Slashdot Mirror
Computer Addiction or Just Modern Life?
Ant writes to tell us that ABC News has an interesting look at computer addiction and what it might take to be considered addicted in today's society. From the article: "Video games and the Internet have been subject to suspicion since the computer became a household fixture. One complaint: People get sucked into spending enormous amounts of time on the computer, to the detriment of other parts of their life. But are they addicted? The answer depends on what you mean by 'addicted.' Most experts say computers are not addictive in the same sense that drugs are, but they could be on the same level as gambling."
Take over Bos'n!
problem? problem? i don't have a problem...its valentine's day and i got first post, do you think i have a problem?
time is a perception of a being's consciousness
time is your 6th sense, the wierd ones are 7+
There's no link?
Scorta futuere amo!
Note that I am posting this on Valentines day, at 10:30PM instead of spending time with the girlfriend.
Am I addicted? Not in the traditional sense of the word, of course.
Addiction is not necessarily bad.
Just as TV, radio, or telephone.
Is it necessary for survival? Only if the environment forces you to it. The current environment is technologically-driven, so you need to stay connected to have a social life, student life, work life, etc.
The real problem is about people whose life is so miserable that to escape from the world, they use the internet. THEN it becomes an addiction, but I'd say that's the least of their problems.
if it's not "Action News", it's not worth my time.
Someone should do a study into Slash-addiction.
Computers, games, Internet, chat, whatever can be addicting. You can tell because people will do something unproductive to the point of harming themselves. What's unproductivity you ask? Doing something that doesn't endear you to other human beings, and produces no tangible result that you can talk proudly about later with your grandchildren.
Grandchildren are what you have after you find a mate, have children, and raise them well enough that they too have children. I tell you this, because you're a Slashdotter like me, and quite possibly haven't considered the possibility that you can spend enough time away from the keyboard to actually find a mate. It's possible, since married Slashdotters post all the time, and even our great leader (1) Taco is married and proposed on Slashdot. Being Valentine's Day, it's the perfect time to wallow in your single-ness, and motivate yourself to do something tomorrow that will introduce yourself to new people and potentially a mate.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Gambling can be as addictive as any drug. In fact, you can induce gambling behavior by administering compulsive-behavior inducing drugs (works in a high percentage of the population). As for using a computer, if it is programmed to be a gambling machine, it will be as addictive as gambling. If it's programmed to read you the transcipt of a meeting about a topic for which you have no interest, it can be a sleep-inducing machine. Attached to appropriate equipment it can even deliver -- WHY WON"T SOMETHING THING OF THE CHILDREN -- drugs. In short, a computer can be used to do a lot of things and can result in a lot of different behaviors by its users, including addiction. Yay! This has been known for at least a decade.
Btw, Slashdot is addictive (and should be regulated by the government since prohibition laws are sooooooooo effective).
Wait a second, I have to answer the phone.
Here's the article: Computer Addiction? Nah, Probably Just Modern Life
How much time do you use your web browser/chat client/im app versus how much time you use other programs like graphics applications or word processors.
Well, it's 10:39 at night and I'm checking and posting to slashdot...
You make the call.
Why isnt anyone calling TV addictive?
i mean, most people spend more time on the tv then the pc and IT didnt get nearly as much flack.
Let's see...
Automobile addiction, or just modern life?
Telephone addiction, or just modern life?
Newspaper addiction, or just modern life?
Machine addiction, or just modern life?
Agriculture addiction, or just modern life?
Clothes addiction, or just modern life?
Fire addiction, or just modern life?
Pointy stick addiction, or just modern life?
Hmmmm...
it's like a big shopping mall that has everything we want. Sure, some of the things we want are addictive, but the internet is simply a conduit to those things.
If you're a porn addict, and you can't get your porn online, you'll revert to good, old, sticky-paged hardcopy.
"What is the answer?" (Silence) "In that case, what is the question?" --Gertrude Stein
I've used shoes for so long that I'm not sure how well I could live without them. Shaking this addiction would probably cause me physical harm. If I hadn't started using them so much, I probably wouldn't need them so much now.
I'm also psychologically addicted to toothpaste. Even though my body doesn't require it to survive, I don't think I could ever convince myself to stop using it without great pressure.
Computers are a tool, folks. They're used so much because they're a tool for a very wide variety of things. Imagine how much you'd use a car that did fifty other things for you.
I absolutely recognize that it is detrimental to the rest of my life -- I do neglect things that are arguably more important. And I get frustrated sometimes, and seriously consider yanking the cord right out of the wall and throwing the computer in the closet for a few weeks.
It may not be a classic addiction in the physical sense, but I could see it being similar to something like a gambling addiction, as mentioned. I know that I'll sit down at the computer frequently, even when I know there is nothing new to see, because I just looked a few minutes earlier ;). And yet I will do a little surfing anyway.
And that is why I am typing this on Valentine's Day, instead of being out with my non-existent girlfriend.
If someone spends hours and hours and hours a day online, they're "addicted".
If someone spends hours and hours and hours a day watching television, they're just normal Americans.
Does ABC NEWS (you know, the television channel) make note of this odd double standard? Hard to tell, since Slashdot didn't bother to actually provide us the story to read. I guess this is actually a pretty smart move on Slashdot's part. Nobody reads the stories anyway, so now to save on bandwidth they're just omitting the links.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Are they talking about? Watching Tv? Getting drunk at bar? Working? It sounds as if they expect people to lead interesting and meaningfull lives. Well, quite frankly I don't think I have ever seen anyone that even comes close to fitting that description. Basically the reason why people spend time on the computer is because its better than being bored.
gambling online? /evil
I could stop if I wanted to.
Back at MSU I did research on IAD. Being a computer geek and psych geek I thought it was the perfect independant study. The problem I found, which turned into my thesis, was that the entire psychological community saw IAD as a chance to "exploit" clients. So they wrote the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria to mimic that of other addictions (gambling, sex, drugs, alcohol, etc). I thought that was a horrid idea since the internet - and computer - are merely tools to an end so my thesis went something like, "Internet addiction should not be deemed a disorder in itself but another disorder through a new medium."
You've got all the traditional fixes online - gambling, power, people, and so on. You can use the internet to get to your fix, it is not a fix on its own.
I don't "spend too much time on my PCs", but I do spend a lot of time editing/processing digital photographs. And editing videos. And writing letters & other documents. And writing/testing programs. And keeping up with world news. And searching for information in many sources. And managing finances. And drawing diagrams.
The fact that all the tools to perform those tasks, and more, happen to be in the same box is incidental.
There are people addicted to socializing and having sex with as many people as possible too.... and THAT'S an addiction.
