Slashdot Mirror
Net Addiction Gets Finnish Soldiers Out Of Army
nerdb0t writes "Reuters is reporting that the Finnish Defense Forces have allowed some men to be excused from military service because of 'Internet Addiction.' The service period is 6 months - but that's too long away from the internet for these guys. Is this a joke? Is this a legitimate illness? Hm..where can I apply for disability..."
apparent b/c i got first post.. i must be addicted to the net or at least slash dot
http://brandonbloom.name
"If I can't get my daily dose of slashdot, I'll go crazy and kill some endangered animals" - Finnish soldier
www.google.com
Actually, they were not excused from military service, they were sent home and told to grow up and return in a few years for another try.
Seems to me six months on duty, away from the Internet, just might be the cure for this terrible illness.
does constantly hitting F5 on slashdot, 24/7 count?
-------
1. Enjoy your job
2. Make lots of money
3. Work within the law
Choose any two.
About two years ago I spent 2 months as a counselor at a summer camp, most of which time I had no internet access, and when I did have access it was minimal. I know this is a little pathetic, but I really felt like I was being deprived. I mean, I wasn't sick over it or anything, but it was something I genuinely missed and I was really bothered that I couldn't use it the way I was used to. That said, I don't really think that this is a legitimate sickness worthy of being discharged because of, it's really quite managable. The main way I dealt with it was reading a lot. Generally I don't read that often, but that summer I went through a few tens of books.
They don't get pardoned forever. It seems they got 'E' which means 'go home and grow a little'. So they need to come back and do their service 2-3 years later.
For record you can get 'E' just by requesting it, these guys were forced to 'E' due to addiction =)
(status of different letters in Finnish Defence Forces:
A - primary letter given to everyone, capable of active service
B - Some problem, maybe bad allergy or old injury
C - No service during peace time
D - No service (even if it's war time)
E - Service postponed )
Recall that about half the country is above the arctic circle, so cell phnes and computers are great when you can hop a reindeer to visit the next village over. They probably have more net addicts than Korea, since the Internet is an easy to stay in contact with people when it's -20 out.
They also have one of the highest rates of alchoholisim in Europe, and I wonder how many people get waivers for that each year.
But really, what self-respecting Army would pass on a soldier because he spent too much time practicing his BFG9000 skills...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
But delayed and told to come back later after couple of years. At least according to the local Finnish media.
(Totally crazy anyway. This is Finland for heavens sake, not some pansy-ass Sweden ;)
Put them in a treatment program. Don't just let them go back and their computer.
-----
One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
This is ridiculous. Unfortunately, the story is true. What's ridiculous is that the service doesn't mean 6 months of no net -- it just means you can't get on the net _as much as you might want to_. First, the Finnish army gives you three out of four weekends off, which means you get to go home (=on the net if you just have to get your fix) for the weekend and report back on Sunday evening. Second, most if not all garrisons have computers with Internet-connections that the conscripts can freely use during the evenings. And if you still can't handle it? Growing up is exactly what you need.
Sure this does mean I get to sue the arse off my boss if I'm fired for inappropriate use of company resources when I'm caught surfing pr0n at work, right? I mean he's discriminating against my disability! Shame on him!
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I can identify with these soldiers. I once spent a month at a house with no internet access whatsoever. I had no idea what to do with myself in my spare time. I had my laptop with me and spent hours playing solitaire. I couldn't get my mind off the internet, and what must be happenning in my absence. I tried watching tv but I usually watch tv while browsing /., so it was no help. News papers weren't much better because I couldn't adjust the font size or get the perfect lighting of the computer monitor. I even went through pages I had available offline. I ended up just signing up for a month of dial-up connection, but it possibly made it worse because I had an old modem and was used to broadband. I had exactly the same sensations that I had while trying to give up cocaine (a habit from my young and stupid days), except there was no real physical sensations except those produced from nervousness.
_____
Thank you.
