When Tiffany Robberts left her friends and family in North Carolina to attend UF, she planned on finding new friends, not a new addiction.
Instead of meeting people, she spent the majority of her time glued to her computer screen, chatting with high school friends and her boyfriend over the Internet.
As soon as she woke up, she attached herself to the computer and missed classes, sometimes spending as many as 12 hours a day on the Internet.
Robberts, now a UF alumna, was not alone. She was suffering from what many psychologists today are referring to as "problematic Internet use."
Greg Neimeyer, a UF professor of counseling psychology, said the appeal of the Internet comes from its availability, affordability, anonymity, illusory sense of control and excitement.
Robberts broke away from her habits by making friends and occupying herself with work. Now, she only goes on when she has nothing better to do.
"I'm glad I use it a lot less now," she said, "because I have real friends and real things to do."
Neimeyer said most people who are considered Internet addicts are drawn to social networking Web sites such as Facebook or MySpace, online games like World of Warcraft, gambling, pornography and auctioning on Web sites like eBay.
According to Neimeyer, the Internet was designed to be addictive.
It allows people to do things they would never do in reality because no one knows who they are, he said, especially for habits that are already addictive, such as gambling.
"Nobody knows how much of a loser you are," Neimeyer said.
He also said according to studies, online addiction has been a key factor in about one-third of divorces, and one half of employers indicated they have fired someone because of chronic Internet use.
Psychologists are still unsure how to classify this phenomenon, Neimeyer said. Some believe it is more like an eating disorder than a drug addiction. A person doesn't have to take drugs, but he or she has to eat food. Similarly, it is almost impossible to avoid the Internet, especially at the rate at which it is growing.
Neimeyer said there are currently no industry standards for the treatment of Internet addiction and that it takes the better part of a generation to develop a treatment that works.
"The world of problematic Internet use is still inherently problematic," Neimeyer said.
