Children Concerned By Parents' Web Habits

praps writes "Children are becoming increasingly worried about their parents' Internet habits, according to a report just released in Sweden. Unsurprisingly, dads surfing for pornography is the most common problem, but chatroom addiction also featured in the report — as is a mother who has become obsessed with World of Warcraft. 'This summer she has been sitting up all day and all night and she forgets what's important to me,' wrote the woman's 13-year-old daughter. 'And when she's not at the computer she's like a lost soul. She just looks straight ahead and says nothing.'" There are also a lot of scammers out there who like nothing better than to find retirees who they can sucker into get-rich-quick schemes involving real-estate, stock options, and convincing the neighbors to be part of a "downstream" for MLM marketing ploys.

Comments

WoW

[EriktheGreen]

The WoW thing could be bad... depends on whether she's chatting/enjoying herself, or whether she's actually addicted. The Dad surfing for porn thing is normal though.

Re:WoW

[EraserMouseMan]

I've never played WoW. I've got a few friends who do. One told his wife he'd quit after he got to level 70. He's achieved level 70 and now he's going for all upgraded gear and getting "epiced" (or something). Is there any end? Or is the game built so you never really become king of the hill? Is there always another carrot out there to keep you coming back?

Re:WoW

[EriktheGreen]

Let's put it this way: If possible they never want to lose a subscriber, ever.

You can't win the game... it's like a never ending soap opera or comic book. Actually providing resolution so people walk away is not in the plan.

There's always another carrot.

Erik

Re:WoW

[Awptimus Prime]

The Dad surfing for porn thing is normal Agreed. My dad had a big stash of hardcore magazines he kept locked away in one of his shop cabinets, my grandfather kept a big stash of lower quality stuff in his garage. Just because this generation gets it on the computer, doesn't mean the concepts are anything new.

I can agree, somewhat, that the younger people have some gripe about their parents fiddling around in chatrooms or WoW, but kids of previous generations often dealt with parents that were either gone fishing, drinking, or like one of my parents and buried in novels endlessly. It was much the same thing, if she wasn't holding a book, she'd be rather distant, would read through the family tv time, would skip meals to find out what the next chapter holds and when one book was finished, it was off to the next one. It seems more like humans exhibiting the same particular types of behavior through different conduits.

Re:WoW

[caffeinemessiah]

'And when she's not at the computer she's like a lost soul. She just looks straight ahead and says nothing.'"

Correlation and causation, folks. Sigh. It's highly unlikely that WoW took a perfectly normal mother and converted her into a zombie like this. These symptoms are indicative of deeper psychological issues that manifest in an unhealthy obsession with WoW. So WoW not having an "ending" is hardly an issue -- people can get addicted to anything that offers escapism, and the fact that this mother is addicted to WoW is not a cause to point fingers at WoW. And I speak as someone who stopped playing warcraft after warcraft 2 back in the 90s.

Re:WoW

[billcopc]

CmdrTaco needs to raise the mod point cap to 50, because even at +5 you deserve to be modded up.

I started playing WoW a few years ago, at a time when I was depressed out of my skull, but I just didn't know it yet. I eventually reached a point where I was too depressed to haul my sorry ass to work in the morning, so I called in dead and played WoW 16 hours a day for months. I didn't code, I didn't hack, I barely left the apartment. Eventually the anti-depressant meds kicked in and I was wired into semi-sanity. By the time I got back to 90% normal and had found myself a new job, I stopped playing WoW, just quit cold turkey.

I fired it up again a few weeks ago, to try out a private server... I found it all extremely boring and quit after a few days. That tells me the WoW playing was a symptom of my depression, not the cause. It was the only thing easy enough to do, that didn't get shot down by my total lack of motivation.

I think the WoW mom needs to see her doctor, and a therapist.

My DM is like that... WOW Addict

[Sir_Eptishous]

I don't have a parent with an "internet problem", but my DM does. He is always looking to stop the game so he can play WOW and get that slack jawed look.

He told me he has 7 70's.

Is this a problem?

Re:what's with the porn hate?

[Penguinisto]

Well, it depends - is dad doing the surfing discreetly after the kids have gone to bed, or is he trolling for pr0n in the living room at midday when the kids are sitting only a few meters away?

The latter would be pretty indicative of a problem, y'know?

/P

Discovering the Internet

[moore.dustin]

All that is happening is people are discovering the internet and exploring it at different periods of their lives. Most people, when they first get connected, end up in a chat room and/or some IM program within the first few days of using it. Just like when many of us discovered it, we were amazed and used the same sort of things these people are using in their early internet life. Games, porn, chat rooms and IMing are often the extent that people use the internet for on a regular basis. They are comfortable with the technology and seem content with what they have found, at least for a bit.

As the years go by and you expand your personal scope of/for the internet, you ditch all the things you did when you first got on and really get down to business finally. Call it internet puberty if you wish... these people are just exploring things just like we all did at one point. Honestly, I think it is funny to see friends of mine who just finally get online and start talking about chat rooms or some flash game they found. It takes me back to the days when all the internet was there for was to entertain me. Now I am connected to the/a network nearly all the time, I make my living from it and if it went down for more than 6 hours, I might get the shakes. :)

Thanks for the reminder ...

