The internet, gadgets, games are all just another vice that many suffer addictions to. Just like television, smoking, and drugs. It is something that they can do that makes them feel good about themselves, even if only momentarily, or good about life, even if only momentarily.

The fact that people are dying due to issues such as the parents in the article wige poste, or the Korean that die after 50 hours of game play (BBC NEWS | Technology | S Korean dies after games session) prove that it can be an addiction.

Dictionary.com (using the American Hertiage Dictionary) defines an addition as such:
The condition of being habitually or compulsively occupied with or or involved in something.

In that case, how many people get up in the morning, check email, check the online weather, check the online traffic report and then go to work only to get online there? And then come home to get online, text message or chat on the phone? Play a game until midnight or 1 am while they have to wake for work at 5:30 am?

There must be a balance - one thing I have noticed in the town I live in, there are a plethora of activites all summer long that get people out and doing things with other people. The swimming pools (the town has 4 or 5 of them) are always packed during the summer, there are mini-concerts every week by the river walk and just things that get people outside. Couple that with a large reservoir and the mountains close by, it makes leaving technology, Internet and gadgets behind much easier.

For me personally a good long day of paintball with some friends is the ultimate in exercise, outdoors, teambuilding and plain old fun.

In your case Mike, I think someone was just being rude - which is a whole other aspect of the Internet, cell phones and such that could have volumes written about it.


Reference:
addiction. (n.d.). The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Retrieved July 31, 2007, from Dictionary.com website: addiction - Definitions from Dictionary.com