Slashdot Mirror
Hooked On The Web
MT writes "The New York Times is running an interesting article entitled Hooked On The Web: Help is on the Way. It says that internet addiction is being taken more seriously by big business and mental health workers, and affects a large population (6%-10% of all users)." From the article: "Skeptics argue that even obsessive Internet use does not exact the same toll on health or family life as conventionally recognized addictions. But, mental health professionals who support the diagnosis of Internet addiction say, a majority of obsessive users are online to further addictions to gambling or pornography or have become much more dependent on those vices because of their prevalence on the Internet. But other users have a broader dependency and spend hours online each day, surfing the Web, trading stocks, instant messaging or blogging, and a fast-rising number are becoming addicted to Internet video games."
...or did this feel like an intervention focused solely on me?
I don't look at it as an addiction, really. There are those who have an honest drive for information. My life, my job and my hobbies revolve around information. I always think about the "it:" How does it work, where did it come from, why isn't it better, who else likes it?
With new forms of information available so quickly (wikipedia, google, etc) everywhere I go, I often have information in mere moments. I can turn on my PDA phone in about 2 seconds, touch tap (with my super thumb nail) any phrase into Google for PDA, and have a response in under a minute total. Does it mean I am addicted? Not when I am able to take so much of that "useless" information and transform it into a positive: profit or social fun or who knows what? The other day I was wondering what ever happened to those crazy "bubbles" of informational tidbits on TV shows and videos and was thinking how cool it would be to integrate a device with my TV that listens to content and offers instant pop-ups from the web.
People want information. 6-10% of the people thrive on knowing weird things. Does it mean we're hooked? I'm the same kid who loved the encyclopedia as well as odd old books that no one would read. The fact that I can now integrate with billions of others simultaneously adding/revising/editing/deleting the synopses of information that exist is mindblowing. Just 15 years ago I was running a BBS with a thousand or so users and I couldn't believe that one 16 year old kid could interact with so many people in such a large area (a hundred square miles). Now I look at the e-mails I receive from my blogs from people in South Africa and Australia and even Kansas. What is the end game for me? Information.
Insert obligatory "oh my God that guy played Ghandi" Sneakers quote here. I'll let you information addicts look it up.
Yeah but at least obsessive internet users get the frist psot!!!!!!!
But the comments don't come fast enough. Gotta . . . get . . . my . . . fix.
It is a non-issue to realize that most of the modern day losses in productivity come from distracted workers using the internet for personal pleasure rather than company projects. This distraction effort splits the focus of the individual and causes a decrease in the finite amount of cognitive processing ability given to any one task. Marijuana on the other hand results in modification of the reward pathway system in the brain. So there is an actually psychochemical difference in the brain which leads to addiction. Between the two, marijuana actually modifies the brain negatively while email only distracts. I really wish these people had taken the time to realize this before putting out a sensationalist piece of work.
Check out my website: Playfully Clever
Now who would ever read about this on, well, slashdot?
Does having a job requiring the use of the Internet and Web for hours a day qualify me as addicted?
~*~ Tara
If you are reading a slashdot article about being hooked on the web when you should be working, you may be hooked on the web.
Now, let me get back to work.
Oh wait, what's this about RIM??? (click)
"and a fast-rising number are becoming addicted to Internet video games" Just Internet video games... what about video games in general?
I kill harmless processes for sport
Uh, what definition of "addiction" are they using here? Does the internet chemically change your mind? Does one become physically dependent on the internet? If not, then how is this different than, say, pen and paper D&D?
Hell, because of things like "Runner's High", I'd wager that playing regular sports is about as addictive as the internet...but we never read about that in the news, do we?
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
because I could stop anytime.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
How can you lump every activity that can be done online and somehow classify it as an addiction?
If I trade stocks over the phone, talk on the phone, and orde rpizza on the phone, does that mean I am addicted to the phone? How is it any different?
I think someone is just trying to drum up some business.
Having said that, I can't understand how someone could play a stupid flash game for hours on end. Many of the people I know who do such things claim it's neither very fun or rewarding...so why do it?
Translation: many more people are online nowadays, a goodly percentage of whom have addictive personalities.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
^or slashdot...
Get your Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool Here for FREE! - http://fedora.redhat.com
Dude, I like totally read this hours ago on the Web, and then when it got posted to /. I totally read it again in between my gambling and porn viewing. What's that? Sorry, my baby crying interrupted me, but I know if I ignore him he settles down. Oh yeah, this is a great use of the Web to learn about addictions and stuff. Oh wait, I gotta double down...-- wow, check out that babe!
That TV addiction would be a lot more prevalent...
That is, if we define "addiction" as "Something I don't enjoy, but other people do"
Well exgf
She is hooked on Second life. She has her own business so she only needs to work 1 or 2 days out of the week. The rest of the time is playing the game. I dont mean a few hours a day. Its all day long, all night long, to the point of exhaustion and falling asleep at the keyboard. When I talked with her, on the phone, in game, chat whever, everything was about second life. There was no first life for her.
She would change her work schedule to fit around it. Quit working some days to "get things done" in second life. Her interactions with her children (late teens) is only in game. The list goes on actually.
So it can be real imo.
.. who cares?
Don't get me wrong. I understand the point. I myself have played video games for 36 hours striaght, or skipped work to play a game, ingored, and lost girlfriends, or over slept becuase I was on a message board all night. I myself have about 40 gigs of pr0n, and I spend about 8 hours a day on the internet outside of work.
But calling it an addiction is like saying people are addicted to food, or addicted to watching T.V., or Addicted to reading books.
I also go stretches of days and weeks where I spend 10 or 12 hours a day working on a single math problem. I don't talk, I don't Sleep, I don't Eat. Am I addicted to Math???
Just becuase you do something constantly and it tends to outwiegh all other concerns doesn't make it an addiction.
Funny thing is, the behavior has all the markings of what we consider 'Addiction.' But I AM addicted to tobacco, and I have never once ignored a girlfirend to go smoke.
Now I've seen Everything
Yah, I'm on the internet for 8+ hours a day...it's my job to be. Hmm...
I kill harmless processes for sport
Let's stop considering gambling or porn as vices (defined as a defect or failing) and leave people to their own moralities.
I can't live without it. I've tried quitting, God knows, but I always gotta have more. I can't even pretend anymore that I don't inhale...
I think I'm addicted to vitamin C too. Ummm...exactly what is an addiction? Anything that I need to feel better?
I don't get it. How is this any different from sitting in front of a television or reading a book? If anything the internet is superior to these forms of media because it allows for almost limitless applications.