Food and breathing air can be addicting to. Once you start on that yummy oxygen, you can't really stop!
What were we talking about again?
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Dude, you need to find a 12 step program - along with me. (I promised on another topic that I'd quit to go to bed. But I can quit anytime I want to...It's just that...I dont' wnt to...I wan't to stay up for more hours... here on /....really...I can quit at anytime...no REALLY....don't touch that RJ-45 connector..GET AWAY!.......(Intervention)
OK, Unca Hosie'll help you out. First, general refutation: if the sole criteria for deeming something an "addiction" is that you spend a lot of time doing it so much as to neglect other activities, then why not say *sleep* is addicting? We spend one third of our lives doing it, we're unable to stop (we may try to curtail our sleeping but the "withdrawal symptoms" set in), and we could be doing a lot of more valuable things with our time if we didn't have to spend so much of it sleeping.
Second, if we must categorize computer use as addicting, then it is a relatively benign addiction. Beyond the case of the occasional socially-handicapped geek (rarely reported these days), few detrimental effects are known to stem from excessive computer use. Carpal tunnel syndrome and repetitive stress disorder may affect certain individuals in extreme cases (and may partly be blamed on poor interface design). Beyond that, it neither affects your physical health like drugs nor your financial health like gambling (which I don't classify as an addiction, but rather as a mental disease - based on the denial of the laws of mathematics in the face of an irrational faith in luck). Some psychological damage can be noted in the case of system administrators (read scary-devil-monastery lately?), but as these people encounter their hardships as a result of using computers in a professional capacity, even this evidence is negligible.
The woman's commentary is interesting. she doesn't consider her gaming an addiction because it's not destructive. While she spends less time going out, she feels that she has merely supplanted going out with going online. A transplanted social life.
The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle ground between the two extremes.
As a college student, instant messaging has become a vital form of communication amongst myself and my peers. To lose access to instant messaging would severely restrict my social access. It's a less attention consuming form of contact than a phone conversation and it allows me to converse with multiple friends at the same time rather than being tied down to one at a time. Often my buddies plan to head out somewhere over the ventrilo chat channel. If I'm not at a computer I'd miss out.
We play games together as a group, it's a social activity that has introduced me to the bulk of my hometown friends. It supplants gathering 'round for a football game since only a few of us are even interested in spots.
I didn't grow up immersed in sports, undiagnosed athsma kept me from excelling in sports for a long time and instead video games took its place as a recreational activity.
There was a time when video games seemed to be the sole niche of an underground geek culture. However, as time progressed, the video game industry has blossomed and television advertisements for games have become commonplace. Many geeks would come to wonder when jocks started playing games too. They had probably been playing all along, but since video games have become more prevalent, society has become more accepting of this hobby and more are admitting to the activity.
Humanity has experienced a diverse set of lifestyles. We've tilled fields to scratch out subsistence lives in the countryside and washed ourselves with buckets of water, we've moved into cities and have become accustomed to commuting to work over distances that would have taken a full day of travel, and we are now touching upon an age where computers will become a natural extension of our lives.
How much is too much? This is clearly a question of values. Notably physical health is questioned. Also, mental health may come into question when some choose to completely divorce themselves from reality in order to live out another life they find more comforting. Society will also come to consider how much "real" social contact can be replaced with virtual contact.
(Btw, at some point, we're going to have to figure out a system to properly convey a range of emotions through text if we are going to make virtual contact more like real contact. We might need to upgrade keyboards with emotion keys akin to Caps Lock and make the necessary software changes. The earlier slashdot article on misconstrued posts raises this question already)
Addiction implies the brain has been altered to reinforce the desire to continue use of the addictive stimulant. Powerful addictive substances alter the functioning of the brain and can (at least in some cases) be measured either via chemical imbalance or altered brain scans.
Addictive substances are addictive because they've evolved that way -- they exert some type of control over other creatures (like humans) by stimulating the pleasure centers of the host's brain. It's really a symbiotic (or in some cases, parasitic) relationship between two species. Computers don't fit into this picture.
Are people who read a lot of books addicted to books? What about people who play sports? Or pursue any other hobby for that matter? Just because some people choose to spend a lot of time at the keyboard doesn't mean their brains have been altered to *need* the experience.
I may be "addicted" to computing, but it's not destroying me, so it's fine.
As I said, just like sex!
You just got troll'd!
If a computer addiction has ruined the life of anyone here, I encourage them to stand up now.
~= scwizard =~
Are the dozens of types of addictions currently recognized for real, or are they just a great welfare
system for second rate psychologists? Here is a great book that tackles the subject: "The Diseasing
of America" by Stanton Peele. His thesis is that the addiction treatment industry (and it IS a huge
industry) is totally out of control. More and more behaviors which would have previously considered
simply undesirable or immoral are now explained away as some sort of addiction and medical disease.
Where will it all end?
How about some of us make good choices, and some of us make not so good choices, and we have to live with the consequences. Unless we're screwing up our neighbor's peace in the process, we can alternatively be left alone to behave wisely or not. Having some shill whining about how we're addicted to having fun, eating things others disapprove of, listening to crap, wearing stupid clothing, or are duped into thinking that Emacs is better than vi.
Useless.
For example Maslow would say it is a need, or rather fills a need, that being self actualization. See Maslow thought that the traditonal definition of need, that being the basic things required to sustain life, was too narrow. People seem to need more than that, at least if they are to have a fulfilling life. His thoery was that as you filled more base needs, you moved up to the next level. So physical needs like food and water are first, then shelter and security and so on up. At the very top there is self actualization. That would be anything you find personally fulfilling, be that a something that challenges you, entertains you, enlightens you, whatever.
Well, computers and the Internet sure can do that. Computer games are wonderfully entertaining, at least for some. I find them much more satasfying than TV most of the time. The Internet is an excellent place to get at all sorts of information for no other reason than because you want to.
So I wouldn't say it's an artifical need, it's very real, it's just one that there are many ways to fill, and computers are not a requisite to doing that, just a way of doing it if you like. I don't think they are any less valid than any other method. I don't understand the conception that a family that comes home and watches TV all evening while eating, chatting, etc is "normal" but one that goes and logs on to Warcraft is "addicted".
I'd say computers are just one of the many things we choose to spend time on meeting our highest needs, since our more basic ones are generally quite easily met in rich countries.
I was being distracted from my studies by the computer. My solution? I got e-texts. For example, it was hard to sit down and crack open Nandris' Handbook of Old Church Slavonic, but with the University of Texas' online course, I can position a chat window over a blank portion of the screen and study and talk over IM at the same time. Or, I can keep it in one tab and go back and forth between it and the BBC News website. In fact, I'm amazed at home much I'm getting done of studying, socializing, and keeping up with the news. Computer addiction is keeping me more productive, not less. Granted, I'm in academia, a profession based on soaking up as much knowledge as possible, but there are still millions of people who must be benefitting as much as I am.