Military service is mandatory in Finland, and min. service time is 180 days, max. 362 days. You can also carry out the service as civil service (395 days) and in some cases as unarmed military service (330 days if I remember correctly).
www.mil.fi
Those that refuse to enter even civil service can be sentenced to (usually a minimum security) prison for 197 days (max.).
Man, if you could stay 2 months without net, you have no freakin' idea what you are talking about. No clue! Eight years ago I was supposed to spend two weeks without net with friends at a lake. Your typical summer holidays. I made it one week before hitchhiking over 600 miles back to "civilization". And that was 8 years ago. I know people who lost big bet that they could stay *one day* without cell phone. A "disconnect" is a serious problem for growing segment of population and net addiction is a real thing(tm).
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
As a Finnish citizen I am very happy that our army sends these sissies home to grow up and is not trying to adjust the service easier for them. Our army is for self defence (not attacking poor people for some ;-) reason) and we really need good men (and women) to do the job.
http://reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia/F/Finn
However, with this bullshit, you wonder how they would fair now...
>max. 362 days.
Do they have to import experienced officers?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Can I get disability and/or workmans comp for this malady?
they only need to look back to the 90's (yah i know its hard to remember) when MOST people got their porn from magazines! God the 90s sucked...
You know, if Linus Torvalds can do it (He served in the Finnish army too, remember!) then any computer addict can. Suck it up and get a technical position, solider!
The Yasashii Syndicate ||
That's right -- ligitimate!
Check out the poll and submit your thoughts to their hi-tech CGI script, and you'll see for yourself:
Thank You For Filling Out This Form
Below is what you submitted to netaddic-data@netaddiction.com on Wednesday, August 4, 2004 at 02:12:49
Ligitimate_Mental_Disorder: No
Wait. I voted "no," so it's not ligitimate, but maybe it's still legitimate. I'm confused.
Aw, screw it -- I'm going to play some Doom3.
everything in moderation
The purpose of the Finnish army is to defend Finland. It's purpose is not to psychologically damage its recruits.
...and it has been happening for few years.
It's really not just their addiction that excuses them from serving their country.
I think the main reason is their lack of interest and ofcourse they are in a such a bad shape that it's impossible to manage the armyduties.
I mean that if you sit in front of your computer for 12 hours a day and then you suddenly have to wear 30-40 kilos backpack and told to march 10 kilometres.
/* If everybody would be like me the world would be much better place to be - at least in my mind. */
Boatloads of people are zombified by television and movies, at least these soldiers were (hopefully) doing something interactive online, and possibly learning useful stuff. I'd rather be addicted to something I can learn from, than television full of infomercials and Jerry Springer.
Tell the addicts about this stuff and they will sign up in a flash for the ultra-realistic first-person shooter immersion experience!
Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
Umm, the conscripts serve 362 days at most. If you want to become an officer, you have several routes to choose from.
1. Go to the military academy (Officers)
2. School yourself in some civlian field and join later with your crendentials (i.e. electric engineers and the like) (Warrant officers)
3. Sign up after the army (NCOs).
It's entirely possible to make a career out of the army. Just because the conscription term is max. 362 days doesn't exclude anyone from staying longer as long as they work for the military.
Slashdot took out a few soldiers. What service can't we deny?
"Derp de derp."
I have several friends here in Norway who were rejected by the military after their first meeting for compulsory service because they were deemed "too intelligent" to be worthy of service ;-)
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
The Finnish army practices lying in the snow, waiting for enemies to take out with one shot of the rifle.
:)
If you want winter experience, learn from Finnish, Norwegian or Swedish soldiers.
When I served my time in the Army, in Harstad, Norway (look it up)in jan-jul '97 there was a snowfall record. 2,5-3 meters of snow in valleys and -15 to -35 Celsius was the norm.
Advantages: You learn to handle extreme cold. It's easy to dig trenches and to camouflage the tent.