And is obsession something to worry about? Chatting online with my friends who are thousands of miles away because we all just graduated from college and live all over the world... interacting with people I don't know in an online video game, sometimes collaborating and solving problems together... looking up bits of trivia on wikipedia... discussing issues that are important to me on Slashdot, how are these activities any different (or better) than their real life counterparts?
If anything, the internet has increased the amount of activities I can do by eliminating physical restrictions on those activities.
It doesn't negatively impact my work life (if anything it makes it better since I can work from home a few days out of the week and find information I need to complete my job easier) and it doesn't negatively impact my family or social life (I maintain contact with my friends and family over IM and e-mail), so what is so wrong with the internet that spending a lot of time on it becomes an obsession?
pornography and gambling is one thing, instant messaging and blogging is another. one enriches your life, one destroys it. i mean, as long as you are relating to your fellow human beings socially, i don't think you can call it addiction. you can go to a pub or a dry academic conference and talk to your fellow human beings: is this addiction?
the only difference is the forum
so we need to focus on the behaviors on the internet, not the internet itself. i do not think a nonstop blogger is in the same league as a nonstop gambler. i think that the internet is still "new and different" so people are still talking about it like social activists talked about the "new phenomenon" of pool halls in the early 20th century: a dangerous and degenerate influence on young folks to drink and have sex
yes, pool halls were thought of as a grave social influence at one time. of course today, we know it's just a place to play pool. that a pool hall makes you have risky sex or take illicit drugs is just a silly idea. but when something is new, people have trouble separating the old-as-cave paintings-and-rock-carvings basic human vices, from just another new forum to engage in that
focus on the BEHAVIOR not the FORUM
one is as old as time and happens independently of any forum
the other has positive and negative behavior potential
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I think if you could become addicted to simply surfing the web, the chances are you have much more serious pyschological problems than the just the addiction itself. This could not be said for other conditions such as alcoholism.
Ever wondered why both drug addicts and internet geeks are called "users"?
[sig]
And "as destructive as alcoholism and drug addiction," too! Not only that, "they are rushing to treat it" and with what? The Twelve step program and demeaning names like CrackBerry for your devices! Oh, the wonders of modern diagnosis. When the ecnomics of choice leads a person to favor a particular fulfillment of a want or need due to its ease of accessability or extreme level of fullfilment. And the culprit behind it all? Interaction! Yes, the sweet nectar of interaction between other people or people substitues is to blame. When socitey learns that trying to get the fat 30 year old bum out of his parents basement is not to try and treat an 'addiction' as basic as this but to integrating the interaction and its medium to permiate through the whole of itself, drop me an email.
Demented But Determined.
You're reading /., and your desk phone, Linc radio, & cell goes off at the same time, you just heard your blackberry go off so you switch over to Outlook (because for now your bb gets email before Outlook syncs with Exchange (don't be hatin, I'm at work)) by the time the flurry is over your hour lunch just became a 2 and half hour connect-fest and all you really did was leave a post on /.
Peter Corcoran
Internet is an addiction, but help is on the way....please click here http://www.netaddiction.com/ to read about how you can stop your incessant clicking.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Honestly, I think they're mostly just worried about work productivity.
My work blocks a lot of things. Not slashdot, obviously.... But it does block access to my home email, as well as the one site I use all the time. Because I am not able to access the pure crack of my additiction, I waste far more time just keeping my endorphin levels up with inferior distractions. If they just let me do what I wanted, I would be able to keep them up with much less time wasted!
What I say does not represent the views of my employers, my friends, my cats, or myself.
Mental Health Workers are clearly addicted to making major announcements about the deleterious effects of whatever the current fad is. Rewind to 1977: "Interstate Truckers Addicted to CB Radio pose hazard for health, family, and traffic safety".
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
How many of us have been addicted (yes, and we've used that word) to the beautiful, different world in a MUD or other online multiplayer game? You say you just like to play and/or to interact with the community, but when you shut out your loved ones to play a game or to chat online, it's a problem.
Yes, as the article mentioned, people with internet addictions usually have addictive personalities (and so have other addictions like gambling or sex or food) and/or have other mental problems (depression, anxiety, etc).
If you're the loved one of such a person, realize that they can't help themselves. Don't be overbearing or guilting, just try to get that person help, and to convince that person to consent to help. You may only notic the internet addiction, but there's likely far more to it. If that person felt well enough to get help, then s/he would have already. Help your loved one.
I can stop any time I want... starting after the next article on Slashdot... I swear.
Anyone concidered that people have always been addicted to this stuff (blogging is just online voicing of opinions which is pretty much the same as people adicited to writing into magizines (hell i was addicted to writing into a page which displayed on teletext at one point)), its just now that its all digital and online, its far far eaiser to gauge numbers than ever before.
Just pretty much like however they survey anything, and then get a "real" number from somewhere else, the "real" number of people effected by something is always far higher than any survey has ever said. This is party due to facts like people like to questionaires and other forms of monitoring dont always catch people who are out of the system (1.5million homeless in london anyone;?).
Just a wild thought....
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
They should illegalize surfing more than 3 hours a day. Three strikes and you're out! That be a nice profit boom for our economy due our corporate prisons systems. And every computer should have an activity monitor, so Uncle Sam can keep us safe and they could get those pornoholics too!
---
The year is 1984.
But, they say, the Internet's omnipresent offer of escape from reality, affordability, accessibility and opportunity for anonymity can also lure otherwise healthy people into an addiction.
It's not that the Internet is becoming an escape from reality.
It's that the Internet is becoming reality.
Look around a house: There's a thing called a bookshelf. That's where all the books go. When you want to go read a book, you go to a physical space, that's entirely so that you can read.
In another corner, there's where the telephone is hooked to the wall. That's where you go to talk with people.
When you want to play games, you pull out the board game, or the Nintendo, or something.
"Oh, I feel like drawing." You pull out the pens, pencils, paper. Those too, are in a special location in the house.
For everything that you want to do, there's a place in the house.
But now, pretty much everything but the bathroom and the kitchen fits nicely, (and much more affordably,) within the computer.
So, if you hear about "Internet Addiction," just think to yourself: "World Addiction."
Does somebody have an "online gambling problem?" Just call it for what it is: a gambling problem.
Does somebody look at porn so much, that they can't get themselves to go to work? Call it a porn problem.
For whatever problem you have, and then attach the word "online" to it, just strip off that "online" word, and attack the problem.
I use my computer for online banking.
I read/send email to friends, family, and colleagues.
I buy items online.
My job includes web development, so I am constantly looking up information and building web pages and CGIs.
I find activities and events in my area using local search services.
I catch up on all my sports via sports websites.
Well, that's it... I'm an addict!
