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Experiment Cuts Off Online Junkies from Internet

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the sometimes-it-still-feels-like-it's-there dept.

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.'"

17 of 409 comments (clear)

  1. So... by IronMagnus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Next we'll see how people who are used to talking and communicating with others in person in every day life react when they are locked in a well lit room for two weeks with no human contact.

    1. Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      For some of us, talking to people online is the only contact with our friends. Cutting the connection means we are unable to communicate with those friends (at least for me, they live in different countries).

      You may be to old to consider it human contact, but no matter if it's face to face, a phone, or AIM, the person on the other end is a human. My mother felt the same way, couldn't tell the difference between me chatting with some friends online and playing a game. Until the day one of the people I chatted with came down to visit.

      These are real people, real friends, and for some of us the only friends we have. Cutting off the net connection is like cutting off a face-to-face persons contact to his friends.

    2. Re:So... by Spoing · · Score: 4, Insightful
      1. When I say human contact I mean face to face , trying stuff into an IM or email client IMO is not human contact.

      So, if your girlfriend/wife/boyfriend/... sends you an IM/mail/... they didn't really contact you? No matter what they say? You'd feel nothing?

      I thought people that out of touch died about 10 years ago. Clue: If it exists, it's real. If humans do it, it's human contact.

      --
      A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
    3. Re:So... by Lemmy+Caution · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There's a difference between human contact and human communication. It's why we still miss people we're far from when we talk to them on the phone. When we miss someone who is far away, what we miss is their presence - the proximity of their bodies, the sense that bodies are in the same space.

      With a few exceptions, humans and their ancestors have long been social creatures. The presence of other bodies sends out a variety of chemical and visual signals that we respond to subliminally, and the absence of those inputs has real effects.

      Would you be happy with a girlfriend/boyfriend with whom all your "contact" was by IM and the telephone? Would you consider that a worthwhile intimate relationship? If you were a child, would you feel that a parent who "phoned in" regularly was really part of your life?

  2. Strange by mirko · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is ratehr when I go hiking in the Swiss Mountains, I suddenly feel empowered...
    I guess they should not just disconnect these "users" but rather offer them to practise some intensive sport activities instead.

    Hiking in the mountains is a good candidate because it is also rewarding : you get to see some magnificent landscape when you reach the top.

    --
    Trolling using another account since 2005.
  3. If only I could. by rbruels · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Honestly, I would give anything to get away from the Internet for two weeks. A disconnection, though probably disorienting for a couple days, would be so pleasant.

    Unfortunately, since all my work (read: paychecks) come from the computer, I can't do that.

    That sucks.

    --

    "All your base are belong to this file I send in order to have your advice."
    1. Re:If only I could. by FlopEJoe · · Score: 5, Insightful
      No kidding

      It's like when I was looking for a house and had "broadband access" near the top of my list. My non-geek friends laughed themselves silly about this but I wasn't in on the joke. They have kids so their first criteria was schools, neighborhood, and such.

      For me, it's the point of "how do you get movie info, tv listings, dictionary, political scoop, phonebook entries, asymetrical comm, product info, latest music/movie releases, and so on, and so on." That's excluding all the info I need for the latest programming techniques and trends. For non-onliners, the dozen different sources for info works. For me the net is a one stop info source. I don't understand them and they don't understnad me.

      Sure, the net has its pr0n and time wasters. But it's a tool that can be used for good and evil. To call it an addiction is like saying a hammer is an addiction to a serial killer who uses it to kill. It's not like smoking or crack with no positive use. It's like the hammer that can kill or hammer a nail.

  4. Symptoms by Pretendstocare · · Score: 5, Insightful
    "...withdrawal and feelings of loss, frustration and disconnectedness..."

    Can't being on the internet all day/night cause this to happen with your real life? or is that just me....

    1. Re:Symptoms by PacoTaco · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Maybe those feelings are caused by our soulless consumer culture and the Internet is just a way for people to avoid dealing with them.

  5. Civilization is doomed by Feanturi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "We couldn't plan a weekend getaway," confirmed Kim V, presumably from the house in which she had been imprisoned since the web embargo.

    So Kim's parents, nor her grandparents, were ever able to go anywhere for the weekend? How in the hell did we as a species ever get this far, that we can suddenly become a bunch of helpless twits? Christ it's amazing, that in such a short time, humanity has gone so far backwards, head firmly planted in ass, as to be generating shit like this. I do take the article to be something of a joke, I mean it *has* to be.. Fuck, this is crazy, I have to stop drinking while reading this site...

  6. Re:OMG! by NanoGator · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "2 weeks without slashdot?!?! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooo....."

    I was about to post how great it'd be to get away from Slashdot for a couple of weeks... then I realized I volunteered to visit.

    Crap. It's just like smoking. >:I

    --
    "Derp de derp."
  7. Re:Pff.. They're talking about 14 days? by DenDave · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If yours were longer than mine then it would be innappropriate to discuss such matters on this forum...

