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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.
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.