阅读理解 Surfing(浏览) the Internet can be as addictive(上瘾的) as drugs, alcohol or gambling, a researcher from University of Pittsburgh said last month.
In a study of almost 400 men and women in Canada, researchers found Internet addiction caused people to spend 40 hours or more a week online. Most of them often got involved in role-playing games or chat room discussion. One 17-year-old boy was so addicted to the Internet activities that his parents had to admit him to a hospital for 10 days' treatment.
One woman was described by friends and family as a perfect wife and mother. She became so addicted to the Internet that she would not cook or clean and was neglecting her children and husband, because she was spending as much as 12 hours a day talking to people on the Internet. Finally her husband said," Choose me or the computer." She divorced him.
Kimberly Young, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, found that 76 percent of the subjects(调查对象) in the study spend an average of 40 hours a week on the Internet.
Of 396 people who met Young' s criteria(标准) for addicted Internet users, 157 were men, 239 women. The men were younger with an average age of 29, the women average 43 years of age. The largest group of addicted users of the Internet was people who were not working outside home, housewives, students and those who were disabled(残疾) or retired.