I'll bet you a $100 they're not... right after I reach level 45 on WoW...
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
Addiction correlates strongly with the frequency of Ctrl+R keyboard sequence
Computers are no more an addiction than being addicted to water and air. Computers don't have a detremental affect on people, so why see them as bad?
MABASPLOOM!
The real question in determining whether an addiction exists is not how much time the person spends on the activity, but rather what happens to the person when they cannot for whatever reason do that activity (say by unexpected circumstance).
I am truly addicted to computers and the internet. I use my computer for almost everything, I play games,I listen to music and watch movies, I check the weather, I read local and world news, I talk to my friends and family, I order items on the internet and even sell items on ebay. When I'm away from my computer I miss it, I can't wait to get home and sit in my chair and surf the net. I am constantly around my computer, I used to love watching tv, but now the computer has taken it's place. Hell, even when I do watch tv, I can't quit thinking about going back upstairs to get on it.
Almost as addictive as my computer is broadband, when my cable modem goes down, I find myself pacing the floors and wating impatiently for things to work again. I've become so used to broadband that I can't bare to use dialup.
Even worse, I can't imagine how life would be without my computer. Almost everyone has one, you need one these days....
If you could turn back time before you purchased your first computer, what did you do to occupy your time, what was the special thing?
People get sucked into spending enormous amounts of time on the computer, to the detriment of other parts of their life. This is slashdot. What other part of my life?
If it's 11:20 PM on Valentine's day and you're posting on /. then you're addicted.
-jX
Don't you just love politics? It's like a comedy of errors.
Print took potshots at TV when it was the star of the show. That was before the internet though. Now, the TV stations are loosing ratings. They're struggling to promote their own medium by slandering the new one. "Internet addiction, online predators, phishing schemes, oh my! Come back to TV where it's safe friend :-) We love you. We have Simpsons, Sopranos, and Shopping!! What more could you want?" Sadly, it seems the older generation really buys this "internet boogie man" business. If I even so much as mention eBay around Mom, she lectures me for half an hour about how I need to "be careful." If TV spent as much time on STDs as they do the "dangers of the internet" my Mom would probably buy me a crate of condoms if even breathed the word girlfriend.
Hasn't this subject been beaten to death already? Stories about the Internet and gaming being addictive have been written ad nauseum ever since those things became popular. What makes an Internet 'addiction' so different from say, an 'addiction' to Dungeons & Dragons or collecting model cars or modding your car or... Well, you get the point. To me, this is just the media wanting to find something to write about other than hard news.
As long as people continue to exist, they will find and invent new things to obsess about. Personally, I have quite a few things that I spend hours and hours doing (including surfing the Net), but I hardly label them addictions, but instead see them as things I love, things that I'm passionate about. Nothing wrong with that. Call it an addiction, an obsession, whatever. It's not about to cause me to lose my job.
Whoever Has the Most Toys Wins!
In the Matrix, computers get addicted to YOU!
I'm a die-hard, every single day of my life computer and Internet power user. Computers for 22 years, Internet for 16 of those years, spanning quite a few different fields of interest through those years. I don't have a notebook, PDA, or even a cellphone, but every single day I'm immersed in computers. All day at work, and all evening when I get home, until I go to sleep. Not counting work, which is, well, work, what am I doing the rest of the time? Heck, you name it. See a long time ago it stopped being about "being into computers" for me, it's simply the way I get things done that are important to me; like writing, making music, exploring graphic arts, learning things... Basically, stimulating my brain with everything including the kitchen sink. Can I do this without computers? Yeah, most of it, and here's my point: Any given day, I can go on a vacation, have somewhere else to be other than home, maybe all day, maybe for a week in another city somewhere. As I mentioned, I have no portable devices. If I'm not at home, then I don't give a crap about what my computers do for me there. When I'm at home, I'm glued there, because that's the most entertaining and enriching place in the apartment, no big deal. If I'm going to be at home, it's that or watch TV, or read a book. Oh hey, I can do those things on the computer too. Take me out of my home and put me in the mountains somewhere, I'm happy as a clam. There, I'm not thinking about my daily computer existance at all; and on returning home, I'll sink right back into them just as joyfully as I stepped away.
It's just life at this point... I think that the breadth of what one can be into with computers negates the addiction factor. If I was doing just one thing on my computer all the time, like play Evercrack or sit and refresh the front page of Slashdot for hours, every day, that would be an addiction, like sitting in front of the same slot machine all day. An addiction to Evercrack is only involving one particular aspect of the usage of a very versatile tool. I don't think that makes the tool an addiction at all.
An addiction? Nope. It is the perfect medium for me to see what my ex girlfriend is doing - I check her away messages on aim all the time. Right now she is on a Valentines date with her new boyfriend. I can't wait until she comes to her senses and we get back together, this is SO us! *cries* /goes back to tech-report.
the earth is flat, and I only play WoW 1 hour a week...
Other things I'm addicted to: reading, indoor plumbing, electricity, automobiles, telephones...
This story is only a step above the crap on local TV news, "Is your computer trying to kill you? Tune in Tuesday at 11 to find out."
Back in the 60's newspapers were accusing television of being a "vast wasteland", and plenty of other harsh sentaments. Now TV has been losing traction to video games and the internet and periodically throws out puff-pieces about "internet addiction" and "the cult of the video game".
Without getting sidetracked on the sheer coolness of being around for the creation of 2 distinct forms of media in my lifetime (which I can go on about for say 20 pages), the fact remains that my cable bill is for internet only as my income and free time are now net-centric and the tv itself is regulated to being "just another monitor" for my movie and gamining pastimes for the couch position instead of the office chair positon.
This type of use of the TV scares the crap out of media companies far more than TV scared the crap out of hollywood and the publishing industries as seen by the scramble for downloadable content.
But the fact remains. Apart from my work and about 3 side projects involving art, animation and special-event decorating, I don't have time for TV as I did when I was in school - I'm too busy with other things now. Amusing that "tee-vee" might be screaming "addiction" for those who are tuning out and into other things. It's beyond irony - it's something approaching "media-pathos".
And for the record - this is probably the most insane use of quotation marks I've used in a post in weeks if not months.
Personally, I think online games have a higher risk of abuse than most other typical activities, and I think the biggest factor is that they never end, MORPGs in particular, since most people are naturally driven to finish what they start. It's sort of like gambling, in that most people don't have specified rules as to when they'll stop, therefore they simply continue to play indefinately. In a sense, MORPGs are even more conducive to continued play because the only resource the player can run out of is time.