How do they control for the fact that more and more people are getting Internet access every day and those that have it are using it in more new and varied ways? Do they even really know how much time a person spends in "addictive" web use? Sure, if a guy is spending 16 hours a day downloading pr0n, then perhaps he has a problem. Same with the dude spending 45 hours straight playing World of Warcraft.
Addicition though is a heavy-handed designation. It means you're sick somehow. And frankly I see the Internet as a facilitator of current addicitions, not as an addiction in itself. If you're a gambler with a computer, you'll probably gravitate toward online casions, if you like titty bars then you'll probably like pr0n sites, etc.
As usual, people are ready to jump to conclusions without careful study. One study does not make a case. A lot more research needs to be done before anyone can make such an all-encompassing claim.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
scholars are being treated for their addiction to books. News at 11.
Sometime ago, I would start the day with 30 Min of TV news. In the evening 30 more minutes of propaganda and throw in 2 hours of primetime TV entertainment...now I surf
yep, that's me. Even though I know that the addiction is sure to end so I'm not too worried about it. Really.
At least internet addicts are usually at home and quiet. Mobile phone junkies are Everywhere! Yapping and yapping and driving cars through red lights and onto sidewalks. They have the same distracted, glassy eyed look as heroin addicts and are just as difficult to communicate with. They're constantly babbling crap that has nothing to do with the conversation you're trying to have with them.
That's a dangerous and often overlooked "addiction" that is causing real harm to other productive non-addicted members of society.
sed s/Internet/Television/g
Things have changed since you had to walk into a public store and purchase a mag, and not for the better. Internet porn is really an epidemic on a more quiet level, I believe. I like what J.G. Ballard had to say about pornography: "a widespread taste for pornography means that nature is alerting us to some threat of extinction."
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
i'm only online once a day
Hi, my name is Chayak... and I'm an internet addict... but I'm not... really... FINE I AM ARE YOU HAPPY NOW! *sob* lol
If someone spends 4 hours a day watching TV, are they 'addicted to TV'? And is a huge problem that must be cured (tm)?
-EvilMagnus
One could make the same charge against the internet as one might charge the very act of reading. Do you READ EVERY DAY? Do you READ Erotic Stories? Do you READ and WRITE letters to friends and relatives? Do you play video games? Do you READ and act on Advertisements that suggest you piss away a year's wages in Las Vegas? WELL THEN! We can't HAVE THAT! WE MUST BAN READING! Train people to STOP READING, and if they can't medicate them out of the habit. A couple doses of Thorazine mixed with Xanax will probably do the trick!
This whole notion is such utter crap. My work *depends* on the internet - it's how I sell my work and how I (mostly) communicate with others. Why? Because they live all over the freakin' planet, and to call them on the phone would cost a small fortune, and to go visit is out of the question.
(arrives in Sydney Australia)
RS: Hi Tom! I'm just wondering, but are you going to be finishing your next DVD this month? If so, I sure would like a copy!
Tom E: Sorry, mate, it won't be finished till February, earliest. Maybe March.
RS: Oh, thanks - gotta go - next plane across the planet leaves in an hour. bye!
There is no such thing as an obsession, unless you view it as such, or said behaviour adversely impacts the lives of others. Example: If you spend every minute online, and all you do is game and DL pr0n and check /. every minute, AND YOU FIND IT IS GETTING IN THE WAY OF THINGS YOU WANT TO DO - then sure: you have a problem. But: imagine if you got paid to do that, or something very like it: suddenly the bahaviour isn't OCD? why is it when money comes into the picture, the diagnosis goes away?
People do all kinds of crazy shit all the time, and I think that's just fine. It adds colour to my life. If someone wants to plop themselves infront of a computer all day and night - and they see no problem with that, then FINE - I don't care. I think they're some kind of a fucking WHACKJOB - but as I said - the world is full of freaks. It's only when these people behaving in a specific way *no longer find it useful* and feel compelled to do it against their will, OR, what they are doing is harming someone else without their consent, THEN I get all itchy.
These "psychologists" are the same bunch of lame boneheads who write scripts for ADHD at the least sign of impatience or Social Anxiety Disorder because of simple shyness or apprehension. Fuck them and fuck Phizer / Glaxo / etc. for wasting money pathlogising the human personality.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Huge rise in people addicted to communicating! People spend hours talking on telephones, meeting in meetings, spending time one on one. The spread of diseases caused by people touching and being close to each other kills tens of millions every.....
Give me a friggen break. I'm adicted to breathing, eating, walking, sleeping, and yes... communicating with other people. Everyone is. Everyone always will be. It's part of being human. These people need to go do something productive with their lives.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
Watching x hours of passively watching television while your brain slowly rots = "okay"
Interactively using the Internet = "addiction"
?
Evolution: love it or leave it
My question is, how do they define addiction? More importantly, if that definition is applied to 'normal' tasks like working, playing baseball, jogging, or what have you, what mundane tasks would you be 'addicted' to.
I for one am addicted to eating. I do it at least two times per day. Three times if I can.
Take sex, we're all more or less addicted to sex, is it ruining or lives? As long as internet doesn't ruin your life, you can be addicted, it's all good.
You just got troll'd!
mental health professionals found to have no shortage of work due to loose definition of "addiction."
... but not to porn or games.
I can't get enough news, of the conventional or computer industry kind.
I swear that if there weren't coworkers to scare me, I'd read the various sites repeatedly all day long. And then go home and if there wasn't a girlfriend there who demands attention I'd browse them until late at night.
It is the comments that gets me, I know I don't have to read everybody else's misinformed incorrect blather (unless their viewpoint agrees with mine), but I do. Can I just read an article? No, I've got to do the comments, and then comment myself, and then get into an online argument about something pointless.... hours later I feel bad because it was a waste of time.
Still, less harmful than some previous addictions I suppose...
What I do with my time at work doesn't matter as long as I get my responsibilities done. What I do in the privacy of my own home is nobodys business but my own, and it is completely pointless and juvenile to point the finger at ANYONE with ANY kind of addiction if they are not directly harming another person. Being an "addict" of anything should never be looked at as negative as long as it makes you happy, doesn't hurt others, and you can still maintain the responsibility of accomplishing your duties in life. Negatively judging gets everybody nowhere. If addiction is a problem, one should get help ON THEIR OWN. If addiction is not a problem, one should be left alone. We all learn through life's experiences.
The thing is, we are addicted to lots of things. I'm addicted to sleeping, eating, and drinking water, to name a few. Where it becomes a mental health concern is where the need to do something begins to interfere with one's ability to live life. Society has accomodated the basic addictions of life, with much of our social life revolving around fulfilling those basic addictions.
