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Inside A Korean Rehab Camp For Web Addiction
caffeinemessiah writes "The New York Times has a story about a Korean kids' camp for 'curing' Internet addiction. 'Seventeen hours a day online is fine,' said one such kid at the camp. From the article: 'Drill instructors drive young men through military-style obstacle courses, counselors lead group sessions, and there are even therapeutic workshops on pottery and drumming ... this year, the camp held its first two 12-day sessions, with 16 to 18 male participants each time. (South Korean researchers say an overwhelming majority of compulsive computer users are male.)'"
I've cut back to only 4 letters a day now. I'm almost cured!
Seventeen hours? Amateur.
You can either be an extremely powerful wizard ruling your domain with an iron fist or you can make pots and drum. Yes, that's a terrific alternative.
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Those people who become addicted to the internet and spend all of their time online will be less likely to breed. That should eventually lead to an "internet resistant" strain of human being capable of using the internet to accomplish tasks and then walk away.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Much of the reason Asia is obsessed with MMORPGs is because they provide a form of escape from everything. Students are pressured much harder to succeed there, and failure really isn't tolerated. As a result, children are disinclined to try new things, because they might not be very good at them.
The need for such treatment camps is perhaps symptomatic of this underlying issue - that, life is so dull/boring that a virtual world is far more entertaining. You can take risks their, and noone will think less of you for it. (Noone out of the game, at least)
You have a great point. People might actually listen, if you stop ranting for a second and say your views in a clear, concise manner.
That being said, I don't believe you deserve a negative score. I was forced to stop and think for a second.
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
Funny as that was, Korea is not where you'd usually find gold farmers. Korea is too developed for gold farming to be financially viable.
Starcraft as a national sport is another matter altogether, one that is financially viable.
I like how you put the word addiction in quotes, cleverly re-defining the word to mean something completely different from what the word *actually* means. And by that, I refer to the medical definition of addiction in the DSM-IV and the literature, which is used by psychologists and doctors (including psychiatrists) and pretty much the rest of the human race. Except you--you have a fondness for the methods of Lewis Carroll, perhaps?
I'll boil it down for you: Addiction is a psychological phenomenon wherein an addicted subject comes to focus on some external, directly reward-inducing activity to such a degree that it attenuates normal behavior, and the compulsion continues even in the face of negative consequences. In this usage, the term "normal" means the behaviors of the subject prior to the introduction of the external activity, but it also includes social and statistical norms, to some extent.
In other words, you're addicted when the particular activity or substance dominates your behavior, modifying the way that you live your life to a significant degree, and you don't stop the activity even when the bad consequences build up. An illustrative thought experiment is to take the addict and consider the opinion that his or her past self might have, looking forward in the future from the early days of use. If a guy who had maybe done coke once or twice had a vision of the future a la "A Christmas Carol", and saw himself five years later missing mortgage payments and losing his family because all he wanted to do is blow lines up his nose, how would he view the situation? Granted, this game doesn't model a lot of specific cases (such as adolescents), so take it with a grain of salt, but I think the point is pretty clear.
So, you see how the sex, air, and food examples don't really work, here. Consider that:
* I am generally receptive to sex, and sexual thoughts often enter my (male) mind.
* The act of sex causes me great pleasure when I engage in it.
* I would express disappointment at being denied sex, if I had some expectation of it at a particular time.
But also consider:
* I don't compulsively pursue sexual activity to the exclusion of working, socializing or engaging in other activities.
* My sexual activities don't cause large negative consequences to me, like my GF leaving me because I can't stop having casual sex with other women, or the cops picking me up for soliciting prostitutes.
* I'm pretty confident that my peers who share my general values regarding sexual activity (i.e., not hard-core Christians) would be OK trading patterns of sexual activity with me. Other people (caveat as given) don't generally look at my sexual behavior and go "Eew, that guy needs help."
Now, there ARE people who have sexual addictions, that have exactly that last set of problems I just mentioned. These aren't just people who like to have sex a lot, or who have high sex drives--these are people who are constantly trolling bars or cruising for hookers several nights a week, who lose their jobs after being warned about looking at porn at work and keep doing it. These are people who are ashamed of their actions, even in the company of generally sexually-liberated folks, and who often want to change their behavior but don't see a way out of it.
It's the same with booze, coke, heroin, gambling, cigarettes. Virtually everybody in college (in the US, anyway) engages in binge drinking, where you get blackout, puking drunk with your pals several nights a week for four straight years. Some of these people don't go to class, don't study, and fail out, while others finish up just fine (maybe not summa cum laude, but well enough) and graduate. When they leave college, some people grow up and start drinking more responsibly, while others keep doing it and end up sacrificing relationships, job performance, finances, etc. The bottom line is, some people who do it are addicted, and (usually) most people who do it aren't, a
I can't have real friends, with real social interaction online? Interesting, since I have known people online, people whom I consider very close.. for upwards to 12 years now. Well all talk regularly, we all know each other by name, we all care about one another.. Hell, you can even have a face-to-face interaction if you want with a webcam, or throw in a mic if you want to bitch about text being impersonal. (It really isn't, unless you type like a wild howler monkey or something, and none of us do.)
My online friends have counted for quite a bit, and likewise they feel the same on the issue. Why anyone thinks a computer removes some of (or all) the humanity out of a person on the other end of communication is beyond me..
Do you have to attend in person, or is there an online version available?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."