From the name alone, an information addiction doesn't sound like such a bad thing. Yes, addictions aren't good, but what could be so bad about having a continual craving for information. We're surrounded by information, and often the ability to make sense out of that information, to find what's meaningful and to disregard what isn't, is a sign of intelligence. Do we call people who spend excessive amounts of time in libraries "information addicts"? Usually not. Though many may refer to them as nerds, on they whole they're seen as intelligent, functioning members of their society.
If an info-junkie is someone who compulsively seek out more and more information, then perhaps babies fit that description as well. After all, they spend most of their waking hours exploring their world, probably collecting bits of information that help make sense out of that world everyplace they turn. Why is this behavior considered something positive in a baby, yet destructive in an adult?
Adults are supposed to know that information can't buy happiness (not that they know what can). Since our society has defined achieving happiness as a central goal of our lives, people who are constantly barking up the wrong tree, who are seeking happiness by finding more and more information, are seen as having a problem. After all, the answer simply isn't there. But more than this, many people who exhibit this craving for information do so as part of their work. They've been led to believe that having more information relevant to their field gives them an edge over competitors, and perhaps what they're really addicted to is their work, rather than to gathering information relevant to it.
The internet didn't create the info-junkie. We listen to the news every hour on the hour, even though we know that nothing of real significant changes that fast, and even when listening to the news on the radio we read the newspaper. Our cellulars make us available no matter where we are - for more information intake. Blaming the internet for this situation seems definitely a case of thinking that saccharin causes obesity because so many fat people have such large saccharin intakes.
But there's another reason that much more readily explains the info-junkie phenomenon: Junk info. So much of the information that surrounds us, that constantly bombards us, is junk information. Like junk food, it looks like real food, and sometimes even tastes something similar to real food, but its nutritional value is negligible, and we find ourselves having to eat more and more simply to get some minimal nutritional intake. In a situation such as this, being addicted doesn't mean not being able to stop getting more because it makes us feel so good, but instead, not being able to stop because we're hardly meeting our needs.