But look at alcoholism as an example. This addiction can lead to people losing jobs, families, and lives. It's when it starts costing you like that when you need to be concerned. Rare is a day that I go without some interaction with the Internet, but then I'm not throwing away other aspects of my life for the sake of the Internet. Also I generally find I can go without easily enough so long as I have other stimulation (a good book, etc).
If you're "addicted" but are getting along well with your family, getting your work done at the office, etc, then does it really matter?
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
The Internet is not an addiction for most of those 6-10% -- it is a means of living. Bill paying, shopping, gathering news, chatting with friends -- these are the things that people do on a daily basis anyway. Choosing to do them "online" is not much different from choosing to do them "in strip malls" or "downtown."
No doubt some would argue that addictive behavior is behavior that people "can't stop" or that is carried out even when the subject doesn't want to carry it out. But many of the things that are done online in this fasion are necessary to rote functionality. I also don't want to pay my bills or drive in traffic, but find myself doing it anyway.
Does this mean I am "addicted" to paying bills or driving in traffic? Hardly. They're things that must be done. I always do them with a debit card and my Volvo, respectively. Does this mean that I am "addicted" to debit card use, or to driving Volvos?
No. This is modernity. The list of things that *must be done* is huge and easily occupies most of one's day. If your preferred method for getting these things done is online, because it saves you time, saves you money, or whatever, this strikes me as less "addiction" and more "adaptation."
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I guess the corporate media are trying to stamp out curiosity. If someone pent all day in a library or in a public square talking to people they would be called "Intellectual" or "Gregarious".
Quit surfing the web and consume, you drones!
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Like that old commercial, I've read every page on the Internet, so I'm done and there's no more addiction! Seriously though, why do we care about what the Old Media has to say anymore about the 'Net?
You only use 2% of your DNA
Humans become addicted to a lot of things. I'm addicted to caffeine, building computers, playing games, checking email, listening to music, watching shows I like, etc.
We live our life addicted to things. So when they tell me that I'm addicted to the internet I just look at the person and say so what are you addicted to? Most likely some other stupid thing. All humans are addicted to something at some time. Some addictions are worse then the other but the internet is only mental and its not any worse then a girl going shopping all the time. Its harmless except maybe socially like shopping harms the wallet.
To me the fact that we have people wasting money to study the fact that people use the internet all the time and become addicts is like spending money to study understand why dogs always want to eat. Its pointless and a waste of resources.
Increasing predominance of publicly traded reading material is causing a society-wide addiction to reading! This plague of literacy must stop as its causing children to learn at rates hundreds of times faster than the previous generation. Pornography is being more easily distributed and people are even using mass-produced advertisements to blanket communities!
I am and always will be a stereotype, because who in their right mind prefers mono?
*SNORT* *SNORT* *SNORT* /me shakes head && rubs nose, mmm thats good intarweb...woah didnt think it would be this pure.
These people tell you everything is addictive, and if it's not yet it will be once they figure out a way to convince you of it. I bet if they were around 10,000 years ago they would have been telling us that talking was addictive too. using the same reasons, "oh Bill isn't the same person, he's been 'talking' a lot lately" or, "Talking causes you to loose touch with your close ones, and not really participate in society". And of course all of this is being said with sticks, grunts, and other not so usefull forms of communication. But that's how its always been done, they say, and besides I don't relly know how to do that "talking". We'll just assume since we don't understand how it's happening or why its usefull that it is bad for you.
It is true though, some people do always take things a little too excess. Like talking for example, some people talk to much. Like me now, and the persons complaining about people talking to other people too much on the internet, or using their brain too much on the internet. But again, as I said, there are people who do some things just a little too much...
w00t
Ok.. I AM an addict.. I spend my time at work (in IT of course) trying to keep in contact with hundreds of people i know from all around the world.. At night i go home and i get online. Last night I had to take a friend to get peirced, and i took my laptop and attached to an unsecure wireless network in the lobby of the studio and IM'd and played FFXI while i waited. WHO CARES.. Yes i'm sure i get some sort of rush from being online.. but.. I'm social.. I hold a steady job.. I shower on a daily basis.. I just like to be connected.. to everyone and everything.. BIG FREAKIN DEAL.. the information is in the air I see no reason for me not to grab it on a whim...
Now I look at the e-mails I receive from my blogs from people in South Africa and Australia and even Kansas.
They have internet in kansas ?
Isnt kansas internet just a theory ?
!:/me slaps the New York Times around a bit with a large trout.
Call it an addiction, then you can mitigate responsibility, create a marketplace for consultation, and apply for grant money to "research" it. In the 80's they did the same thing with the word "disease" calling Alcoholism a disease. The fact that SOMEone will reply to this and defend that practice is a testament to its crafty success.
I've found that people (okay, me) who are addicted to one thing are easily addicted to others. When I find myself delving too deeply in my addiction du jour, I feel like "just one more thing, and I'll have some greater understanding than I had before. Just one more."
Of course, that understanding never comes.
This is a different feeling than that of searching for actual information, as described in a much earlier post. I am not currently addicted to the internet, but I have been. The time I spend online hasn't changed much, but the feeling I get from being online has.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
they would offer therapy online.
People spend too much time watching television....
People eat too much fast food....
People don't exercise enough...
oh....
And people spend too much time on the internet...
Be sure to remember the Programmers Prayer
People have time. Time needs filling. Before the internet, those 8 hours or so that weren't filled with work and sleep were filled with: Cooking, cleaning, reading, writing, watching tv, listening to the radio, exercise, going to bars/clubs/concerts, talking with friends, playing games. The list goes on but I don't need to.
Now, with the internet everyone where those 8 hours are filled with: Cooking, cleaning, reading, writing, watching tv, listening to the radio, exercise, going to bars/clubs/concerts, talking with friends, playing games. The list goes on, but again, I don't need to.
What's changed? Instead of playing games on my Nintendo or out of a box, we can use the keyboard and frag (is that term still cool? No, it's probably not. A cool kid can correct me. I'm feeling old now...) online, the radio MIGHT be an Ipod hooked up with just the songs the user likes, the TV might be some bittorrented show from last night (or maybe even last season, or overseas) that you didn't watch (or couldn't watch because it was unavailable to you before the internet), you're reading Slashdot or CNN instead of watching it on TV or in Time Magazine, or Wired I guess would be the more appropriate comparison. Your friends MIGHT be flashing in a window or they MIGHT be sitting next to you.
If I spend loads of money and time taking photographs, making them purty for the gallery, waiting for just the right angle of the sun, then it's art, it's a hobby, it's safe. If, in the course of that pursuit, I include time for photoshopping effects, post them to a blog with some commentary, write a little FAQ showing how to achieve those results, trading pics with friends who also like snapping, then it's an addiction, it's obsessive, it's unhealthy.