Internet addiction also shares common ground with eating addictions, in that some use is a de facto requirement of life in the modern world. Most people control their eating acceptably well (although recent health trends arguably demonstrate otherwise), but a few take it to excess. With food, especially unhealthy food, becoming increasingly cheap, the only limit is self control. While everyone likes to think of themselves as having great self control, nature has conditioned us to do the opposite due to scarcity. Part of addictive behavior may well be attributed to that instinct.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Addicted is to be physiologically dependent on something habit-forming, obsessed is to be preoccupied with something - I wonder what most of us would qualify under. I mean, are we really compulsively and physiologically dependent on computers nowadays? Or is it simply todays greatest diversion, just as television was before? When you think of how much time the general public watched television only a decade ago, you would think we were all addicted... or obsessed...
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
I'm reading comments here while also sitting at two tables playing Texas Hold'Em on-line. Why distinguish between Internet and gambling addictions when you can have both?
I was sure she was Mrs. Right. Finally found her, I thought. Started a family together...
Then she discovered some MMO, and at first it was all for the better: took her mind of the dullness of daily routine, she made some nice friends... She was happier and thus so was I. Then little by little, she started spending more and more time on that game. It was very gradual and so I did not notice at first. But eventually, she was neglecting everything else: the house, the kid, her hygiene, and me of course...
I tried talking to her about it, but she'd get all upset, saying I was such a bastard, trying to take away from her the only entertainment that she had... After I could talk some reason into her, she admitted to her addiction, and we decided on some rules to keep it under control. Basic stuff like: work before play, no playing during diner or when the kid's doing homework... She kept to the rules less than a week, and she would not hear reason after that.
Now she'd really be stuck on the computer for pretty much all of her wake time. The game was also running 24/7, as her character was selling stuff while she was AFK. Hardly had any sex for 3 months, or a decent conversation for that matter. We starting arguing regularly, as I found it hard to stomach coming home to a messy place, sometimes having to do all the shopping and cooking myself after my day of work, because she was too busy training for some PVP tournament...
She was Mrs. Right, she started playing and MMO, she moved out last week.
The functional definition of an addiction is an activity that interferes with you conducting your daily life. I'm a network/security geek by trade, so I spend 40+ hours per week doing something hunched over my keyboard. Once I get home, I like to blow off steam in on line games. It makes for a fun activity and I've "met" some really nice people from all over the world. We game together regularly and have for several years now. Is it an addiction?
:)
No. It doesn't interfere with my having a daily life. It doesn't cause me to miss days at work or perform poorly. It doesn't keep me from paying my bills or cause me any other problems I can see. It doesn't interfere with my marriage since my husband is right there on line with me. I would say that in some ways it enhances our daily lives. We spend less on things like movies, going out, etc. which is enabling us to save for a house. We'll have our spread soon complete with a T-1
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
enthusiastically devoted to a particular thing or activity : he's addicted to computers.
Good example, huh?
46min docu called "First Person Shooter" about some kids hooked on Counterstrike.
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The computer has seriously cut into my TV time.
This word has been thrown around by drug warriors for so long it has lost any meaning which we can agree on. One man's addiction is another man's "problem" is another man's recreational activity. This is addressed in depth in Sullum's Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use.
Right now thousands upon thousands of people are compulsively attached to SOMETHING. They are not healthy. This does not mean that the THING is what caused the problem, it lies in the person. They lack willpower. In fact we all do a bit. It's just how we manage it--some people have simply given up. As Erich Fromm wrote, "All of us are more or less insane, or more or less asleep." You can choose not to get out of bed, but of course that wouldn't work out in the long run.
Thomas Szasz has argued much of the same. Addiction lies in the individual, who chooses to start and stop all behaviors. Reject "voodoo pharmacology"!
As for specific advice: If you are worried about your internet usage, unplug it. Live without it for a while. Meditate. Step back. Let go. You can do it.
ScuttleMonkey messed up my submission! I submitted as:
This three page ABC News story asks millions of people worldwide spend enormous amounts of time online, but are they addicted? Video games and the Internet have been subject to suspicion since the computer became a household fixture. One complaint: People get sucked into spending enormous amounts of time on the computer, to the detriment of other parts of their life.
But are they addicted? The answer depends on what you mean by "addicted." Most experts say computers are not addictive in the same sense that drugs are, but they could be on the same level as gambling...
Seen on Blue's News.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Immaginary girlfriends of the net, unite!
Computers can be shut down, but love, what button do we need to shut that down? Addiction by overusage of computers affecting "love life" is a luxary only fools can endure. For the rest of us, it's a relevance from lack there of.
Oil me up, computer. Daddy needs some loving.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
Studys also show that humans are addicted to water and food. Humans get weak when going without either, which is a common withdrawl symptom of an addiction.
I think in a part I've been a subject of computer addiction. However, truly, sometimes there just is nothing better you really could be doing with your time. I suppose that before computers people would take this time to watch TV, but I actually find that computers enhance other parts of my lives sometimes, especially with the Internet. By using a computer instead of watching the television, I tend to stay more informed, etc. than the people around me. However, I do think that computers are a very isolating machine, because unlike television, people don't tend to compute in groups. So it's an inherently lonely affair. There is AIM and such, but when you really think about the fact that it is all really a kind of illusion and really you are just sitting there typing on a machine, it's really kind of sad.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
the things don't make you addicted to them.
one will crave what others passes by.
the addiction comes out of the person,
not the thing.
j
not traditionally addicted, i'm addicted, as in beer.
I do not accept czechs.
I used to call it drowning in the net. For news junkies CNN was a kick but the web is like crack. The problem is filtering and/or how to monetize (love that buzzword) being an editor. I remember when Wolfram was releasing his 'brand new theory of ... huh? ... cellular automata' as a big book complete with media bubble he mentioned why it had taken him so long. He could find just about any scientific paper on the net and that would lead to another paper and another and pretty soon it's another month gone by.
Blogging (don't love that buzzword) is the start of a solution. Information filtering through editorial viewpoints. Let a thousand slashdots bloom.
(I didn't RTFA but) if they're talking about obsessive behaviour then web surfing is the effect not the cause. They could be: Channel surfing / renting (porn/action/...)videos / reading 40 newspapers a day / scratching their arm until they bleed.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
I want to make a couple distinctions in this post. The first distinction is that both Television and the Internet hit the sweet spot in terms of being sources of information. The second distinction I would like to make is in what ways the internet (and any source of information) can be addictive.
