> I don't think my parents take my time spent on RinkChat very seriously.
>
> Many times they have made comments about my "being addicted" to RinkChat.
>
> I just wish I could make them understand that the people I meet here are really my friends.

If you added up the time you spend interacting with your in-person friends and relatives over a typical week, and the time you spend in Rinkchat, how would the two compare? Whatever the answer -- and I'm not suggesting there is a "good" answer and everything else indicates you're an Internet Weirdo(TM) -- it might bring home to your parents that your "addiction" is not to some vague concept called the Internet, or Rinkchat, but to interacting with specific people who are your friends. If you spend 22 hours a week talking to your friend at school, I doubt any parent would call that an addiction, but spend exactly the same amount of time online and for some reason all people see is "sitting at a computer doing nothing".

I try to follow the same rules for Rinkchat conversations as for offline ones. If I'm having an actual conversation with a friend, that's valid use of time. If I'm just hanging around watching random people blather about something I neither care about nor wish to contribute to, but I'm still there just because it's something to do, that's different. I don't consider that healthy and if I find myself doing it too much, I get out and do something more constructive instead.

Brunnen-"not addicted to Rinkchat at all, but finds friendship surprisingly addictive"G