If I spent 8 hours a day typing the Great American Novel, then (provided it doesn't suck) I'd be hailed a genius, but if I spent 8 hours a day typing The Great American Blog (if it's a real blog, it's not mine) and according to this, be considered a prime candidate for... what's that obsession for writting too much? Lexigraphy or something? Someone wiki it for me because my addiction clock says that this post is already going on long enough to rank as evidence of addiction.
Are there people addicted to the internet? Yeah. Porn? Yeah. Even off-the-wall addictions like piracy (downloading crap you can't use, won't use and don't even have the time to enjoy because you've got to download the next set of albums, the next season, the next release) are out there. These are probably the same people that in 1 b.i. (before internet) were driving Roseanne's ratings up, spending their nights building ugly birdhouses, whatever else.
Clicking the Check Mail button is just a translation of sitting by the phone waiting for that special someone to call, even if you're a little sure they won't. Spending too much time on World of Warcraft is just an online translation of staying up too late at night because the latest book you're reading is just that good.
That's obviously some objective research I can get behind.
I remember reading a couple months ago as part of my daily info-fix that people *do* get physically addicted to exercise, largely due to the endorphins that are released. In that sense, exercise is a physical, biochemical addiction, while "internet addiction" is likely a behavioral one.
:-)
I was the same as one poster above -- reading encyclopedias and dictionaries, reading ahead in the science books, enjoying esoteric conversations that probably 85% of the population couldn't even participate in. It's not "addiction" if it's just behavior directly related to your core personality type, where you would have otherwise substituted books, magazines, or other apparently "non-addicting" sources.
Because I've been handsomely rewarded for having a lot of information in my brain, I've learned that information collection is a good thing. That's why I'm a "knowledge worker." That's why I speak three languages to some degree. That's why I read Scientific American, The Economist, Popular Mechanics, and internet news and blogs. It's immediate, continuous, positive feedback in the Pavlovian tradition.
Sorry - I don't buy it. Then again, denial isn't just a river in Egypt.
I have about 12 - 15 regular visitors, all close friends, it is a rare day when someone does not visit, so I have a social life as well. If I spent all this time on the 'net and did not have meat space contact, I would have a problem. Forgot to mention - I also have an African Grey Parrot, named Fred Yoda Tyson who keeps me in my place.
So what do I spend all this time doing on the 'net?
Reading! I'd hate to think how many words I read on average a day 'coz I naturally speed read, after about 45 years as an incurable bookworm.
I write some to.
May I present my blog to slashdot - please do not crash googles servers with the slashdot effect :)
http://he3isthekey.blogspot.com/
It's called an elephant's trunk whereas it is in fact, an elephant's nose, a nose by any other name would smell as sweet
Yeah, we just got electricity out here a few years ago.
I hear that US Robotics company has a pretty good selection of 14.4 modems coming out soon.
Of course the NY Times looks at secondary issues like "escalating addictions" like Internet gambling when considering the "news" of Internet addiction. Why not focus on the underlying mental illness that is expressed in Internet addiction? Like antisocialization, alienation, abused childhood, and other preventable causes? Is it because the NY Times is so deeply embedded in a dysfunctional society that all its editors and reporters think it can do is complain about the further damage? Is it because the Times benefits from the various damage suffered by Americans, including Internet addiction?
--
make install -not war
It's calling "online gambling" because you don't have to leave your house to lose money gambling with thousands of other Texas Hold Em freaks.
Take out the "online" and its just you and your cat staring at a deck of cards in your living room.
But where were these people when the TV came out?? I know dozens of people that go home after work and watch sitcoms, movies, reality TV, etc. Like zombies they wait until it's time to sleep, then do the same routine. With the internet at least you are learning / interacting with something vs being fed information like an old tape drive. Sadly anything can become an addiction, but at least the internet is one that is fairly cheap and doesn't make you a mindless zombie... That is assuming you don't read too much /. ;-)
Cheers
Some of you are AWFULLY defensive about all this. To me, when someone refers to an internet addiction, its not the amount of time spent on the internet, its the COMPULSION to be on the internet. I'll give an example which neatly ties in a whine: My boyfriend wakes up in the morning and heads straight for the computer. He literally cannot stop himself. Even if he oversleeps and is really late for work, he'll get up and check to see what messages he's gotten overnight, look at /., read certain webcomics, etc etc. Despite the fact that he could easily check those things AT work. He can't help himself. In recent months, since WoW came out, he replaced his old routine with the auction house. It doesn't matter what he has schedule for that day, or how late he is, he HAS to log on and check out his auctions/start new ones every single goddamn morning. To me, that is proof positive of an addiction. Its not something that a psychiatrist makes up. Its a NEED to be online. Its not even about the amount of time he spends online, its about the compulsion. He literally CAN'T go a day without internet. He HAS to check it in the morning, and the instant he gets home he's back on the computer. If i keep him out ofthe house or something all day, he starts to get upset and anxious as it gets later and later, at some point he'll cite exhaustion and say he wants to go home and go to bed. So home we go and bam, instantly on the internet.
So you can all stop telling me that there's no such thing as an internet addiction.
I admit it, I also used to read encyclopedias and odd reference books just because. I also used to take things apart as a kid to see how they worked, of course putting them back together wasn't always easy.
"22 astronauts were born in Ohio. What is it about your state that makes people want to flee the Earth?" Stephen Colbert
First thought on this, what drug are they going to prescribe for this? Some of the same psychotropic drugs they seem to prescribe for everything they make up?
I'm not addicted. I can quit anytime I want.
But not right now. Let me finish this post. Ooh, and I've got messages - gotta check those! Must... not... metamoderate...
Damn you, Slashdot! You are like crack!!!
I'm leaving. Now. Really. I'm all done with this post.
After this. All done. No more to this post. Logging off. Really this time.
*sigh*
Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
I'm addicted to pants. I wear them like every day!
Neil is that you? Yeah yeah, it's me... Neil...
To me much of the hype surrounding Internet addiction, as with tyhe more salacious "porn addiction" fails to ask the qone essential question; what should we do about it? Most of the people I have seen crusading against such 'new' addictions come armed with preexisting (and often horrible) 'solutions' ranging from banning such things altogether, to restricting all porn to some specified 'ports', etc.
I remain skeptical about most of these stories. While I believe that there are some people who are obsessive-compulsive enough to be addicted to the internet, porn, gambling, etc, I doubt both the numbers being thrown around ("hudreds of thousands", "6-10%", "Millions") because most of them have been based upon bad science, or no science. In order to adequately grasp how widespread something is you have to sample randomly from the general population and see how many people are affected in a real way (I.E. according to some clinical, quantitative, and unabiguously-applied metric). Then you can start to talk about rates. All of the 'studies' that I have seen up to this point consist of interviews with self-identified 'victims' combined with some anecdotal estimates or outright assumptions about rates.
