For me, a well-established habit can be different than addiction, but they're definitely related. What I look for is a) whether I'm using X to avoid discomfort, and b) whether using X helps create or sustain that discomfort.

As an example, I play casual computer games to take breaks. So popping open my current favorite can be a habit. But I've had friends addicted to WoW, such that they were spending enough time in it that it was making their lives worse. The more they played, the worse their personal problems got, causing them to seek more relief through WoW.

You are right. There is a spectrum between both. Since December, it has been harder than usual (nothing special, just too much stuff going on) and I use the net as an escape, but I think that I'm in this gray area where one must be alert. It is not addiction yet, but I should watch myself with a rather severe look and see if I can change the trend.

Sometimes I catch myself when I unconsciously type the address of a web site.

I think I've been addicted to the internet for 20 years.

- OK, enough reddit for now, let's do something productive like work - closes tab - starting a compiler run - ctrl-t types old.reddit.com - my man, what are you doing there? bangs head

Much more often than I'd like to admit

The ol’ burst-of-dopamine addiction…

that's a lot of letters, my firefox gives it to me with just "ne"-enter.

I don't even need the e...

you can hit shift-delete to delete the omnibar entry to make it that much harder