For some time now the internet has been a powerful and valuable tool that facilitates the exchange of information between different organizations and even within organizations. However, more and more man power is being used to monitor and control what information is accessed from within organizations. This is a problem because of the nature of the internet. It is meant to be uncensored and not controlled by any one central organization. But recently companies have been surfacing everywhere on the web promising corporations powerful software that will allow the monitoring of all of the network traffic coming and going from employees" computers such as e-mail and web surfing. This is in response to the rise in employees" misuse of the internet like accessing pornographic web pages or excessive use of chat rooms while on company time. Much like John was misusing his companies internet access to access pornography websites.
Although not enough research has been done, many psychologists are beginning to identify this uncontrollable urge to "log on" for extended hours as "Problematic Internet Use" (PIU) or as Dr. Ivan Goldberg called it, "Internet Addiction Disorder (AID)". The latest edition (the 4th) of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM-IV, did not list Internet Addiction Disorder as an actual mental illness therefore according American Psychology Association AID is not considered a disease, but this is only due to the fact that not sufficient research has been done to prove otherwise.
One of the pioneers for the study of Internet Addiction Disorder has been Psychologist Kimberly S. Young of the Center for On-line Addiction. Young is among others who discovered the parallels between Pathological Gambling, which is described in the DSM-IV, and Internet Addiction Disorder and used it as a model to develop a formula to diagnose Internet Addiction Disorder.