Every animal can process information at the instinctual level. What separates us from the other animals is our ability to process information at more abstract levels. Our brains are setup to do both levels of processing. Instinctually we watch other humans around us, interpret their actions, and learn to perform new actions through imitation. We are always keeping an eye out for role models, those people whom we wish to emulate and pattern ourselves after. It does not matter whether the person we are watching is a flesh embodied human being or a 2-d picture blasted over the boob-tube, our brains instinctually recognize the human form and cue in on it automatically to instinctually process information. Through years of education we train our young to be as receptive to abstract information as they are to instinctual information. The entire first 21 years of most college student's lives is spent in a pure information receptive mode (watch this, memorize that, shut-up and pay attention). Is it any wonder that we become zombies in front of the two mediums which provide us the most instinctual and abstract information? I have to watch myself around the television because I easily fall into a mode of pure watching, a state where my mind is pacified by being over stimulated with information. But this happens through a natural process. The brain's function is to process and absorb information. It just so happens that the Television and the Internet are the fattest channels of information and the brain naturally gravitates to them. Gravity is an apt analogy. Try extraditing yourself from the gravity well of being in the middle of a movie you are engrossed in. Watching TV and getting sucked into the Internet (games and all) is the result of a completely natural process. I am not trying to say it is healthy to be so absorbed or that TV watching and Internet cruising shouldn't be regulated, but simply that it is a prime example of the brain doing its job.
Given that being sucked into the TV and the Internet is natural, the question arises as to when is it healthy and when is it unhealthy. That is a vastly open question. But I can speak from personal experience that I use internet browsing and television watching to AVOID other aspects of my life. I use these two spigots of information as a way to distract myself from or numb myself towards other aspects of my life. This is clearly unhealthy behavior, but I would not call it an addiction. I do not know the official term for an avoidance pattern as opposed to an addictive pattern. But many people use the internet and especially television as a way to numb themselves from other aspects of their lives. Addiction does come into play, but from what I've seen of my own experience the addiction is not to the medium (TV or Internet) but towards the stories being conveyed over those mediums. I experienced withdrawal pains after I watched Season One and Season Two of Battlestar Galactica on DVD because the story was left unresolved. I experienced withdrawal pains when I stopped playing World of Warcraft because the story of my character was left unresolved. I experience the same kind of withdrawal pain when I have left a book unfinished for too long because the story was left unresolved.
To sum up my two major distinctions, It is not the internet nor television itself which is addictive, but the stories we get attached to that are addictive. The Internet and Television hit a sweet spot in the brain for its maximal conveyence of human processible information, and our propensities to become zombies to these devices is due to the brain being over stimulated with information. This in and of itself is not bad and is not addiction, but it does provide more opportunity for people to avoid looking at other aspects of their lives and to get caught up in or lost in the stories being played out before their eyes.
Peace,
Edward
A trailer in theaters for "Stay Alive" -- a movie about about [tv viewers] dying because they [watched the wrong show] -- splashes this message across the screen: "There are 100 million [viewers] in America. One in four is addicted."
[Television] and the [VCR] have been subject to suspicion since the [TV] became a household fixture. One complaint: People get sucked into spending enormous amounts of time [watching TV], to the detriment of other parts of their life.
But are they addicted?
The answer depends on what you mean by "addicted." Most experts say [TVs] are not addictive in the same sense that drugs are, but they could be on the same level as gambling.
"When I started out particularly in [televsion] addiction back in 1995, I thought that this could potentially be a major problem," said professor Mark Griffiths, who studies behavioral addictions at Nottingham Trent University in Nottingham, England. "In no way has the hype lived up to what has actually been found in research."
Donna Meyer doesn't think she's addicted, even if spends up to 12 hours a day [watching soaps], [imaginary worls] on [TV]. The 49-year-old grandmother in New York shares a [fictional] home with a [oil tycoon in Dallas Texas].
"My daughter gets annoyed," Meyer said. "She's like, 'My God, Ma, you used to go out, now you're always [watching TV]."'
Meyer is unapologetic: "I'm unemployed, don't really have the money to go out anymore, so I enjoy this," she said. "It's [not] a way of still meeting people."
Griffiths believes there's a large difference between people who [watch] the [TV] excessively and those who have problems with it, and even those who have problems may not be addicted. To count as a real addiction in Griffiths' view, it has to be destructive, cause withdrawal symptoms and prompt ever greater use to maintain the kick.
"When you apply those criteria to something like [Television viewing] or [cable TV] use, you find that yeah, lots of people display some of those components, but very few display all of them, and in that sense, to me, they are not classically addicted," Griffiths said.
A competent hypnotist I know says 'addictive' things are the ones where you die if it's taken away, or at least get some serious withdrawal symptoms. If there's no physical dependancy, it's not a "real" addiction.
You might get a few jitters if you quit your internet habit cold-turkey, but you'll be okay. "Addiction Medicine" specialists deal with people who've developed chemical dependancies. Good hypnotists help deal with the psychological aspects of an addiction, but they need to work with a doctor-type to keep an addict's withdrawal symptoms under control.
No, what you & I share is an internet compulsion. I was doing pretty well getting mine under control, with the help of a capable cranial osteopath (one who utilizes the 'biodynamic' contribution. Biodynamic Cranio-Sacral Therapists also seem to be good, but my experience is that the Osteopathic vision prescription is important too, and therapists can't do that).
Then I went to a giant used booksale this weekend, and strained my poor shoulders carrying 50+ lbs of books back to the car (in the free parking, 3/4 mile away. Yah, 50lbs isn't a whole lot, but I gave up the wheel and rubber band training when they didn't do jack for my typing problem. Ended up going to the Osteopath for that, and am finding that my compulsive behaviors are going away too. Sweet!).
My upper spine is now totally jacked (strains in the muscle & facial tissue pulling the vertebrae out of place), and I went straight for the internet vices I thought I'd kicked (2 weeks without internet porn). Oh well... I've tasted freedom, and I LIKE IT. Guess I ought to move up my next appointment.
I was done with this post, but since it is Valentine's day... One of the things my doctor said after 8 or 12 sessions was that my head was finally working right, and that I'd be making all sorts of snappy comebacks to people (I took a knock to the chin 7+ years ago; slight bleeding on the brain, don't remember 2 weeks, misshapen head [my experience is that cranial bones don't fuse, and are slightly mobile], years later followed with an RSI, TMJ, etc.). True enough, later that week I shot back at my mom, insteading of taking it on the chin like I had before.
While I'm currently single (had a girl friend once, last few months of high school, years ago), part of my problem talking with the ladies has been that I'd always been tongue tied in their presence. But now that's going away too, and I know it's the Osteopathic treatments. You can study all the seduction technique in the world, but you still won't get laid if you freeze up around the opposite sex.