Disadvantages: It's bloody cold. When you've had your 4 hours of sleep inbetween watches, the uniform is not frozen anymore, but it's still damp/wet. When you get outside everything turns to ice.
Super-duper-advantage: During watches I got to see the Hale-Bopp comet at night, in perfect sky conditions. With night vision goggles too, that was incredible (and quite green/white). I missed an attack on the base though, the enemy got first strike there...
Well, I guess they are Finnished!
The internet IS like an addiction. I personally would go nuts without it - my mind just needs to be stimulated with the overabundant torrent of information... It gives us the ability to access anything, anywhere without much ado, and crutch or not, it gets pretty damn addictive - and is something the mind doesn't want to part with...
Take something as simple as a word dictionary. Are you more likely to page through a 600+ book or quickly pop onto www.m-w.com? Exactly... We get used to that. And when we get denied Internet, its almost like sensory deprivation - losing a sense of touch with the world...
Or maybe I just need to get some sleep...
P.S: BTW, great excuse to avoid the army...
Once upon a time I had a psychology professor who started talking about how hard it was growing up in a predominantly Finnish neighborhood in, as I recall, Gary, Indiana ( Gary, Indiana, Gary Indiana. . .oh, sorry), because the Finns hated Americans.
Someone in the class asked him, "If they hate Americans, why did the come here?"
The answer?
"Because they hate Russians even more."
KFG
All finnish men have to do their military service, which is 180, 270 or 360 days. Usually men go to this service after "basic" schools, at the age of 18 or 19. The military service starts either july or the next january. This leaves you time, when you have nothing to do ( if you can't get a job ).
During this time some ppl get addicted to net. And it's not just the net, it's the hours. Pretty much every net addict has bizarre sleeping pattern. Usually you go on chatting/surfing/playing 15-24hours, and then get some sleep, when you get really really tired. You have no obligations to be awake at some given time.
One finnish news site said, that the biggest problem was adjusting to regular sleeping pattern, not the actual net addiction.
The first weeks in the army are ofcourse the worst. You are in a totally new enviroment, you don't know anyone, and you live in a single room with 8-12 other men. Lots of people keep yelling at you and bossing you around, and that makes people very stressed. During those first weeks, pretty much everyone wants to quit.
When you add sleep disorder to this, you pretty much are done for it. There's no way you can maintain your mental health and motivation.
I had no problems during my service time, but I know what those sleep disorders from too much computer using can do to you. It's total hell trying to live as a productive member of society, when you simply can't sleep during the nights. Almost screwed up my school because of that, but luckily I'm over it now.
But it still bugs me that sleeping 7-8 hours a night and spending 9 hours a day of your time to work, it leaves you so very little spare time. Atleast to compared to the situation where you had nothing else than spare time.
(Mind you, internet addiction was not my reason for not going to the army - my "work computer" during my service was a glorious Schneider 386SX with W3.11 and no net connection. But during my year I got exceedingly good in Solitaire. ;-)
Finland.
Finland, Finland, Finland.
The country where I want to be,
Pony trekking or camping,
Or just watching TV.
Finland, Finland, Finland,
It's the country for me.
Verse: You're so near to Russia,
So far from Japan.
Quite a long way from Cairo,
Lots of miles from Vietnam.
Chorus: Finland, Finland, Finland.
The country where I want to be,
Eating breakfast or dinner,
Or snack lunch in the hall.
Finland, Finland, Finland,
Finland has it all.
Verse: You're so sadly neglected,
And often ignored,
A poor second to Belgium,
When going abroad.
Chorus: Finland, Finland, Finland.
The country where I quite want to be,
Your mountains so lofty,
Your treetops so tall.
Finland, Finland, Finland,
Finland has it all.
Repeat: Finland, Finland, Finland.
The country where I quite want to be,
Your mountains so lofty,
Your treetops so tall.
Finland, Finland, Finland,
Finland has it all.
Fade: Finland has it all...