That having been said this story seems to be more upfront about it than most stating that there is little hard scientific evidence on the rates, amounts, etc. It also seems to shie away from letting any one "advocate" propose the sweeping issues that past articles have.
In my opinion, Even if the problem is 10% to 50% of the population I believe that 'national mandates' such as shunting porn to specific ports is not the solution. They have never worked in the past (e.g. Prohibition, the War on Drugs, banning prostitution, etc.) The solutuion as with any addiction is individual education and care. If your life has been ruined by addiction to anything then direct individual help (with recognition from your employer, friends, etc.) is what you need and I hope you get it. A law sending you to jail or installing a timer/filter on your computer is, in my opinion, not going to help.
One U.S. Supreme Court Justice once said (paraphrase) that the function of laws to protect children cannot be to make adults act like children or to treat them that way. In my opinion, laws that treat everyone like an addict do nothing to help real addicts, they only harm everyone else.
I surf therefore I am.
"Do you know how dumb average is?" - Peggy Hill
It is all part of the victimization of Humans.
Well, if you don't know you are a victim, then how are you going to not be one.
Secondly, if you discount psychology then you yourself may fall victim to "creative use" of psychological methods of other humans. You know... Like advertising, brainwashing, fundementalism, extremism, politics, zealotry, and various other forms of persuasion inflicted on the human mind.
(What is really the "kick in the head" is that if you disagree with me, then you had no choice but to disagree with me. You are a victim of disagreement!)
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I'd much rather it be that a depressed person spends time online chatting with others, which would hopefully improve his mood, than to tell him to go to a bar and get wasted and then kill himself or someone else driving home drunk. Someone with an addiction usually uses the addiction to fill a void in his life. The 'net seems to be the safer option to me. Just my opinion, though.
The first one is free.
yet again... Way to copy from Matt Drudge's Wednesday news.
I can quit any time I want to.
bah.
My ex-bf was the same way (one of the reasons he's my ex) -- though he had an "addictive" personality in general. Instead of getting a handle on the major psych issues he had that caused him to escape reality any way he could, he just leapt into one addiction after another, including (at points) drugs and alcohol.
I finally left him in the middle of his internet-gaming addiction, after I realized that until he did treat/control the underlying issues, no matter how many addictions he broke, there would always be a new one to interfere. Merely achieving *online* contact with him required I completely structure/center my life around his addictions in order to be free at any particular moment he might not be engaging in them.
Note that I do tend to spend extended amounts of time doing a single activity, am online a lot, and so forth. The difference is that I don't let my interests interfere in what's necessary or meaningful to me; I do stop if somebody needs help or something needs to be done. He couldn't do that regardless of how hard he tried; even faced with losing everything else that mattered to him, being on the verge of homelessness, losing all of his friends, his one relationship, contact with his family, etc. he couldn't control the addictive compulsions. (When forced to rely on friends/family to pay his rent because he had lost his job, after he had 'chosen' his addictions over all of us for years, he still only managed to focus on looking for a job an hour or two per day, engaging in his addictions the rest of his waking hours... He just couldn't deal with being in reality more than that.)
People saying addiction doesn't exist haven't seen a genuine addict in action.
But the comments don't come fast enough. Gotta . . . get . . . my . . . fix.
I Was a Slashdot Zombie: http://www.ubergeek.tv/article.php?pid=1
As a Thanatoid I would like to say
that time is just not now...
If web addiction is a person's worst vice,
they ain't that bad.
Now heroine addiction,
there's a nice soul sucking, life destroying, body killing addiction!
Next in the News:
Public Library Addiction, hooked on phonics!
I am Shocked and Appalled. In this case the media is not the message!
All the vices mentioned are normal targeted vices in DSM4. I had an Ex-Wife who tried to say my Software Engineering at Early hours in the morning made me a drug user. I would say absolutely, Caffine! Satan was the Marketing Manager who said the product was going to be released in three months then collected his fat bonus.
Well that didn't fly but this positioning is dangerous. Someone is trying to say what I am doing right now, engaging in social discourse is an addiction.
Well to that I say BUNK! I am doing what we have always done in essence writing a letter to the editor. Or as the title of the book best sums up "One Hundred Years of Shocked and Appalled" Letters to the Editor....
We cannot allow this to be put forth in an upcoming DSM or our whole work ethic will go down the drain. Lawyers and Social Workers will become rich and all remaining things will be MADE IN CHINA!
Vista, the single biggest argument for Desktop Linux! It doesn't "Just Work"(TM).
But, mental health professionals who support the diagnosis of Internet addiction say, a majority of obsessive users are online to further addictions to gambling or pornography or have become much more dependent on those vices because of their prevalence on the Internet.
Yeah, basically they're saying, give me more money. A party with a vested interest to convince us that we're mentally ill has a bit less credibility with that recommentdation.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Every time some poor bastard does something a little too much, or gets to "into" something, they call him an addict...jeezuz, maybe these people are just friggin bored. I am so damn tired of this "everybody is a victim" mentality society has today trying to label everything and worse yet treat everything with some sort of drug. Jeezuz, got off your fat butt, put down the mouse, go outside and talk to another human face to face...it's ain't that tough...maybe ride a bike, play some raquetball... It's not an addicition, it's an ignorant and lazy lack of ambition to do anything because if you get labelled as an addict you probably qualify for some sort of gov't handout...from MY paycheck. Grrrrrrrrr, grow up people...I spent many years wasting my life with meth, it's not like I am completely ignorant of the subject...ya just get off your butt, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and do whats right. Whew...that felt good, thanks.
dB Masters
...but can you make it drink?
Assuming that "Internet Addiction" is a valid addiction, I most likely have it. When not at my commoner jobs, I'm on the internet most of my waking hours; that's about 5 hours a day or more.
Slashdot, Fark, ANN, LiveJournal, IMs, StumbleUpon... Even if I recognize that I do have a problem, I don't think I'd want to change; I believe that many others wouldn't, either. Like many who venture onto the internet, I am introverted. I have problems meeting people face to face, and for this fact, have few friends in the real world. (Living in a bumfuck small town in the middle of Iowa doesn't help.) Almost all of the people I consider friends are online, including many that I do know in meatspace.
It doesn't detract from my regular "life" things. I still feed my pets, eat meals, shower, do house chores. It hasn't completely drowned out everything else, but I still doubt anyone would consider me a "normal" user.
In short, if I did "fix" my internet addiction, I would have little-to-no social life to speak of. My human contact would be limited to those I work with, my family, and customers, and a very small handful of friends every once in a while.
