If it were up to Paul Bie, he would stay away from the Internet and lead a more exciting life. But the World Wide Web's alluring ways make it difficult for him to do so.

"It has something to entertain you all the time," said the 21-year-old Spanish major. "It sucks you in. You go to Web site after Web site and click on link after link. You just end up losing track of time."

Just last week, Bie deleted his Facebook account.

"It killed my productivity in school," he said, unable to count the number of times he would log on daily. "I had it on my IPhone so I would always click on it."

It may have been a smart choice- Facebook users had GPAs between 3.0 and 3.5, a B, compared to non-users with GPAs between 3.5 and 4.0 according to a study released by Ohio Dominican University last month.

Bie recalled a typical day in his life.

"I would wake up, go to school, go to work and hang out with some friends," he said. "And then at the end of the day, I get on the computer and just sit there."

The next thing he knows, five hours of his life are gone surfing sites like Digg.com, a social news website where users can discover and share content from anywhere on the Internet.

Bie is far from being the only one seduced by the Web's charm. He mentions all of his friends are the same way.

In a recent Stanford study, researchers interviewed 2,513 adults to screen for problematic Internet use. In the results, 68.9 percent were regular Internet users and 13.7 percent - more than one out of eight respondents - found it hard to stay away from the Internet for several days at a time. In addition, 12.4 percent stayed online longer than intended very often or of ten and 12.3 percent had seen a need to cut back on Internet use at some point.

Bie may think he qualifies as an Internet addict, believing he fits into all the categories of the Stanford research, but SF State health educator Alberto Angelo doesn't think so.

Angelo leads Student Health Services' health education workshop on "Understanding Addiction and Codependency."

Angelo said addiction is a kind of action that could range from drinking to sex to gambling. People know it's not good for them and feel like they can't stop, which result in harm to them and their loved ones, he said.

"This person says, 'I'm online too much, been using too much Internet, so I'm going to remove my Facebook,'" said Angelo. "That's not an addiction. Why? Because he was able to do it."

Some may question the amount of time they spend on the Internet, but Angelo stresses it isn't addiction unless it's causing harm to a person's way of living.

"At a young age, you might not see the damage," he said. "You're in college. You don't have an eight to five job, you don't have kids at home and you don't have a mortgage. But if you lose your job, neglect your children or isolate yourself, then you're going to see more damage."

Some students, like Sherry Espia, feel like they are addicted because they depend on the Web for everything.

Espia, a 23-year-old psychology major, uses the Web for family and school and constantly checks her e-mail.

"I depend on the Web to keep in contact with family," Espia said. "On Google, we have a group that keeps the whole family in contact. And even in school, most of my teachers use email or iLearn to keep in contact with students."

There is nothing wrong with being dependent on something, according to Angelo.

"I'm dependent on breathing," he said. "But if I'm dependent on marijuana, cocaine, heroin, then there's a problem because now there's going to be a cost on physical health and safety. I'm dependent on the Web myself, but it's not causing me harm."

Some psychologists consider Internet addiction a behavioral addiction that is usually typed under Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, according to Angelo. Internet addiction disorder is currently not an official diagnosis but it is of great debate among psychologists to consider IAD as an addiction, disorder or neither, he said.

"Is it an addiction or not?" Angelo said of the Internet. "Who cares? Clearly no one is arguing that it could be a problem and that's the bottom line - that it could be a problem."

But if someone believes they have the proposed disorder, Angelo says the first thing to do is admit there's a problem and the second thing to do is stay as far away from the problem.

"You can't cure something unless you know there's a problem," he said. "If you have a problem with the Internet, you want to stay away from the Internet as much as you can."