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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Porn may be addictive, but this is most likely at least in part because (most) humans are predisposed to want sex. Before taking heroin or some other drug, we are VERY unlikely to have any physical or psychological need for it, but this isn't the case with sex -- I've wanted it on some level since I hit puberty at age 10, although I didn't seek either pornography or the real thing until I was an adult.
Also, you mention the evils of pornography as "desensitizations, misrepresentations of sexuality, corrosion of relationships, etc.", but I would argue that there are some issues with this representations. Desensitizing myself to sex and nudity was one of the best things that ever happened to me. As an amateur artist, I occasionally draw nudes, and I have been much happier since I stopped feeling guilty for merely drawing little nippley dots on cartoon breasts or feeling dirty when I caught a glimpse of another woman changing in a swimming pool changeroom. Yes, I was indeed a prude in my youth, and online depictions of nudity, both sexual and nonsexual, helped me get over it.
As for the misrepresentations of sexuality, that is very subjective: the "proper" representation of sexuality will depend on who you ask -- a conservative Christian might say that porn misrepresents sex as an act of carnal pleasure, not reproduction, a feminist might say that it misrepresents sex as a process of objectifying women, and there are so many other views on what sex and sexuality are or should be. Since the internet allows us to see so many conflicting views, for any piece of pornographic material, you can guarantee that somebody is going to view it as a "misrepresentation".
I will not deny that porn can corrode relationships, but it isn't always because porn is innately a bad influence -- if there is a pre-existing communication problem in a relationship, one partner may well be aghast upon discovering that the other partner looks at porn on occasion, and that might be enough to end the relationship, but it isn't because porn is some horrible horrible thing. If porn is, however, a true addiction (ie. the person cannot help him/herself, and the porn viewing takes up an excessive amount of time), then it may indeed put stress on even a healthy relationship, and it should be viewed as similar to any other harmful addiction.
Note that I'm not addicted to porn, nor am I even a particularly big fan of it, whether it's of the online or offline variety -- I'm just sick of being told over and over again that porn should offend me as a woman. As an artist, I'm sick of being told that a naked body is an awful, horrible thing, and that it gets even worse in certain poses. As a net geek, I'm sick of being told that the internet is enhancing "vices" purely because it allows a wider range of information than some people are comfortable with.
"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."
This is completely wrong.
The current models indicate that the reward pathway is indeed modified in people who are dependent, but that is not because of a particular substance.
Simply stated, the BEHAVIOR causes the brain to rewire itself in such a way that certain reward pathways are strengthened, while others atrophy. When engaging in certain behaviors, the brain issues rewards, leading to more of that behavior.
The specific substance/activity is irrelevant. The rewiring takes place in the same manner, regardless of substance or activity.
Now it is also possible to become physically dependent, as in the case of heroin where withdrawal has very real physical effects, but that is particular to each substance. There are also drugs, such as cocaine and MDMA that cause physical damage in the brain, but that type of damage can't be reliably tied to specific behaviors.
In short, the changes in the reward pathways are the same regardless of what a person is dependent on.
So, in most cases you're not actually dependent on a behavior (like sex) or a chemical (like coke) but on your own brain's rewards.
"I really wish these people had taken the time to realize this before putting out a sensationalist piece of work."
I wish you'd taken the time to educate yourself so that you don't spread disinformation. Seriously, if you plan to talk about things like this, take them seriously enough to know what you're talking about.
PS, my information is current as of 6 months ago. If there is new information that you think I might be interested in, please post it.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?