Experiment Cuts Off Online Junkies from Internet

Ant (an Internet junkie) writes "An article from The Register reports one begins gibbering uncontrollably because he/she can't get a fix without internet access after two weeks. That, at least, is according to an 'Internet Deprivation Study' carried out by Yahoo! and advertising outfit OMD. Participants in the human experiment were deprived of the web for 14 days, and found themselves quickly succumbing to 'withdrawal and feelings of loss, frustration and disconnectedness.' The reason for the rapid collapse of their universe is - say the researchers - because 'internet users feel confident, secure and empowered.'"

Comments

Re:So...

[drinkypoo]

I grew up with no social skills and got them through the following three steps:

1. Chatting with people on the internet, both in real time and not. Actually I started earlier than that, with BBSes, and met my first girlfriend that way. In any case, if you are talking to intelligent people this is useful. If you are talking to a bunch of people at or below your level it won't help. I was a young teenager talking to college students most of the time and it really helped.
2. Going to social gatherings. #1 leads into this because it helps when you "know" the people. People you spent a lot of time talking to on line aren't nearly as intimidating. It may even be possible to relax in the presence of these types. Of course, having reached this stage we are already proving your point, but please note that it is possible to get here from #1, and having that kind of help is probably the only way I would ever have become anything other than a social recluse.

Actually, I hardly have a social life right now, but it's not because I don't have anyone to hang out with, it's because I'm wiped out after the week goes by because I've been so damned busy... Er, digression over.

The computer nerds in high school are almost all suffering from some kind of dehabilitating lack of coolness. Out of the eight or ten nerds at my high school (in the one year before I got kicked out) only a couple of them were actually cool at all, and they mostly demonstrated it by avoiding us :) I was a total lamer. I was a "precocious" child though, which made me unpopular with basically everyone except the other kids like me. Most of them were much better programmers than I was, too :(