonance is not as simple as eating or drinking however." http://www.ithaca.edu/faculty/stephens/cdback.html

3. When surfing the internet…

The right brain is stimulated by the movement of computer animations, flashing lights/advertisements, and the brightness of the monitor.

After spending too much time sitting in front of a bright monitor…

The left brain becomes tired of the movement of computer animations, flashing lights/advertisements, and the brightness of the monitor. Left brain activity decreases.

"Producers of educational television for children have found that formal features can help learning. But increasing the rate of cuts and edits eventually overloads the brain…Viewers still attend to the screen, but they feel tired and worn out, with little compensating psychological reward. Our ESM findings show much the same thing."

Scientific American article

Eyestrain develops in the right eye. I believe that eyestrain develops more in the right eye because 55% of the optic nerve crosses over from the right eye to the left brain. Maybe this occurs in left-brain dominant people only.

The right brain continues to be stimulated by the movement of computer animations, flashing lights/advertisements, and the brightness of the monitor.

Without the left brain to process visual input, dissonant cognitions are dumped into the right brain (Cognitive Dissonance Theory). This causes a state of confusion, dissociation, and obsession.

4 Emotional trauma can cause cognitive dissonance and traumatic dissociation.

Traumatic dissociation is characterized by "illogical emotions, illusions, and delusions."

Emotional trauma can also cause panic disorder. Photophobia is a symptom of panic disorder.

I believe that some people become obsessed with the Internet because they suffer from "illogical emotions, illusions, and delusions". I also believe that, because of the brightness of computer monitors, photophobia will exacerbate their condition. (Of course, someone suffering from photophobia may also be affected by other light sources, such as sunlight.)

5 Internet and TV addiction manifests in people suffering from Hypervigilence. For someone suffering from Hypervigilence, being subjected to the provocative stimuli which can be seen on the Internet or television can cause a release of endorphins.

For more information about this theory please visit the Research Topics page.

For More Information

Traumatic Dissociation

…

"When functioning well, the right brain is a source of inspirations, intuition, and creativity. When it strains to make meaning of the fearful and meaningless, it becomes the source of apparently illogical emotions, illusions, and delusions. "

http://www.trauma-pages.com/valent-2001.htm

Cognitive Dissonance Theory:

http://www.ithaca.edu/faculty/stephens/cdback.html

Photophobia and Panic Disorder

"While many of the commonly known biological origins of anxiety and panic disorder symptoms are identified, such as mitral valve prolapse, hyperthyroidism, and hypoglycemia, other physical problems or reactions, which play a similar role, are addressed as well. Some persons with panic disorder, for example, may find that glaring sunlight or bright indoor lights (such as those in supermarkets or shopping malls) may help trigger a panic attack. This is known as photophobia, and wearing sunglasses may reduce the risk of an attack. Crowd noise, bright displays or other aggressive stimuli may also contribute to panic attacks in these situations."

http://www.opendoorsinstitute.com/pages/bookrevw.html

This is one of my former theories about the cause of Internet Addiction.

6 'Brainwave Entrainment' Theory

David Siever, who I mention on this page, believes that most people can only be entrained by a maximum frequency of 23 Hz. Others have told me that exposure to flicker at 60 Hz, such as a computer monitor, can cause some entrainment, but not much. Of course, some people are more sensitive than others, and conditions such as the brightness, resolution, and the maximum number of colors of a display can affect the perception of flicker.

After reading part of a book called "The Rediscovery of Audio-Visual Entrainment" by David Siever, I believed that some computer monitors might cause a decrease in brainwave (also spelled brain wave) frequencies if not set up properly.

I have wrote a letter to David Siever, which I have included below. I continued to edit the letter as I learned more about Neurofeedback.

* LETTER *

Dear David Siever, C.E.T.,

My name is Christopher McPeck. The other day as I was browsing the Internet I came across part of the chapter entitled 'The History of Audio-Visual Entrainment' from your book "The Rediscovery of Audio-Visual Entrainment at:

http://users.pandora.be/top.sales.bvba/Comptronic-Web/HistoryAVE.htm

I was very interested in the fourth paragraph, which I have included below:

"It is important that I clarify the distinction between "cortical evoked response" (CER), and brainwave entrainment. The CER is the brain's response related to its processing a single stimulus. This "kick" of the brain occurs approximately 100 milliseconds (msec) following the stimulus, and the CER usually occurs only once, until the next stimulus. The evoked response is generally mixed with other brain activity. However, when the stimulus is repeated continuously above four Hz, the brain begins to "resonate" with the stream of stimuli and the resultant brainwave response is of the same frequency as the stimuli. The entraining brainwave occurs best at one's own natural alpha frequency (between 9 and 11 Hz). This leaves the brain little time to inject its own activity in between the continuous evoked responses, causing a decrease in all other brainwave frequencies. Depending on the waveform of the stimuli, a second or third harmonic may be seen on an EEG."

I am interested in this paragraph because I have recently discovered numerous articles on the Internet, which state that if a some computer monitors' refresh rates are less than 75 Hz, eye strain can occur.

The fact that a low refresh rate can cause eyestrain has been common knowledge for years. Some people are more sensitive to flicker than others, and require a higher refresh rate. However, a refresh rate greater than 100 Hz may may cause problems with eye movement. I have included an article below, which defines refresh rate. I found this article at: http://www.eizo.co.jp/welcome/support/faqs/crt/qa12.html

"What is a refresh rate and why is a monitor's refresh rate important?

An image appears on screen when electron beams strike the surface of the screen in a zig-zag pattern. A refresh rate is the number of times a screen is redrawn in one second and is measured in Hertz (Hz). Therefore, a monitor with a refresh rate of 85 Hz is redrawn 85 times per second. A monitor should be "flicker-free meaning that the image is redrawn quickly enough so that the user cannot detect flicker, a source of eye strain. Today, a refresh rate of 75 Hz or above is considered to be flicker-free.

In addition to eyestrain, I now believe that a low refresh rate, that would allow the user to detect flicker, could cause brainwave entrainment as you described in your book, and cause "a decrease in all other brainwave frequencies". Brainwave entrainment is also known as 'frequency following response'.

In the first paragraph of the chapter 'The History of Audio-Visual Entrainment' you wrote:

"Michael Hutchison, author of "Megabrain", summed it up well by stating that "the knowledge that a flickering light can cause mysterious visual hallucinations and alterations in consciousness is something that humans have known since the discovery of fire."

I have included a description of Internet addiction below, which I found in the article "Log On, Tune In, Drop Out" by Rose Pike of ABC at:

ABC News: 'Log On, Tune In, Drop Out' by Rose Pike

"What accounts for the pull of the this formidable medium? “The visual thing is the biggie,” says Greenfield. Reading e-mail or chatting is like getting “love letters, but the words can be even more powerful than words on paper, because when people stare at a screen, they experience a trancelike dissociative quality, a hypnotic effect.”"

After reading this, I also believe that a low refresh rate may be a contributing factor to Internet addiction.

I am very interested in hearing your opinions.

Thank you for your time.

Christopher McPeck

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