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Broadband Life and Internet Anxiety Disorder

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the do-what-now dept.

ChipGuy writes "Broadband brings the world right to your laptop or your handheld. With it comes information, and along with it comes desire to stay connected, and on top of everything. Om Malik calls it Internet Anxiety Disorder. 'The rush to catch-up and living a six megabits per second lifestyle, is what I think is going to be first major malaise of the 21st century - Internet anxiety disorder,' he says. Firefox developer, Blake Ross thinks that 'Internet hardwires developing brains with a click-happy sense of urgency that will not defer to reality. We are addicted to information and seek it even when we know it's not available.' Others have described this info-addiction as Nerd Attention Deficiency Disorder."

2 of 181 comments (clear)

  1. Anxiety disorder not new- Internet nothing special by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm sure hunter-gatherers had the same desire to stay on top of everything in the forest. The brain can be overloaded at much less than six megabits per second. You can become paranoid without this so-called click-happy sense of urgency. If you really think about all the smells entering your nose, the wind through the leaves, the snapping of twigs in the distance, you can fully wig yourself out. It's not about technology, it's about devoting too much of your consciousness to any of your senses for too long. I suggest meditation, jogging, or any exercise that turns off that over-active cortex and sends you to another place. The internet is just a new form of stimulus that you can dwell on too much. Nothing special. Nothing new.

  2. We are information processing machines by kfg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's what we do. Information is always available, unless you're in a sensory deprivation tank or something, in which case you may well start hallucinating, because you aren't "addicted" to information; you require it for proper functioning.

    I think some people are addicted to labling everything as an addiction.

    Maybe it has something to do with our rather bizzare cultural perception that if you're enjoying yourself you must be mentally ill.

    Actually, now that I think about it, given the state of our culture, they might have a point.

    KFG