Facebook, Twitter more addictive than alcohol, tobacco

2) "the participants were asked to message whether they were experiencing a desire at that moment or had experienced one within the last 30 minutes, what type it was, the strength of it, whether it conflicted with other desires, and whether they resisted or went along with it." -- volunteer bias (the desires and outcomes reported are exactly that: reported).

It looks to me like a case of a researcher using a heavily-biased study to project their views onto society at large, using a small sample and totally untrustworthy data.

In all seriousness.

But when I'm busy I can easily go an entire week without missing it. I spend easily 80 hours per average week on a computer so I guess I'd be in the upper thresholds of users out there.

I recently spent a month in thailand which included a fortnight without power, did I miss the internet? not really, only in the evenings when I realised I was't tired and there wasn't anything else to do. If anything the amount of entertainment I expect has increased but nothing else. Perhaps an emotional dependancy thats easily placated by other mediums.

But not addiction, theres no physical dependancy, no withdrawals, you aren't going to go into shock and cold sweats from missing out on twitter after 24 hours. I sure as hell don't get a stress headache like when I haven't had a coffee in a few days...

Paul Graham's "Acceleration of Addictiveness" is a great primer on the subject, and he sums up beautifully that the iPad is the "hip flask" of digital addiction:

http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html