Are people active on the internet lonely and sad people?

It's funny that anyone would say that. I feel like the internet has made me less lonely. I have pretty serious anxiety about social situations, I can't just go up and talk to people I don't know, and it's sometimes hard to talk to people I do know without some sort of invite. I've made more friends online than I've ever managed to in pre-internet days, and I certainly never had the nerve to go out looking for dates until online dating was a thing. I met my current girlfriend online, and we hit it off so well we now live together. So the internet is a place that brings people together, I'd say. .

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"You, me, everyone...we are all made of star stuff." - Neil Degrasse Tyson

https://shawnsmovienight.blogspot.com/

In your case, it obviously worked out, but the reason that brought you there initially was probably loneliness to begin with.
Most people feel the need the communicate and the " security " and impersonality of the internet allows them to do so.
As far as relationships go, unless you are face to face with some one, and even then, people are pretty much clueless as to how it will all end up.
The internet is not a bad place to connect and communicate with people but it has moved us away from real socializing in general. For specific purposes such as various forums and potential hook ups ( dating sites ), it serves it's purpose,
but, It has created a culture of distant millennials.

This is very topical because just last week Facebook co-creator Sean Parker admitted they intentionally created something they new was addictive and could have potentially harmful long range consequences, but they didn't care because they knew it would make them rich.

“God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...b0f76b05c3d65a

Several studies have shown that social media can have harmful effects on mental health, especially in teenagers. A 2017 study conducted by the Royal Society for Public Health, a U.K.-based health charity, found that people who use platforms such as Facebook and Instagram were more likely to have anxiety, depression and sleep issues.

“Social media addiction is thought to affect around 5 percent of young people, with social media being described as more addictive than cigarettes and alcohol,” the study stated. “The platforms that are supposed to help young people connect with each other may actually be fueling a mental health crisis.”

The same as the guys that brought us crack. The ingenuity is in creating something that will always be needed, chemically induced or otherwise, like toilet paper ( well, not in Thailand ).

I am sure there are some who are lonely and sad but I bet the majority just enjoy reading and posting on these kinds of sites. Just like some kids sit in front of the TV playing video games all day. They are not sad. They just enjoy it.

It's enjoyable (seemingly) while you're doing it... but when you're done and look at the time you wasted, you end up feeling like crap... and there's never really even anything to show for it (unlike accomplishments from productive activities).

Very similar to drugs - they feel good when they kick in, but soon leave you craving the high again, feeling terrible if you can't get it, and making you depressed when you realize your life is in a downward spiral of constantly seeking the gratification and trying to escape the feelings of not having your addiction because all you can think about is trying to get the high again (which will be fleeting and the cycle will start all over).

You make a good point. But I bet others do it the way I do. In the day time if I have yard work (or any kind of work) I don't even think about getting on the computer till I am done. Or if there is anything I want to do I do it first. After I do the work or what I want to do then and only then I turn on the computer.

Yep. Like anything else, balance and moderation is the key.

Well most forms of entertainment feel exactly like that to me.

I guess you feel a greater sense of achievement when you build a city in Sim City or when you watch many Kurosawa movies and feel like you become more "educated" in film.

Indeed. I don't think I feel social anxiety but I feel scared of talking about stuff that I don't know people might take the wrong way. For instance, I never had the courage to talk about the moe stuff I enjoy to close personal friends for a few years and when I did one of my best friends told me I was "weird" and asked when I started consuming that sort of thing when I ceased being "normal".

If I watch a movie at the end of a productive day, it's like a reward, kind of like Payday12 described. But there've been times when I did nothing but watch movies all day - and then I feel like crap afterwards because I didn't balance it with any productive activity.
So, I've decided never to watch 2 movies in one day (unless I'm sick or trapped inside by a storm).

Seems to me that you are talking about a very specific drug - the closest would be crack cocaine, then heroin.
But, of course all drugs and addictions are not the same and affect people differently.
It's interesting that the government coined the phrase " recreational drugs " .
Generally speaking, however, it would be easy to differentiate most people that are on meth, cocaine, pcp, ecstasy and marijuana.
I would be hard pressed to find any one with similar feeling just communicating on the internet.
Could the internet become an addiction on it's own, sure, just like any other obsessive compulsive behavior.
I would not call it a sickness, though.
It is just an insidious way for people who have a need to to communicate, to do it from afar.

Nowadays we have all that technology developed to connect, yet we are more lonely than ever. The ad says: "Are you connected?" and I answer: "No, I'm disconnected. Disconnected from real world.".

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.