Putting syrup in coffee is some form of blasphemy.
I just heard a mention of this on the news. Someone was quoted as saying "for people who stay up all night playing computer games and don't have any friends, military service can be quite a shock."
I'd say such people need that kind of shock more than most.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Armies must be constantly tested in the real world (that means wars) or they will not know what is effective
Indeed. Where would the US be if all those valuable naked human pyramid skills would become obsolete?
"I'm sorry I can't join the Army because I have to play Counterstrike."
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
News at 11!
The Finnish performance in WW2 was mainly due to four factors. One, Stalin didn't send enough troops to the Finnish front so the Finnish army wasn't completely overrun. Two, the winter '39-'40 was very cold, even by Finnish standards, so the Soviet mechanical advantage was lost. Three, the Finnish army was very good in the use of artillery. Four, defending your homeland gives you some extra boost compared to simply invading some other country. I don't think that the "quality of the soldiers" was that much different.
:)
However, the recent studies have shown that most young Finnish people would jump to the arms if Finland were invaded, so I don't think this net addiction thing has any effect on that
I saw this same news at our local TV news too (I live in Finland). 6 months is the minimum these days. I did spend my own service during 1998 and I was there for 11 months, but I admit that I had my laptop and GSM-modem with me almost all the time (I was remote working from army).
:)
You can just imagine how our commanding officer was surprised when he opened the door into our tent and I was there surfing Internet in middle of the forest during my night shift by the fire. Laptop and GSM were powered from generator that we filled with fuel oil between 5-6 hours. Usually people were sleeping and that's why they were checking the tents during nights.
Does anyone other than me think that having a web site to combat net addiction is a little messed up? "Help, I've got net addiction, I need to spend less time online!" - "Oh, hey, there's this great web site that can help you with that, you want the URL?"
Isn't that sort of like having your Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in a bar?
Kai MacTane: Web developer for hire in San Francisco
I often wonder if the United States is headed for a general conscription.
Many other democratic countries have it, and arguably it's good for people. I often wonder how my life would have been changed by a term in the military.
And hey, since we're now fighting an endless war, it seems more likely than ever.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
"But Sir, I know how to slashdot the enemy!"
Table-ized A.I.
Most developed countries that practise conscription (manditory military service for all or at least all male citizens) anymore don't do it to maintain a serious force. The face of warfare has changed, as the latest Gulf conflict really demonstrated, such that lots of cannon fodder with machine guns, which is about all conscripts are good for, can't hold a candle to technology. Well you can't have a conscript flying a plane or driving a tank, that takes a volunteer.
Doesn't mean it's worthless though. It's an "in case shit", to borrow a Chris Rock phrase, policy. Suppose someone was trying to invade Finland and NATO just wasn't able to send immediate help. Maybe it's WWIII or something. Whatever, just suppose. If everyone has had basic training, when you draft them it takes much less time to get them up to speed. You don't have to train them from scratch, or send them totally untrained against the enemy, you just give them a quick refresher and they can fight.
This goes double for countries with Finland that have, shall we say, inhospitable terrain.
Thing is, even if Finaland made every able citizen in their country serve in the military full time, they'd still not have a real military force to speak of only 1 million people and at conscript level abilityies. Never mind you'd destroy the economy doing that. So they don't, they have a small perminant military for the little things that need it, and then give everyone a little training, just in case.
Switzerland takes theis to the extreme, actually requiring all their households to have a government issued machine gun, which their citizens learn how to use during manditory military service. That combine with the terrain would make Switzerand an iron clad bitch to invade. That, and the finincal cooperation, were the two reasons the Nazis didn't invade.
It's not a real common practice these days, but it still works.
Actually, the quality of soldiers was different, or rather the quality of the leadership. The Finns still had a lot of officers who had training and field experience from the old Imperial Russian army, but on the Russian side that talent had all been lost in the revolution, and even after that Stalin's purges had taken a heavy toll on the Red Army. Stalinism massively hurt almost everything important to any Soviet efforts, from science to the military, when the political leadership interfered with everything and replaced competent people with idiots that made bigger promises.
