70% of Americans Suffer From Disconnect Anxiety

[mandy]

The concept of Internet addiction has moved from the funny pages to the scientific journals, as mental health workers and the public accept that some people simply need to spend time online. Now a new report from a market research group has coined a new term to describe what happens when people get cut off from the source: disconnect anxiety.

Based on the results of a long-running series of surveys, interviews and focus groups, Solutions Research Group claims that 27 percent of the population suffers increased levels of anxiety when separated from their cell phones or the Internet, and that a further 41 percent suffer occasional anxiety due to communications blackout.

The condition seems to be age-dependent; those over 50 are unlikely to suffer from disconnect anxiety...

full article: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/200...ntury.html

[regic]

I had disconnect anxiety this morning after a switch broke and left this server unreachable for almost 2 hours.