Anxious?
Individuals with internet anxiety spend most of their waking hours online—browsing, chatting, gaming—except when sleeping. When faced with network congestion or sudden power outages, they experience extreme discomfort. Working professionals fear missing critical information or disrupting their work, triggering mental and physical reactions like insomnia, headaches, and loss of appetite.
Self-Check: Do You Have "Cyber Anxiety"?
1. Checking your phone more than five times per hour, even while vacationing deep in the mountains. Feeling profound disappointment when no calls or messages arrive.
2. Log into your email multiple times daily, repeatedly checking messages.
3. When unable to access the internet for any reason, you experience extreme anxiety and discomfort, wishing you could become Superman and fly into outer space to escape the internet's gravitational pull.
4. You subconsciously log into meaningless websites to search for trivial images, enjoying the shallow thrill even if it makes your nose bleed.
5. Constantly fearing you're falling behind trends, you spend excessive time gathering information on the latest fads. When asked about something you don't know, your mood instantly plummets.
6. You crave superficial gratification, endlessly browsing pointless websites and images, even if it causes your nose to bleed.
5. Constantly fear falling behind trends, spending excessive time tracking the latest fads. When unaware of something others mention, mood instantly plummets.
6. Prefer information over real life and human interaction. Often feel detached from reality, like "all are sober while I alone am drunk."
7. Loves posting on BBS forums and discussing trivial gossip with peers. Becomes depressed and listless for hours if no new entertaining content appears online.
8. Spends ten-plus hours daily logged into MSN or QQ, chatting with multiple people simultaneously. Grows restless at the slightest downtime.
9. Enjoys being overwhelmed by information. Derives intense satisfaction from computer games, constantly extending playtime. Yet feels utterly disorganized in real life.
10. Fluctuates between self-deprecation and self-aggrandizement. Approaches situations with extremes, rarely compromising.
Tips: How to Treat "Cyber Anxiety"
Professor Dai Guangming believes short-term anxiety is as normal as catching a cold, causing little disruption to physical health, daily life, or work. However, prolonged anxiety can lead to a haggard appearance, weight loss, and even trigger illnesses. She offers the following advice:
1. Be selective about information sources.Only by selecting reliable sources can you obtain valuable information.
2. Learn to organize information by categorizing it—absorb what you need and discard what you don't.