And so I present this question: If you use the internet many hours a day, conversing with people all over the planet, is it really an addiction, or just a new way to socialize?
she spent all her time with it! If only Coitus over IP were perfected...
Didn't Mr. Bill Gates once say that "the internet will be the crack cocaine of the next century" or, something along those lines (pardon the pun)?
I am ALMOST certain he did, or was quoted as saying so!
(It's funny, because it's almost like the man can SEE the future... or, has one hell of a "outlook on the future", & in this field most especially? I can see that happening - Microsoft's been one HELL of an "impact player" out there, even online, even though they got into the game late... still, outpacing then competitor #1, Netscape)
Next, it's GOOGLE I imagine... & of course, Linux/UNIX/MacOS X as-per-usual & ongoing right now.
APK
P.S.=> I am operating on memory here, but I am NEARLY CERTAIN Mr. Gates said something along those lines - "the internet will be the new crack cocaine of the 21st century" or, something like that... & according to this article, he may have been right! apk
Just shoot me.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Humans have a biological compulsion to communicate whether it is talking or indirectly by reading, writing and TV. The internet is another, fairly direct mode.
If you cut off a human from all means of communication with others, for example on a desert island, many will eventually go mad. Event a few days a on solo backpack and I feel some of these effects.
I got a much bigger addiction: Oxygen! I use it everyday and can't stop it. Since the dawn of time, 100% of the people breathing oxigen died. When are people going to realize oxigen is the most addictive drug of all times?
The word 'addiction' is used in such a pejorative way these days. who cares what Joe Bob, the next door neighbor, does with his time and money? this issue is unworthy of serious attention. What concerns me more is addiction to television and all-out drama. have you seen anything on television lately? if world war 3 came around in a couple years, I'm sure they'd even turn that into a reality show and everyone would love to sit mindlessly infront of their brain sucking CRTs. unless you've got evidence of a truely and physically addictive act, then don't call it addiction. call them what you will: hobbyists, enthusiasts, whatever, but don't call them addicts.
I work 40 hours a week, all 52 weeks of the year. working takes up all day 5 out of 7 days a week that I could be spending with my family. are you going to call me a job addict because that interferes with my family life?
this issue is absolutely frivolous and unfounded.
1001100 1100101 1100001 1110110 1100101 1001101 1111001 1000010 1101001 1110100 1110011 1000001 1101100 1101111 110111
Being hooked on the web is just like saying I like food... I mean from what I understand addiction means, it's only an issue when it becomes a problem. So really to be an Internet addict, I believe the only people who are considered addicted are those who are dying over it. Think about it this way, your much better off being "hooked" to the Internet rather than the TV. Because the Internet has by far more to offer than the TV does like interactivity, imagination, and information. These stupid physcologists are just trying to make a ground breaking new bulletin, just to get in the news. What losers...
Everything fun is evil and addictive. All you people out there stop using the net, masterbating, playing video games, watching tv, playing sports, reading comics, and doing anything else that sets off the pleasure centers in the brain because pleasure is an evil sin that must be eradicated for the good of mankind. Our all powerful, commanding overlords of psychology and politics command us!
Seriously, I have a problem. I even took a 2nd job that forces me NOT to use the Internet for a few hours a day just to stay sane.
Is there a 12-step program for this?
"My name is anonymous coward and I'm addicted to the Internet."
Please don't mod this funny, I am serious.
These people who claim to 'cure' you of addiction to the web, do they have a website?
You're familiar with the idea of Pavlovian conditioning - stimulus / response. There are a lot of other conditioning structures, particularly operant conditioning that reinforces specific behaviors.
The strongest conditioning comes from something called a variable reinforcement schedule - the reinforcement comes after a random number of repetitions of the behavior (so, say for a rat, between 1 and 20 presses on a lever to get a food pellet).
You can see that same reinforcement pattern in slot machines that pay out at a random interval of behavior...and you can see it online, with a random amount of clicking between the reinforcement of finding relevant content...
Is it addiction? Well, it's conditioning for sure...and that can lead to addiction.
How come these articles always talk about how something is "taking away from their families"? If you spend too much time with your family would you be considered addicted? Shouldn't people have interests outside of their families?
I know a number of families that I would do anything to avoid as much as possible.
Someone needs to invent a 12 step program.
Obsessive behaviour isn't always 'bad'. A great(?) comedian once said: "I'm manic depressive. I could take drugs for it but that's where the work comes from." Issac Newton was a pretty strange guy by the standards of his and our times. I think it was Einstein who said that Newtons' genius was the ability to think about only one thing for days.
;-)
John Coltrane replace drug addiction with practicing all day, every day. Mentally healthy? You make the call. I'm personally addicted to wikipedia. Is it ruining my life? Ask me in a while (I'm editing right now
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
.
.
.
.
.
Oh man, I'm glad I'm not one of those guys who can't stay away.I'd have to really quit
.
.
. But, since I don't have a problem, why should I?
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
I wondered when I read the article if it had not been crafted by an industry who is concerned that we are loosing our dependence on their opiates [sic].
Theres less concern now for addiction to newpaper reading or television watching than their is to people on the net interacting with others.
Is it possible that the media are concerned that we will depend more on each other for our news and social reports and less on the figure head broadcasting one truth and one lie equally ?
And thats why Firecrackers and kittens don't mix.
I seem to recall reading a study somewhere that mentioned that people who spend more time on the internet watch less TV as a general rule of thumb. This makes sense to me as we're trading a passive tool for a more useful interactive tool. I watch much less TV than I ever used to and thanks to DVRs its also much more focused when I do. Though most of the time I get my news/information/entertainment from the computer as I like being able to direct it myself. Personally I'd use the word compulsive for my habits I have a large appetite for information and do feel compelled to read/watch/surf to fulfill my desire for new information.
Its good to maintain a balance though and it's good to get out to the gym or go for a walk or whatever to 'switch off' for a while. Though we're not helping ourselves by having mobile phones to interrupt my quiet walk in the country or a TV screen in my running machine to let me watch the news while I run. Guess it just comes with living in the information age.
There may be some people who are adversely affected by an addiction to internet access.
Surely though there are many things that it seems socialy acceptable to be addicted to and there is hardly ever a complaint raised about them.
Its just jealosy methinks, it takes a degree of enthusiasam, knowledge and skill to become addicted to Internet activities.
Pressing a tv remote however is an addiction that takes about as much skill and knowledge as eating - and for some reason this makes it ok.
Society should be more tolerant and more aspirational, Internet addiction should be viewed as no more of a bad thing than addiction to writing bad poetry.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Yes, some people call it having an intellectual life, to complement their work life and mindless consumption life. I can see why business would be worried about their employees suffering from such an illness.