(note to moderators: some of you don't believe in what's been slanderously labeled as "alternative medicine", and will waste your modpoints knocking this down. This post is not "ra-ra" cheerleading for hokey 'therapies', but simply sharing my experience with health technologies that are working for me. Hence the italics. It's more than a placebo effect, because the first 3-5 placebos didn't do anything. If you don't agree for whatever reason, please share your experience in a post. Thanks.)
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
stfu there's plenty of humans already
I'm not so sure gambling and drugs are all that different, surely not as different as this sentence implies.
Recent research has shown that drugs and gambling trigger in addicts the same pleasure receptors in the brain, in the same areas.
Antidepressants like Prozac, affecting dopamine levels, have been used for years to treat drug and alcohol dependency. Experimental evidence now shows it often has the same success in curbing the urge to gamble as well.
As a professional gambler, I've seen firsthand the amazing recklessness gambling addiction can cause, the complete lack of self-control it can cause. I've heard more than one person say that kicking drugs was hard, but nothing compared to trying to stop gambling.
Automatically treating addictions to gambling or sex or anything else as minor or somehow less real because they don't involve a chemical dependency is a mistake.
But of course, they're a TV network, aren't they? Wonder if they're begining to feel the heat with people turning off TV which is a one-way medium, and turning on their computers where they get to interact with other people?
Personally I'd rather have people on Computers than TV, computing is far more social, and (hopefully!) intellectually stimulating than the drivel that constitutes as network programming these days!!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
People are addicted to computers and the internet the same way they're addicted to food, or sleep. It's a part of life.
Once you start on that yummy oxygen, you can't really stop!
I started out huffing it like everyone else, but it nearly killed me when I started shooting it like smack. Oxygen, a danergous drug, indeed....
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I personally have experienced getting "screen sucked" (squandering a large amount of time in front of the computer monitor) with the excuse of doing work. If there is a problem, its the blurring of lines between actual work and other activities. (Like browsing Slashdot).
I've read several articles on internet addiction and there is even a center that helps the ones who have recognized their problem.
Need a color? Try 100 random colors
And a lot of the worst of both comes from the same. Putting yourself under stress _might_ make you more creative, but there's a much higher probability that you'll end up depressed and non-productive.
Is computer addiction really so bad? What are the alternatives? A walk in the park? I read online, I watch the news online, I communicate online, my computer is a central figure in my life because it has so many varying abilities. Which one of these activities would be considered the addiction? All of them? When I start purse snatching off of old ladies to fund my internet habit I will admit addiction, till then it is just an activity.
I used to play an Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) and I was, in hindsight, developing an addiction to it...
When I started playing, I was working in a Net Café so I played while I worked, interrupted only by customers (who needed only logging on and charging for usage) and customorons (who would swear on anything that a password was not needed to access their AOL Mail...EVER)
When I finished work, I'd go home and play some more
Eventually, I'd need sleep so I'd go to bed, thinking of the game while waiting for unconsciousness.
Once asleep, I would, no kidding, have dreams which took place in or were heavily influenced by the game.
In one obsessively driven period I stayed awake for 8 days (192 hours), sleeping a grand total of 14 hours (mostly at/on my keyboard)
I quit the game a couple of years ago (which included a very difficult period of withdrawal) and have avoided such intensive game addiction since....
Nowadays, I work late at night (start at 1900, finish at 0530) and even though I don't often play RPG's anymore, I still sit up, frittering away many an hour browsing and peregrinating around the Net, long after I should be sleeping (e.g. yesterday (Tuesday), I went to sleep around 1430).
Computer addiction and Gaming addiction, both grossly underestimated, have been a problem for years. The growth of easily-accesible, high-speed, affordable Net Access amplifies this problem.
If you don't believe me, just try and imagine how you would feel if Internet access was, involuntarily, unavailable for a week...or a month....
Or how about this....It's December 23rd and your computer is Fubarred...
Painful? Agonising? Torturous?
Internet Addiction is too often ignored or discredited. Surely, by now, it should be included in the DSM???
If no-one else, I reckon this guy would agree
You have moved your mouse. You must restart Windows for these changes to take effect.
>Unless your sole personal passion is playing computer games -- unless you play them for joy and identity and learning, and not just entertainment..
You must be new here.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
Don't tell him.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
This is clearly off-topic, however I brush my teeth 4 times a year, maybe less.
My dentist tells me all my teeth will fall out when I get older, and she's probably right, but it's surprisingly easy to stop once you're out of the habit...one less trip to make before going to bed and before leaving the house in the morning.
And for the record I never had any cavities while I was brushing my teeth regularly, and I haven't gotten any since I stopped (5+ years now).
"Hi, My name is George, and my country is a Petroleumolic."
"Hi George!"
1. The first step in recovery is to admit you have a problem addiction to foriegn oil.
As logical as your comments may seem, you forget that Slashdotter mating rituals revolve around the Slash-farr, a time of great illogic and ungeekery, where basic instincts rage to the fore and Slashdotters seek out a mate.
It is a dangerous time. The Slash-farr can only be quelled by a Slashdotter taking a mate; by ritual flamewar; or through deep meditation involving the fabrication of a sufficiently advanced "gadget", such as an OS filesystem, device driver, esoteric hardware project or three dimensional video game.
May the Maths Be with you!
Talking of drugs....
"A competent hypnotist..."
OH, wow that was good for a laugh.
Next you'll be talking about compassionate conservatives...
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
To the internet. But then I moved to a new apartment and my new internet service provider failed to provide working service for me for almost two months. I waited it out thinking they would fix it any day. In the mean time I discovered something interesting, which was that I'm really not addicted to the internet, but rather I waste all the time in the day anyway doing next to nothing. So in my case anyway, what seemed like an internet addiction turned out to be general laziness! I was so relieved.
in the 90's I was in college and had access to mainframe terminals all over campus. (VMS Vax) The internet was just getting off the ground. Mozilla was the only web browser and only on the macs, and Lynx was still more popular. The only online games were called "muds". (Multi User Dungens) These were text based multiuser games, a bit like Zork if you can remember that game.
I got involved in a popular mud of the day, and soon found I was spending hours a day playing the game. I'd made quite a few friends in the game and was well known among the major players. Muds penalized you for logging out because any inventory or money you had on your character when you logged out, you lost. This included equipment. (armor, weapons, etc) You'd spend the next hour when you logged back in getting decent equipment to continue your gaming. So it was to your advantage to play for the longest possible continuous sessions. There were people that appeared to spend their entire day, most every day, playing the mud, because you could login at almost any time of day and find certain people always there in game.
