Addiction is a funny notion. The DSM replaces the notion of 'addiction' with the notions of 'tolerance' and 'withdrawal'. It is a little tricky to see how that applies to certain things that people like to talk about under the rubric of 'addiction'. For example, can one be addicted to food? One literally does need to eat a certain amount of food. It makes sense that some people could eat food in order to obtain something like comfort and that they could have a problem with overeating in order to get comfort. But it really is unclear (to say the least) that the notions of 'tolerance' and 'withdrawal' are appropriate.

Can one be addicted to different forms of socialization IRL? Can one be 'addicted' to going to a forest and bird meeting, or going to university classes, or going for walks with a particular group of friends? How about if the person feels really very despondent if they are unable to socialize with people who they enjoy socializing with? Does that make their form of socialization an addiction? How about if they decline to socialize with a particular group of people because they would prefer to go to their university class? Does that make attending their university class an addiction?

Similarly, if a person declines IRL socialization opportunities in order to socialize online. Does that make socializing online an addiction for them? It is unclear to me how... Don't get me wrong, it might be that a person would like to make more of an effort to socialize more IRL, but they find themself feeling despondent about that and avoiding socialization IRL in order to socialize online. I understand how that could be something that they would like to work on... But I don't see how talk of 'addiction' is appropriate and / or helpful...