Excessive Internet use--addiction disorder or not?

Every aspect of addiction can be considered as a highly complex process during which the function of nervous processes which are responsible for controlling behaviour associated with the object of addiction is changed by means of using/consuming the object of addiction. There is an uncontrolled need directed to appropriate behaviour, but also a tendency to amount to the least extent all types of behaviour not related to seeking, using or recovering from using the object of satisfaction . Is the excessive Internet use a real form of addiction or not? There is a certain number of acceptable ways for definition of the term “addiction”: obsession or preoccupation with the object (substance or activity) of addiction; need or desire for increasing use of an object of addiction – tolerance; decreased or lost ability to control the use; problems in all aspects of the user’s life owing to the increased use of the object of addiction; feeling of crisis in the situations when that use is not enabled – abstinence/crisis. The only difference which is imposed in terms of the Internet addiction relates to lack of the intake of a harmful substance into the organism. Due to that reason, certain authors do not accept the inclusion of the pathological Internet use phenomenon in addiction disorders and they suggest another category which can be exploited for the interpretation of the given phenomenon – habit and impulse control disorders. Therefore the diagnostic criteria for the pathological gambling phenomenon could be applied to the occurrence of pathological Internet use. Suggestions of this kind have caused different postures and divided researchers of this phenomenon. Owing to this, central premises and attempts at defining the term of pathological Internet use are presented in this work together with the basic arguments for its defining as an authentic, specific and particular aspect of addiction. The Internet and human needs