Ok, this is short and simple. I bet you are annoyed and wont' answer. I don't blame you for it. I am using you as my therapist again.

I self-diagnosed myself as a blog addict, so I have the Blog Addiction Disorder (BAD). And I want to get rid of the addiction. So, as you are all full-time bloggers, I wonder when you consider yourself an addict and when you consider yourself a "writer with a mission" that demands you to do research and writing non-stop for some blogs and keep a blog discussion or conversation alive.

I consider myself a blog addict, because I am just lurking, reading and talking, without doing research or having a political mission and without writing meaningful and valuable diaries or essays or analysis etc. I admit that I need to convince myself to believe that the little bit one can do online to organize some political movement is really effective. I guess I am more a hands-on real space person.

I distinguish between people, who write for a living and would write not only online, but also in print, if they had the opportunity. I happen to believe that those, who do write like this, are less addicted to the communicative aspects of blogs. I am amazed to see how many write daily diaries, which all require knowledge, research and writing talent. As I never understood how to know if those, who do write like that, do it for a living or as a labor of love and political compassion uncompensated, I am at a loss.

Then there are the ones, for whom the online communication on blogs or social media is the only life-line to friendships, , compaasionate cameraderie and conversations, because they are completely alone and probably can't do anything about that situation. So, no addiction, but a healing method for them I wholeheartedly support and understand.

Persons in both of these categories, I made up in my mind, I would NEVER consider as addicted. Do you see it that way too?

But what of the rest? People with a job, a family, a real-space social life? When would you say those are blog addicted?
What about the technical support and developer persons, who admin and maintain the technical side of a blog 24h/7d? Could they live with another job and drop the internet environment for something else?

Here is a simple description of what are the signs of a potential internet or blog addiciton:

What are the warning signs of Internet addiction?

• Preoccupation with the Internet. (Thoughts about previous on-line activity or anticipation of the next on-line session.)
• Use of the Internet in increasing amounts of time in order to achieve satisfaction.
• Repeated, unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back or stop Internet use.
• Feelings of restlessness, moodiness, depression, or irritability when attempting to cut down use of the Internet.
• On-line longer than originally intended.
• Jeopardized or risked loss of significant relationships, job, educational or career opportunities because of Internet use.
• Lies to family members, therapists, or others to conceal the extent of involvement with the Internet.
• Use of the Internet is a way to escape from problems or to relieve a dysphoric mood. (e.g. Feelings of hopelessness, guilt, anxiety, depression.)

For myself I would say that as long as I was working in the real space world, I showed positive symptoms in only one of the categories above.. When I retired and when my son was not living with me in the same household, I can count myself testing positive in five of the categories. When I went through some unexpected personal experiences since last year, the last category showed his ugly face and hit me hard.

I am oscillating right now between total cut off and being sucked into believing I should do my part to help a little bit to entertain you with my blah, blah and prevent this site from going down with my few dollars I have. I don't see myself writing diaries other than more or less some photo diaries or personal activities I might like to talk about.

I also can't stand the fact that (of course) I always get upset about those "opinions" of others I don't agree with, which for sure suck me in and don't help me to "ignore" them. On the other hand I am constantly enchanted, seduced and really happy to read and learn so much stuff from some writers, that I actually shouldn't feel that guilty about reading all of it, because it's simply that good.

Geez, what a frigging dependency I got myself into

So, how about you, you consider yourself addicted? Or just a busy, activist writer helping to make the world a better place?