When an Internet-enabled device is the first thing you see when you wake up, is your companion all through the day, and the last thing you see when you go back to bed, it might be time to ask yourself – am I a Web addict yet? Or when will I be?

We took a look at perceptions of the Internet and addiction to put our minds – and yours – to rest on the matter, coming to conclusions more positive than we had hoped.

Today most feel they can’t live without the Web

For something that has been in popular use little more than a decade, we have come to depend on the Web to an extent that is mind-boggling. A recent Intel-sponsored survey among US adults showed that:

• A majority of US adults today prefer Internet access to cable TV, a gym, restaurant dinners and shopping for clothes.
• 46 percent of the women and 30 percent of the men would rather go without sex for two weeks than give up Internet access during that time.
• 71 percent of the adults felt it was important or very important to have Internet-enabled devices that can provide them with real-time updates.
• 65 percent of the adults felt they couldn’t live without Internet access!

What is Web addiction, really?

Look up “addiction” in Wikipedia and you’ll find the following:

The term addiction is sometimes applied to compulsions that are not substance-related, such as problem gambling and computer addiction. In these kinds of common usages, the term addiction is used to describe a recurring compulsion by an individual to engage in some specific activity, despite harmful consequences, as deemed by the user himself to his or hers individual’s health, mental state or social life.

So – clear cases of addiction to individual Web activities such as gambling or online games aside – when do we all become Web addicts? By popular definition we would be addicted if we felt a recurring compulsion to use the Web in spite of our perception that it had harmful consequences to our health, mental state or social life.

Needless to say, one harmful consequence is that Web activities simply crowd out other activities that are important to our well-being, like sports or maintaining close relationships with friends and family.

But wait, it’s not quite that simple…

Nine out of ten think Internet is an improvement

The Intel survey also showed that nine out of ten adults felt that the Internet had improved one specific and very important aspect of their lives; nearly seventy percent felt that the Internet had improved their ability to stay in touch with their friends and family, something that is vital for happiness and health.

So, perhaps we should just avoid labels like “addiction”.

That is just as well, because try going cold turkey and have nothing to do with the Internet these days. You would more or less have to live in a hut out in the woods with a tin-foil hat. That may be stretching it a bit, but our point is that in modern society, living completely without interacting with the Internet can be pretty much ruled out.

Although we should sometimes ask ourselves if we spend an unhealthy amount of time on the Web, we all need to acknowledge that our habits as a society are changing, and that doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing.

But here’s a thought: Ever tried not checking your email for a couple of weeks?

You could also try testing yourself with this funny quiz.

What are your thoughts on this? It’s a tricky subject, and we’d love to hear your opinion.

There’s no denying that Google Chrome continues to be the darling of the web browser market. And as we predicted in July last year, Chrome overtook Firefox around November 2011.

So now the question is, when will Google also wrestle down Internet Explorer, and become the undisputed king of the browser world? In December 2011, Chrome 15 became the most popular browser in the world, beating Internet Explorer 8, but if you combine all IE versions, Microsoft still holds the number 1 spot.

Equipped with the latest web browser statistics from StatCounter, we set out to see when Chrome is likely to achieve more than 50% market share.

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Want to see how your favorite US sports site is doing, if it has a perfect 100% uptime score or not? If you want to check the latest scores and it isn’t working, could it be a problem with your computer or connection, or the site? We’ve got the solution for you!

For some time now we’ve been monitoring 34 major US sports and news sites related to sports. Our recent articles on the Super Bowl are a result of that monitoring.

Now you can look at how these sites are doing yourself on the public reports page for this list of US sports websites.

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Who has not used Google Maps? Raise your hand! Since the launch 7 years ago, Google Maps has become the de facto map service that users around the world go to for all their mapping needs.

As we say Happy Birthday to Google Maps, read on to find out some of the critical milestones in its history, and some amazing numbers and statistics.

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In 2010, there were just over 1 million secure Internet websites worldwide. Almost half of those, or 446,992 to be exact, were located in the United States.

But in which country can we find the most secure websites in relation to population? The answer may surprise you.

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The New England Patriots held what seemed to be a commanding lead (17-15) with five minutes left of Super Bowl XLVI last night. But the New York Giants came back and managed to win with 21-17.

As exciting as the game sounds, we missed the whole thing, instead spending our time watching the Superbowl.com website.

It turned out to be a rather dull thing to do because the site held up well and there was no downtime at all. The response time also didn’t give away anything significant in terms of online Super Bowl traffic.

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