Is it Internet "Addiction?"

A recent New York Times article entitled, “Miss G.: A Case of Internet Addiction,” by Virginia Heffernan asks if we are using the word “addiction” too easily to describe behavior that might be called something more benign, say a “passion.”   Can a person be addicted to opera, or novels?  Another blogger, John M Grohol, PSYD at PsychcCentral has commented on the Times article and points out that the Internet is a technology and as such, it is incorrect to call this phenomenon an “internet addiction.”   Is this behavior judged differently in adolescents than in adults? A recent article in this blog by Vickie Todd on teen texting explains how adolescence mixes with new technology to drive extreme behavior in susceptible young people, and how therapy can help.