I didn't have the greatest motivation at the time to go to certain classes, and found myself skipping some class to play the muds when I didn't feel like going to class. One day I arrived in the lab at 8am and left the lab at 4pm, having skipped all my classes that day. Then it just hit me like a lightning strike.... this was not good for me. So I signed back on, said my good-byes, and logged out. I have not played a mud since that day. (I guess you could say I quit cold turkey?)
Many things have changed since then, but many things are still the same. The muti user online games can be very addictive and provide a tempting escape from reality for a few hours a day. Those that lack the willpower to self-regulate their activities will probably find themselves in the same situation I put myself in so many years ago.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
A part from being completely wrong, OP got modded up for this
"Addictive substances are addictive because they've evolved that way -- they exert some type of control over other creatures (like humans) by stimulating the pleasure centers of the host's brain. It's really a symbiotic (or in some cases, parasitic) relationship between two species."
What the hell are you talking about? You've anthropomorphized a SUBSTANCE or ACTIVITY.
Substances didn't "evolve" to be anything. They're substances, not "species".
But that's not the problem. The problem is that you got modded up for the most unscientific assessment of addiction I've ever seen.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
If you can't work without drinking alcohol, you're addicted. If you can't work without smoking, you're addicted.
Then how about me? I can't work without having a computer in fron of me.
Being a programmer might have something to do with it though.
Normally, I don't have much problem fixing other people's computers, but when it's your own that dies, it's hard to deal with. Just like doctors being the worst patients, we computer geeks are possibly the worst at dealing with our own computer catastrophes.
First (and I'm really, REALLY tired of making this correction) there are no criteria for "addiction" because that's not a diagnosis.
The diagnoses are "abuse" or "dependence". Addiction isn't a term used by professionals anymore, but is still used in the vernacular. I wish it wasn't.
But, because I have them handy, here are the criteria for "substance abuse" and "substance dependence" as well as "pathological gambling".
DEPENDENCE
"Diagnostic and Statistical Manual - IV
A maladaptive pattern of substance use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress as manifested by three (or more) of the following, occurring at any time in the same 12-month period:
* Substance is often taken in larger amounts or over longer period than intended
* Persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control substance use
* A great deal of time is spent in activities necessary to obtain the substance (e.g., visiting multiple doctors or driving long distances), use the substance (e.g., chain smoking), or recover from its effects
* Important social, occupational, or recreational activities given up or reduced because of substance abuse
* Continued substance use despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent psychological, or physical problem that is caused or exacerbated by use of the substance
* Tolerance, as defined by either:
1. need for read amounts of the substance in order to achieve intoxication or desired effect; or
2. markedly diminished effect with continued use of the same amount
* Withdrawal, as manifested by either:
1. characteristic withdrawal syndrome for the substance; or
2. the same (or closely related) substance is taken to relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms"
ABUSE
"Criteria for Substance Abuse
A. A maladaptive pattern of substance use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress, as manifested by one (or more) of the following, occurring within a 12-month period:
(1) recurrent substance use resulting in a failure to fulfill major role obligations at work, school, or home (e.g., repeated absences or poor work performance related to substance use; substance-related absences, suspensions, or expulsions from school; neglect of children or household)
(2) recurrent substance use in situations in which it is physically hazardous (e.g., driving an automobile or operating a machine when impaired by substance use)
(3) recurrent substance-related legal problems (e.g., arrests for substance-related disorderly conduct)
(4) continued substance use despite having persistent or recurrent social or interpersonal problems caused or exacerbated by the effects of the substance (e.g., arguments with spouse about consequences of Intoxication, physical fights)
B. The symptoms have never met the criteria for Substance Dependence for this class of substance."
PATHOLOGICAL GAMBLING
"A. Persistent and recurrent maladaptive gambling behavior as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
(1) is preoccupied with gambling (e.g., preoccupied with reliving past gambling experiences, handicapping or planning the next venture, or thinking of ways to get money with which to gamble)
(2) needs to gamble with increasing amounts of money in order to achieve the desired excitement
(3) has repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop gambling
(4) is restless or irritable when attempting to cut dow
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
I suppose that one could say I spend a rather generous amount of my time on the 'Net. But am I addicted? I think not. Someone might consider it an addiction, given how much I use it, but I don't see it as such.
If anything, the Internet is an important part of my life's social structure. Not only does it serve as a source for information (used to wow friends later on at parties), but also as a sort of replacement for more "traditional" methods of networking and communication.
Through IM services, my local friends and I can keep in near constant contact, and not just on the one-on-one level that telephones are limited to. At any given time, we can all jump into a single conference room and shoot the proverbial shiznit. What's more, it's used to synch up our schedules. So, when we leave the machines behind and go out into the world, we're all on the same page.
While I spend the better portion of my days attached at the fingertips to my mouse and keyboard, I also spend the remaining portion out and about with friends, heading to this bar or that club, socializing, interacting; You know, human stuff. Sometimes, I'll pay visits to friends who lack computers and Internet access simply to get away from the machine for a while.
While there are some who's addictions are in fact unhealthy, there are also those of us who have managed to blend the Internet into our daily lives on a safe and healthy level. We've figured out how to manage it and use it to our social advantage, making sure it doesn't dominate our lives.
MMO games aren't really an issue for me, since my machine is nowhere near strong enough to even think about running them. This eliminates the "Evercrack" value from the equasion, since I'm not putting in the hours required to have even an average character in those worlds.
But then again, too. I'm posting this on Slashdot. That alone might trump everything above, if only for the sheer geek-itude of the fact.
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
I'm sure it will stop being considered an "addiction" by the mass media companies (ahem, I mean "objective news organizations" of course) as soon as they can figure out a way to (re)capture those eyeballs reliably for advertising revenue.
You mean someone has given up their 8-hour-a-day TV watching in favor of a 8-hour-a-day internet experience? They MUST be addicted.
-Styopa
Most experts say computers are not addictive in the same sense that drugs are, but they could be on the same level as gambling."
If that were true, wouldn't it be possible to transfer compulsive gambling behavior to compulsive web behavior the same as moving a heroin addict to methedone? Does it pass the smell test that web browsing is _really_ that reinforcing?
Aside from being silly filler, I think this chatter is political. The free web is in direction opposition, and competition in some cases, with the stenographic mass media.
"Most experts say computers are not addictive in the same sense,
that drugs are, but they could be on the same level as gambling.
Is gambling on the internet a recursive habit?
Just one more, I swear!!! NO!!! You don't understand I *NEED* the Arcanist's Belt to get my 3-piece set bonus!!! *sobs*
I didn't have to read far to find my thoughts exactly, you hit the nail squarely on the head. Well spoken. By the definition of addiction, am I addicted to work because I do it 10+ hours a day? It's just a matter of opinion....
