Television Addiction Is No Mere Metaphor

By: Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyl

Scientific American - February 23, 2002

Have you ever heard the expression "love hurts"? Sometimes it's the things that we want most that can hurt us. In "Television Addiction Is No Mere Metaphor", an article published in Scientific American on February 23, 2002 by Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, we see how this expressions meaning has some truth to it. The things that we are addicted to are not necessities but are desires instead. Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi give the best example when they state that no one has to drink alcohol yet they do and in doing so become alcoholics. Though identifying an addiction is easy when one is analyzing someone else. It's not as easy when it's happening to you.

You can be addicted to just about anything. Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi give the examples of compulsive gambling and sex...