Internet Addiction?

People get addicted to many things. They get addicted to gambling, drugs, TV and many other things. Now I think lots of us are addicted to internet in some form. Some cannot live without social media, some cannot live without auction site, online games, online videos, and it is very easy to get people hooked. I hear that even Pope has a twitter account to connect with people.
Twenty some years ago, when I got my first internet at home, someone told me that why anyone other than a stock broker would need internet at home. He said that regular people would only need word processing on computer, but not much else. I guess he was totally wrong. Our first home computer was running DOS with early version of Netscape installed. Or it might be early version of Windows with Netscape. Netscape crushed very frequently. The search engine of the time was infoseek, I think. Things had evolved so much since then.
It used to be that there are many people called "couch potatoes" watching TV aimlessly eating chips sitting on the sofa. I don't think there are as many of them now. I think more of them are sitting in front of a computer or using phone instead of watching TV. TV isn't very interactive. Mostly you have a very few options of choosing what to watch, but with internet, you can search and reach whatever you like very quickly. People might eat chips in front of a computer, too, but it is less likely than in front of TV, because you need to type, you need to move the mouse, so your hand is busier.
I am also guilty of some internet addiction. Fortunately, my addiction doesn't last very long. When I was younger, I was always afraid of being addicted to gambling, so I tried avoiding it as much as possible. I think that if you get addicted young, that addiction lasts longer. Now sometimes I visit casinos, but I don't see myself being addicted. It was more attractive when I was younger. I also don't see myself being addicted to alcohol. I do drink and I think I enjoy it more than before, but I could live without drinking forever. As for internet addiction, I think I can not live without it for now, but if it was taken away from me, I would be ok. I had a short time of eBay addiction. I also had a short time of YouTube addiction. I still use both sites, but not as much as at one time. Still I use internet a lot everyday.
Is it a bad thing addicted to internet? I think it is bad to be hooked on one thing all the time, regardless of what it might be. We have more interactions with people through internet, discuss things with strangers, read things strangers wrote, write e-mails, send chat messages to different kinds of friends, yet we might be losing connection with people because of that, too. For example, in my home, I don't think we never really sit together any more. My daughter is with iPod in her room, my husband would be on computer in the basement, and I'm on computer doing different thing in another room. Yes, this is bad, but it is the reality... 

Image by MJ/TR on flickr