And...
Four, defending your homeland gives you some extra boost compared to simply invading some other country.
The Soviets had also expected there to be a lot of Finnish communists who would defect and greet the Red Army as some great liberator, but there weren't because the Soviets had already killed them. There had been a lot of communists in Finland, but most of them had moved to the Soviet Union (this was not a big deal for a Finnish communist: there were a lot of ethnic Finns living in the Soviet Union, so it was just the border between a capitalist bourgeois democracy and the great socialist wonderland) and the paranoid Soviets had, of course, executed almost all of them as spies or unreliables. (The rumors that not all was well in the wonderland then, naturally, contributed a lot to the Finnish will to fight; for the Finns, it was not just Finland that was at stake, but the fate of Finns as a people.)
Totalitarianism has a real habit of working against itself...
When I did the service we were told to protect against "the Enemy".
:)
When asked to elaborate the officer said something like: "Well, we are not allowed to say who the enemy is, but we can say this much: It's not the Swedes"
I guess it's between Norway and Russia then, even though I find the two scenarios you presented more likely to occur
COWBOY: Tough break for Hand Job. He was all set to get shipped out on a medical.
JOKER: What was the matter with him?
COWBOY: He was jerkin' off ten times a day.
EIGHTBALL: It's no shit. At least ten times a day.
COWBOY: Last week he was sent down to Da Nang to see the Navy head shrinker, and the crazy fucker starts jerking off in the waiting room. Instant Section Eight. He was just waiting for his papers to clear division.
So, I guess the "net addiction" excuse isn't bad, comparatively, considering it cost me about 400 bucks in shrink's fees to get out of the Swiss army (like about 30% of their recruits every year, incidentally.)
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Technically, a person can become addicted to anything.
There are two kinds of addiction. One is psychological, and the other is physiological. In other words, you can have a direct mental (emotional, whatever) dependence on something, or your body can be dependant on something. Sometimes a psychological addiction can cause physical withdrawl symptoms, too, and just because you're psychologically addicted doesn't mean there isn't a physical side effect/benefit.
People allow addictions to continue in their lives because they're an escape from the mundane details and unpleasant things about life that they don't like. Caffine, the Internet, sex, routine, alcohol, spending money, being dumb, smoking, singleness - people get addicted to all these things, because they help the person avoid having to think about the real issues of life.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
If a foreign Army did this they'd be *cough* Finnished [ducks for cover]
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
Hm..where can I apply for disability...
Why, online of course.
-Dizzle
"I most likely AM so interested in myself."
Some of these people are likely to be using it just as an excuse, and if they get called back again in a few years they'll use another one until they have a family and then have a valid excuse... I know it's not Finland but I knew a guy from Sweden who got called up for their "compulsory" national service. He said that if you don't want to do it, all you had to do in the interview was say things like "I don't like people" and that they'd let you off, because you wouldn't be suitable in their eyes. So I get the impression it's just a formality thing and as long as not too many people are dodging out they're OK with it. Most people generally DO want to do it, it's not just Army work, it can be as a firefighter and things like that too.
From the USSR's point of view Finland is the gateway/blockade to the entire Nordic penninsula, which is the most obvious staging area for attacks on Britain and North-Western Europe available.
Additionally, western Norway is the nearest thing the USSR has to a defensible set of seaports usable in the depths of winter.
If WWIII isn't just an unlimited ICBM exchange (unliklely I know), then Finland is gonna get it in the neck in the first few minutes, purely for blocking the way into Norway and Sweden (or possibly for blocking the way into St Petersburg, it really depends who's on the offensive).
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
Switzerland takes theis to the extreme, actually requiring all their households to have a government issued machine gun.
