My name is Renata and I am an egosurfer

Are you an Internet Addicted?

Not that I'm alone in suffering from a dysfunctional techno-habit. New technologies have revealed a whole raft of hitherto unsuspected personality problems: think crackberry, powerpointlessness or cheesepodding (see "Modern maladies", bottom). Most of us are familiar with sending an email to a colleague sitting a couple of feet away instead of talking to them. Some go onto the web to snoop on old friends, colleagues or even first dates. More of us than ever reveal highly personal information on blogs or MySpace entries. A few will even use internet anonymity to fool others into believing they are someone else altogether. So are these web syndromes and technological tics new versions of old afflictions, or are we developing fresh mind bugs?

Modern maladies

Blog streaking Revealing secrets or personal information online, which for everybody's sake would be best kept private

Crackberry The curse of the modern executive, not being able to stop checking your BlackBerry even at you grandmother's funeral

Cyberchondria A headache and a particular rash at the same time? Extensive online research tells you it must be cancer

Egosurfing When "just checking" gets out of control

Infornography You're beyond being a healthy "infovore": acquiring and sharing information has become an addiction for you

You Tube narcissism Not even your closest family want to see hours of your holiday videos

Google-stalking Snooping online on old friends, colleagues or first dates

MySpace impersonation Many of us pretend to be someone we're not when we are online, but some will pretend to be a well-known figure

Powerpointlessness One too many flashy slides

Photolurking Flicking through a photo album of someone you've never met

Wikipediholism Excessive devotion to a certain online collaborative encyclopedia. You can test whether you're an addict at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Are_You_a_Wikipediholic_Test

Confessions of a Google-stalker

Much of my recreational Googling is simply to snoop on friends and acquaintances. I enjoy Googling people I've lost touch with to find out what they are up to without having to risk actually contacting them. Often the impulse is fed by professional competitiveness, sometimes by pure inquisitiveness. I Google-stalk people who may have fared worse than I have in the years since I last saw them: fellow interns who didn't "make it", university chums who dropped out, even friends who suffered illnesses and accidents.

Other times I like to Google people I'm not really supposed to know much about - an uncle's mysterious son from a previous marriage, for instance, or a friend's supposedly secret lover. I've never met these people and probably never will, but I do delight in figuring out who they are and where they live, and glimpsing their sporting achievement (fourth place in a wrestling tournament) or success in the job market (still untenured).

Once, I incited my mother to Google an old friend of hers who'd deserted his wife back in 1963, while she was in hospital giving birth. As she tells it, he "disappeared into thin air". These days the air is not so thin. We found out where he was living, and even a telephone number where we could ring him. We didn't, of course. That would be crossing the line.

Alison Motluk is New Scientist's Toronto correspondent

Source: NewScientist