"But other users have a broader dependency and spend hours online each day, surfing the Web, trading stocks, instant messaging or blogging, and a fast-rising number are becoming addicted to Internet video games"
Why blame this on the internet? Some people used to spend hours talking to their friends on the phone, etc. Now they do it via IM. Some people obsessively trade stocks, only now they use a web browser intead of a telephone. Just because it's on the internet, does this now make it into an "addiction"? Sounds sensationalist to me.
It somehow reminds me of the situation nowadays where you can seemingly take any mundane activity, attach "on the internet" to it, and suddenly be granted a patent. Can you patent "shopping"? No, but go ahead and patent "shopping on the internet". Ridiculous.
I have real hobbies (national champion motorcycle roadracer, avid sand volleyballer)
I have a real job (technical executive at successful wireless company)
But I really like Warcraft. I have level 60 world of warcraft characters. On wc3 I play house games, custom games, and every now and then teach other players about DOS attacks when they annoy me.
I've abused my knees and other joints. high school and collegiate wrestling. competitive racquetball. skateboards. snowboards. texas high school football (go maroons!) motor sports of all kinds, with aerobatic crashes. Warcraft 3 is the perfect 10 - 40 minute veg, while your kernel compiles, or your j2ee integration tests run. Back when I worked at a Fortune 100 company it was the PERFECT tool to get thru mind numbing conference calls. You haven't lived until you've been paid to play wc3. World of Warcraft (which, admittedly, I play alot less now that I'm back in a startup) is a teaser to a world yet to come.
Is it my fault I look forward to a world where i can get around -ANYWHERE- by walking out my house, hopping on my motorcycle/personaltransportpod to the neighborhood gryphon portal? And dont get me started about how cool recreating in the holodeck is going to be. Hitting apple-tab (go powermac!) to bring up warcraft and donning the headset is just a neandrethal predecessor to reaching over and jacking in matrix style into tomorrow's recreational sports.
Heck, I may want to live life from 60 onward jacked in 24 hours a day.
So yeah, you can have your warcraft back when you EITHER pry it from my cold dead fingers OR deliver the equipment and surgical plan to tap right into my occipital lobe.
..increasingly more people are addicted to life.
Its a matter of evolution. Humans no longer evolve physically, we evolve through technology. Clothing is an extension of our skin, bicycles an extension of our legs, and glasses are an extension of our eyes. Much in this same way, the computer is an extension of our ability to think and the Internet allows us to use that mind to communicate with other minds at extremely high speeds. In this light, it seems that the difference between a person with a problem (being addicted to the Internet) and a person with an advantage (better using technology to further his own understanding) is a very thin line. -Da3vid-
I'm addicted to electricity
spend hours online each day, surfing the Web, trading stocks, instant messaging or blogging, and a fast-rising number are becoming addicted to Internet video games.
Er, so reading, writing, talking and playing games with friends are all bad when they're online? I think that's a bit ridiculous. Trading stocks online is either gambling or a business. The former might be a problem, the latter not so much. But again, just because it's on a computer this is somehow a problem?
Cheers.
Well, either you're closing your eyes
To a situation you do now wish to acknowledge
Or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated
By the presence of a pool table in your community.
Ya got trouble, my friend, right here,
I say, trouble right here in River City.
Why sure I'm a billiard player,
Certainly mighty proud I say
I'm always mighty proud to say it.
I consider that the hours I spend
With a cue in my hand are golden.
Help you cultivate horse sense
And a cool head and a keen eye.
Just substitute Internet for Pool!
Oh my God, I never knew that checking Slashdot every day was a "problem". Maybe I need treatment....
Psychology is a pseudo-science. They do not do well controlled experiments. They do not try repeat things. Once in a while someone does a good scientific experiment in psychology, but that is ignored. So while Psychology could be, and should be a science, it is not in the real world.
Richard Feynman explains it better than I can
One man's flamebait is another man's funny.
I'm addicted to getting up in the morning, going to bed at night, eating, having painful nasty sex with my leather daddy, getting paid on time, hiking, sunlight, and then the internet- porn, more porn, information, important things to go with the online pickups like how to effectively treat crabs and herpes. For that matter I'm addicted to my crab free state! I must say not being covered in hungry carnivorous insects is quite addictive. Although not nearly as addictive as having skin is, or not being on fire is. I'm addicted to having a brain, I'm addicted to having eyes, I'd be quite annoyed if they fell out one day!
So I'm going to go into the 12 step program to cure my life addiction. Which addiction to cure first? You can bet it won't be the nasty leather sex!
"I don't look at it as an addiction, really. There are those who have an honest drive to paint. My life, my job and my hobbies revolve around art. I always think about the "it:" How does it work, where did it come from, why isn't it better, who else likes it?"
So now the paragraph describes my life. So what?
Most people who really care about something could alter that paragraph to reflect their own lives. Some of the most productive people on Earth would fit in just fine. Alter it to be about helping the homeless and diseased and it could have been written by Mother Teresa.
This is one of the big problems with North America. The only lifestyle you can absolutely rely on being judged as normal is
"I am a man with a wife and two children. I work every day, but only hard enough to ensure I am not fired. I come home and spend all my mental and emotional energy on my family. I have a hobby, but I'm not particularly good at it. I'm comfortable with my skill level.
When I die, the only people who will really care are those who knew me personally. The only people I care about are people I know personally and a small number of cultural icons I've chosen as idols from the accepted list of celebrities. I read three novels a year.
Anytime I notice that I really like an activity and it's starting to interfere with spending every waking moment on my family or work, I acknowledge I have a problem dependency on that activity and I give it up.
I don't really relate very well to the woman I married, but I understand that's because I, as a man, do not have the emotional maturity or intelligence to understand women. I'm just glad she puts up with me."
We can disregard women in this context, because no woman is allowed to be normal. Even if they have everything else in order, they always need to lose five pounds. The point at which they no longer need to lose five pounds is well below the defining limit for anorexia, so then they can be yelled at for that.
Finally, there's a significant category error here. The internet is not one thing, it is many. To suggest that an addiction to e-mail, games, or sex sites is an addiction to the internet is like suggesting that an addiction to cocaine is an addiction to bathrooms because that's where you usually do it. One could then point to anybody else who habitually uses a bathroom and shout "addict!"
The only reason compulsive handwashing isn't an addiction is because the actor does not receive pleasure from it. Obsessive-compulsive actions are done to relieve anxiety, not gain pleasure.
That's true for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. There's also Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder which is largely distinguished by the person in question deriving pleasure from the act. You know, the people who take great pleasure in having their desk set up just right.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.