No, not all households. Only the active military have their gun (not machine-gun) at home. The peculiarity is that they are "active" until the age of 40 or something, going back to training for about 1 to 3 weeks every year, plus a few Saturdays going to shooting training.
That, and the finincal cooperation, were the two reasons the Nazis didn't invade.
I don't believe the miltary had anything to do with Switzerland not being invaded by Germany.
To put it simply: you don't attack your own bank.
BTW, the 2 countries which used to be poor and became rich after the World Wars are Switzerland and the US.
Well - the European countries contribute quite a lot of aid, plus their policies and international behavior are not quite as openly arrogant.. That, plus Europe being more willing to challenge Israel on their policies and actions, means that the evidence that "Europe is evil" is less convincing than the evidence that "America is evil".
And - Europe don't export quite as much crap music and crap movies..
Do as I say: Try to see things their way, don't nitpick and talk about "the reason" - I didn't.
Stop the brainwash
It is not the army's task to straighten these boys out. You should not focus on the internet addiction part, that is only one symptom of many. I suppose you have never trained 18 year old recruits. I have. There is no time to teach someone how to lace their shoes because their mommy never did (these types really exist). Shouting at them does not work, throwing them in the brig does not work, physical violence against them is not allowed (and I don't think it would work). Strangely, a few more years as a civilian usualy works wonders, after which you have a recruit who is actualy of some use, instead of an annoyance.
We're completely volunteer. In order to end up in the military here, you have to take yourself down to a recruiter's office, take a few tests, fill out a bunch of paperwork, and swear the enlistment oath in front of an officer.
Sure, we have selective service, but that hasn't been activiated since almost the vietnam war, and it isn't likely too.
Of course, my reaction was, "What, a military without internet access?"
Why can't they get it during off duty hours?
I don't read AC A human right
Finns take the defense of their tiny country quite seriously! For those of you who may not remember, a quick refresher on one of history's most forgotten wars- The Winter War, 1939-1940.
;)
Soviet Russia sent 23 divisions (460,000 troops) and 2,000 tanks into Finland in an act of naked agression, seeking little more than land expansion. They were told not to stop until they reached Sweden. They were so sure of victory that one of their divisions had a military band complete with instruments for their victory performance in Helsinki, after which they would install a puppet government.
Finland, with a whopping population of 3.6 million, managed to field 160,000 troops.
The final result:
-The Soviets suffered 400,000 casualties
-Stalin suffered a humiliating defeat, and was forced to sign the "Peace Agreement" March 13 1940.
Finland lost 10% of it's land, but survived as a free independent country. The Soviet army was recalled in defeat, with Stalin nervous about developments elsewhere in Europe as Hitler's war machine spun up.
To this day, even with Perestroika, Glasnost, and the "collapse" of the Soviet Union, the citizens of the tightly culturally interconnected scandanavian countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland) maintain a deep mistrust of Russia and it's motives for -anything-.
Do NOT mock the Finish army!
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
...prior to 1995.
~==>RocketSHE
Rectally.
Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?
US contributes 'quite a lot of aid.' But you are right. There is nothing openly arrogant about anything done in Europe. After all, they are willing to criticise Israel on everything it does but are 'sensitive' enough to turn a blind eye to every other injustice that goes on in the world. The Spanish ellections where influenced by terrorist attacks. France is becoming a scary place to be if you are visibly religious (with both anti religous policy and hate crimes at an all time high). All in all, Europe is looking to become a 'United States of Europe' and I am not convinced that they will flex their power as a superpower any more responsibly then the US did.
It's almost as if this world we live in has countries that do thigns that are both good and bad. America is a big place. it does a lot of questionable things. it does a lot of bad things. and it does a lot of good things. same can be said of europe. I'm sick of everyone trying to pretend the world is a dicotomy and proclaiming everything evil or good. This isn't starwars. There is no 'good side'
And europe, like the US, has both some of the best music. And, like the US, Europe has some of the trashiest, cookie cutter music one can imagine.
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist