It’s becoming more and more of a problem every single day.

Millions of people use it daily to satisfy their urges to “log on.”

While some use it for pleasure and others use it for business and work, a significant number of its users tend to abuse it in one way or another.

It’s just as much of a drug as anything else, and it’s slowly spreading into less-developed countries and fringe nations like an impending plague or voracious super-virus.

Furthermore, it can be easily acquired using a personal computer (if one knows the correct “channels”).

Its capacity to manifest itself in addiction form is maddeningly real, and it can completely and wholly destroy any one person’s (social) life.

And it’s legal.

No, I’m not talking about the dreaded (insert random vice here), but rather something a bit less conspicuous: the Internet.

It may not seem to be so, but news reports indicate that an increasingly large number of Americans are becoming Internet addicts, and it’s creeping me out.

According to a survey conducted by the science journal Perspectives in Psychiatric Care, “” Internet addiction is a serious problem, manifesting itself in between 5 percent and 10 percent of all surfers.”

Furthermore, I can reasonably argue that certain popular Internet activities (online gaming, music distribution, blogging, social networking) can exacerbate Internet addiction and cause these hobbies to strengthen their addicting grips on unwary Web surfers and gamers.

Why do I suddenly assume that the worst can come from the Internet and its related activities? Because these things can (when abused in an extremist way) quite literally kill people. I’m not kidding.

According to the BBC, in August 2005 a 28-year-old South Korean man was actually killed by the uber-popular game StarCraft. Reason? He simply refused to stop playing.

After engaging in a massive 50-hour StarCraft binge session (interrupted only by a handful of surpassingly brief bathroom breaks, micro-naps and power meals), he collapsed due to heart exhaustion resulting from severe exhaustion and sleep deprivation.

Needless to say, he did not survive the trip to the hospital.

Events such as this remind me (and they should remind the tech-savvy world in general) that the Internet and its associated pastimes are to be used in moderation, as with any other activity with the potential to be abused or taken too seriously.

Online video gaming, online social networking, blogging and message board posting, and pretty much everything else on the Web must be approached (and carried out) in a reasonable manner.

In other words, the deterioration of one’s grades is directly proportional to how lengthy one’s YouTube and Blogger sessions tend to be.

Of course, I cannot discuss the concept of moderation without mentioning the number one pseudo-addiction of college students everywhere: Facebook.

There’s an old saying that can be sensibly linked to Facebook and those who are aware of its existence: “Either you love it or you hate it!” This could not be any more true (at least from my personal perspective), because those who are part of the 62 million-strong Facebook nation seem to be perpetually glued to their computer screens, while those who abstain from “F-book” seem to loathe the idea of online social networking.

To represent the pro-Facebook crowd, I asked a friend of mine (who wishes to remain anonymous) a few questions pertaining to Facebook, as well as Internet use in general. My friend’s answer:

“Facebook is really great ” but the only reason I have one is because everyone else does, and I use mine to talk to my friends.”

Ask yourselves, dear readers: Is Facebook nothing more than an electronic drug produced in the dark, shady laboratories of the Internet, only to be peddled by fellow Facebook users to other Facebook users?

Regardless of personal opinion on this issue, Facebook (and Internet addiction in general) tend to be phenomena which spread mostly by peer pressure!

People who play World of Warcraft tend to experience feelings of “belonging” to their guild members (other players).

People who use Facebook use it as a social tool to send messages to other people!

Based on my basic understanding of Internet addiction, the main appeal of Internet content is not the content itself, but rather the people who can be interacted with by using such content.

When boiled down to its most basic components, it can be reasonably argued that the main reason Internet addiction occurs in the first place (in the form of online gaming, Facebook-ing, etc.) is for people to digitally congregate with other people.

The sad part is that true socialization doesn’t require a “social network” account to be valid; I wish more people realized that.