    But 14 days without internet can be an interesting experience. Lst year I went on two and a half weeks of vacation to the alps without a computer in sight. I was totally relaxed, actually got some decent sleep (as opposed to my usual semi-neurotic insomnia) and when I returned from vacation I was entirely revitalized, out of touch with my normal "plugged-in" world, but revitalized nonetheless.. Now I am back to semi-neurotic-insomnia.... time to get back out there...

    --
    -if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
  8. News at Eleven by Oligonicella · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This just in. The telephone changed the way we all lived and undeveloped adolescent girls and boys spend inordinant amounts of time talking on it, describing a feeling of disconnect when deprived.
    Get a grip. This exact same crap was said a century ago. The past is sooooo golden. That is, until you get there. Then it sucks.

  9. Re:Pff.. They're talking about 14 days? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you're on holiday or acation or whatever you want to call it it will be far easier to get by

    Living out your normal everyday life without net access though would be exceptionally diffivult for the majority of us

  10. Re:Pff.. They're talking about 14 days? by nial-in-a-box · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I guess the question is, then, why do we go back? Isn't this essentially like a drug? We know we're better off without it, but it has some actual benefits and it "feels so good."

    I have been doing a lot of thinking about this recently, and I'm guessing I've probably gone somewhat overboard. I have two computers, a Nextel phone, a Cingular phone, a Sidekick, and a cable modem. Recently, when a friend had to send in her laptop to the bloodsuckers at Best Buy for repair, I decided that it would be no big deal for me to loan her my PowerBook for the three weeks she would be without her computer. Two weeks in and I'm still comfortable with the proposition. Frankly, if my job didn't require a computer, and if it didn't make my life as a computer science student much easier, I think I would just give up on all this.

    Presently I'm having a real struggle with being in college (and being so connected) period. I spent the summer working hard with a tree service company. It was a great workout and I expanded my mind in new ways. I have fully learned that simply because something is physically intense does not mean it's for morons. Nevertheless, I am being told I would be "settling for mediocrity" if I dropped out of school and did that sort of work full time. Well the thing is, I did a little math and realized that I don't need to make $100,000 a year to live the way I want to. In fact, the $14/hour tree job seems perfect.

    The thing that gets me the most upset about all this is I have recently concluded that I am absolutely surrounded by mediocrity every day at school. I have a professor who is an MIT grad who doesn't even know the difference between ethernet and PS/2 connections. The people I work with on campus spend more time doing CYA work than anything real (that's cover your ass, if you haven't experienced that before). The campus's security policies and practices are half-assed and inconsistent. So are all the construction efforts. Most students are nothing but drunken robots who spend their nights at the same shitty bar(s), and their days doing nothing but mechanically studying and spewing worthless facts. Most professors rely on rote recitation teaching methods. There really is no effort being put forth by so many people here, yet when I clearly demonstrated superior knowledge in an Italian course I received a failing grade due to poor attendance and was not allowed to appeal that decision.

    Sound like I'm just ranting about school, specifically my school? I'm not. Many, if not all colleges have many or all of these problems. The fact is that the Internet has turned me into an impatient bastard. Yes, it does make a few things easier, but if school was actually worthwhile I wouldn't mind going down to the surprisingly good library here and doing some old-fashioned research. Right now there is no incentive to do so.

    What are the best things that have come out of the Internet anyway? I would probably say that through its increased communication, we have been given the open source movement. While on the surface this is a great idea, it has serious problems also. What about the people whose lives are taken over by their projects simply because they spend "a little time on it after work?" I may be talking out of my ass here, but I am willing to bet that the current open source development model leads to burnout. And so does anything that is based on the Internet and the assumption that it automatically makes things faster, better, smarter, and easier, because it does not. The Internet is a tool, and can be a difficult one to use appropriately. Our overdependence on it is going to continually get worse before a solution is found. But please, go on, continue living a connected life. I probably will. What it really comes down to is I don't have the balls to get out of this shitty lifestyle and move on to something I'd really rather do, and I think this is true of a really large portion of the people who spend a lot of time on the Internet.

    --
    I am feeling fat and sassy
  11. Re:Pff.. They're talking about 14 days? by gears5665 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I guess the question is, then, why do we go back? Isn't this essentially like a drug? We know we're better off without it, but it has some actual benefits and it "feels so good." This is a load of bullshit.

    You are not better off without it. Remember the days of Encyclopedias, and asking your father about something and being told to go look it up? Without the instant access to knowledge that you have today, cursory reasearch is made a lot harder.

    Today I read about 12 new technologies, "talked" with 15 people across the US at no phone cost to me. I sent instant mail to 3 clients and recieved immediate responses. I often research companies online. I figure out who I'm boycotting this week. I discuss politics, religion, and money with a wide variety of people from all over the globe.

    There is no way in hell, that I'd go back to 1983. You've got to be kidding me to say we'd be better off not using the net every day.

  12. Bullcrap. by AyeRoxor! · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The reason for the rapid collapse of their universe is - say the researchers - because 'Internet users feel confident, secure and empowered.'

    Shenanigans. It's simply because they're disconnected from their friends, information, and entertainment. The same thing would happen if, before the prevalence of the Internet, you told people they couldn't use the phone, watch TV, or read a newspaper for 2 weeks.

    I hope they didn't pay these "researchers" any of my money.