Sig Hansen?
I'm sure for some people computers are an addiction in the sense that they really do get very nervous if they can't get on a computer for their daily fix, whether the fix be email, internet, games whatever.
But for vast majority of people the internet is just like TV, another form of passive entertainment. TV gives us many dumb sitcoms but it also gives us sports, news talk shows, educational shows. They're all entertainment for various audiences. And people will get more back out of some than others.
My complaint about computers, which happen to be my job by the way, is that they're still pretty much a passive form of entertainment just like TV. So I get more out of reading a book than watching a movie, building a table than watching Norm Abrams show me how to build one, or going out birdwatching rather than watching a PBS show on it. In my experience active entertainment is always more rewarding than passive entertainment.
Though there are times when I don't really have the energy for active entertainment and passive entertainment is just what I need. But the problem with passive entertainment, whether it's computers or tv, is that it's very easy to choose more of it rather than get up and get involved with active entertaiment. Sort of like "you can't eat just one of them" in an old snack commercial. That gets a bit close to "addiction."
I smoke, drink, do drugs, use computers/internet, watch tv/movies, drink coffee, eat red meat and do a variety of other practices certain segments of american society deem "bad" or "wrong" or "evil" or whatever you want to call it. I call it freedom but thats another discussion.
What are my thoughts on addiction? The only activity of all those named(and some I might have missed) that I've personally found to be "addicting" are cigarettes. Though having briefly smoked herbal cigarettes in college when I was strapped for cash I found that far less addicting.
Legalize cannabis, keep beer free, eat red meat over McDonalds, and watch all the non-crap tv/movies you can find (firefly etc.) but god damnit make big tabacco stop putting all that shit in their cigs.
I'll make you a deal. You pray to God for help and I'll stop the moment he shows up.
Gambling is on the same level as drugs! They did a study on brain activity during gambling and the same area of the brain is stimulated.
If some unemployed punk lying on a sofa can get a cassette to make love to Elle MacPherson for $19.95, this virtual reality stuff is going to make crack look like Sanka. -Dennis Miller, after test driving a VR helmet.
Measurable???? How so?
What you mean to say is that brain scans among those that are addicted to certain substances (and allegedly to certain activities) show some degree of correlation. And THAT IS ALL you can say about this.
There is no way you can point to a brain scan and say someone is addicted to one particular substance and to what degree they are addicted. If you looked at "before" and "after" scans of the same person, or compared the scan of a person to the scans of several other addicted and non-addicted persons, you *may* be able to hypothesize that the person may be addicted to *something*. But these are all heuristics, nothing more. Don't pretend that we know enough about neurology to measure a darn thing.
My wife had a real problem for a couple years where she let just about everything in her life go in favor of playing Tribes and hanging out online with her fellow players. She gave it up eventually, but not after engaging in some seriously self-destructive behavior and bottoming out. It followed the pattern of substance abuse, so it certainly seemed like a true addiction.
;)
However, we did realize after counselling that this was just a manifestation of underlying depression. Neither of us feel that the computer pulled her in beyond her control. Rather, she had some serious personal issues that were not dealt with and she just chose the computer as her form of distraction. As long as she was plugged in she could forget about her problems. There was no physical component to it, it was psychological.
It makes me wonder about all sorts of distraction. I know people who, in my judgement, are similarly depressed, but they choose real-world socializing to distract themselves: going to parties and clubs all the time. Or more obvious choices like television watching, or even things that are considered "healthy" like reading. If it's consistently keeping you from doing things you know you should, either responsibilities or even more selfish things like following your dreams, it's probably an addiction, and probably a result of depression. And you probably have to figure out what the depression is about before you can make any improvements. You probably also need professional help.
On the other hand I do spend a lot of time on the computer as well, even outside of work. Am I addicted? I don't know -- sometimes I'm actively seeking to distract myself. Other times I'm just doing normal tasks on the computer, like bill paying, communicating with family and friends, managing creative projects. But I keep up on most of my responsibilities, and I do try to work on my personal goals as well. I could do more though. I do twiddle away time on meaningless distraction sometimes... like posting on Slashdot
I don't know... it's a gray area. But I think it's worth it to think about once in a while. It's not about computers. It's about not living in a way you'll be pleased with in the end.
Cheers.
Neuroscientists and pharmacologists studying the brain would define addiction in a way that states that the motivation to do a certain thing is strong enough that it is impairing the normal decision making process. Normal being a vague term that encompasses many things. An exmaple of abnormal decision making would be to get divorced in order to do the thing, or not eat. There is an area of your brain that is responsible for motivation and another area is responsible for reward. The two are linked. One becomes more motivated to do a task when the reward is better than expected. Drugs trick the brain into doing this by screwing with the reward signal. That's why you will find people are motivated to do drugs, but who will honestly tell you they do not like them. A similar thing could be happening here. The motivation to do something on a computer could be pushed into the abnormal range just as drugs could do it. I suppose you woudl have to argue that these people have abnormal rewards associated with their computer activities. The definition of addiction, however, would be the same.
I can just imagine walking into my boss' office now: "Hey, my doctor says that I'm addicted to being on the computer, so I have to spend less time on it. Can you cut my hours down to 5 a day and still pay me my usual salary?" I'm sure that he'd be only too thrilled to accomodate my need for good mental health!
Do not disturb. Already disturbed. http://www.teaaddictedgeek.com
There is no denying that one can be addicted to any habit including Internet gambling or 'gaming' or cyberholism. Sports like golf, fishing, swimming are suffering as a result. But lets not forget that the PC just brought the entertainment/sports closer. On the desktop! So instead of a trip to the golf course you visit a web-site instead. Instead of the mall there is amazon.
The issue is that while traditional life, entertainment and sports were private, the networked world is not. Without the privacy, OTHERS build opinions on fair use of ones time and attempt to create acceptable limits, often to achieve their goals such as diverting people back to TV.
What the media may try to center on armed with survey data available and 'polls' is that people are spending too much time on alternative non traditional activities.
And it not only the media, there are other parties including governments that do not want citizens exposed to information and technology a caution to keep in mind every time this kind of report shows up.
So take heart folks, there is nothing to worry about modern addiction as long as you stay off the streets.....you are shaping history.
I think ABC is just concerned about anything that takes people away from their broadcasts.
If newspapers were invented today network news would complain about the reading addiction and how people are using newspapers to avoid interacting with each other at breakfast, on subways and coffee shops.
In true network news fashion there would be a logo for the problem too!
If you are really addicted and serious about getting help join my online computer addiction relief network. All work is done online. You'll never get cured, but I'll enjoy the $150/hour session fees.
Instead of damaging your finances, computers damage your sex life.