[MacTO]

Have make sure my 9 year old son making dinner for the wife and I. Back in a minute.

Re:LOLCOCKS in your ROFLFACE

[tristian_was_here]

Are your children worried about your slashdot trolling?

Because

[Sycraft-fu]

People can, and do, quit MMOs. I quit WoW not long ago. No big reason, no epic struggle, I was just kinda bored of it. I hadn't been playing enough to justify my subscription so I stop the recurring charge. I'll probably go back and play it some time later, or maybe another MMO, I'm just not in the mood for them right now. I didn't "win" I didn't have everything in the game, not even close. I just really don't feel like playing it at this point in time.

So there isn't any magical digital crack in these games that forces you to play. Some people just have the sort of personalities or mental problems or life problems or whatever that they get far too heavily in to it and won't give it up and thus their life suffers. It isn't a flaw with the game, it is a flaw with the individual.

Re:Because

[pthor1231]

Who says he used it as an escape? Is there there no possibility that he just enjoying playing the game?

Re:Because

[Anonymous Coward]

So there isn't any magical digital crack in these games that forces you to play...

However, "magical digital crack" is the cause of my porn addiction.

Re:Because

[BlueParrot]

Bullshit, there are essentially 3 ways in which drugs cause addiction.

1: First of all many drugs are indeed very pleasant. In fact, some of them, like cocaine, cause such extreme releases of serotonin and dopamine that this effect will on its own make virtually everybody who use it addicted to it relatively quickly. We are hardwired to get somewhat addicted to things that are pleasant (like sex), the problem is that some drugs have so strong effects that this effect goes beyond everything else. It is not about having an addictive personality, because everybody have a tendency to feel some form of desire or need of things pleasant, and drugs like cocaine strikes strongly at this by preventing the reabsorption of signal substances in the brain, resulting in a massive spike in the levels of the hormones that make us feel well.

2:Many drugs cause pain when you try to stop using them. Nicotine and Alcohol are probably the most well known examples, but Heroin has similar effects. Because the body tries to adjust to the effects of the drug, ceasing to use it can mess you up fairly bad. Smokers tend to get a bad stomach when they stop, alcoholics experience headaches, and heroin abuses can literarely go mad trying to stop using the drug. There are a lot of further symptomes but what they have in common is that ceasing to use the drug creates unpleasant symptomes. These effects have been clearly demonstrated and are not merely psychological. Many drugs affect more parts of the body than just the brain and some of these side effects show up when you quit.

3:Some drugs prevent you from feeling pleasant from other things without the drug. Long time smokers can find it difficult to relax without nicotine as an example. As the body creates extra receptors to compensate for the effect of the drug, more of it is required to trigger the same response ( being one reason why smokers tend to smoke more and more the longer they have been addicted ) and other things that would normally make you feel pleasant may have a dimnished effect unless the drug is pressent simultaneously.

It is true that a number of authorities have inconsistent policies, but mostly this takes the form of having less stringent rules for nicotine and alcohol than for drugs like cannabis. It doesn't mean cocaine or heroin are harmless, and indeed the problem with people not trusting the authorities when it comes to advice on these drugs is one of the reasons why pretending that cannabis is way worse than alcohol or nicotine is retarded. By undermining their creidbility by greatly exagerating the dangers of cannabis, the authorities are causing a lot of people to underestimate the dangers of drugs like heroin. This is a major problem since the latter, unlike cannabis, will almost certainly destroy a person, and a heroin addiction makes nicotine look like a slight temptation in comparison.

Re:LOLCOCKS in your ROFLFACE

[morgan_greywolf]

Mine are increasingly worried that I'm turning into a Slashbot. I'm not sure why.

Well, anyway, I, for one, welcome our new Slashdot-trolling parental overlords!

In Soviet Russia, children worry about YOU!!!

Re:Pr0n taught me everything

[WrongMonkey]

Leaning sex from porn can be a really bad idea. There is a world of difference between good porn-sex and good real-sex.
Sex in porn is meant to LOOK good on film. The people participating in porn are ACTING.
Many "moves" that are great IRL are too subtle to show up in porn and many porn "moves" aren't that great IRL. Not that most /.ers ever experience the difference ;)

I have had customer experiences like that

[Kahless2k]

When I read this a situation that I ran into in January came to mind.

A couple of our regular customers come in to upgrade both of their machines (each parent had one - neither of the two low-end by any means). They priced out about 1500 dollars worth of parts and openly debated about maxing their (only) credit card out on the parts..

Normally, this wouldn't bother me - not any of my business how they pay, so long as they do.

Then, however, after deciding to go ahead and buy the parts - they start going on about how the husband was laid off in December and still hadn't found work - AND THAT THEY HADNT BEEN ABLE TO AFFORD ANYTHING FOR THEIR KIDS FOR CHRISTMAS less than two weeks before.

They're reason: If they dont keep up with WoW they may get kicked out of their Guild!

It may be none of my business, but I'm a parent myself and this just sickens me. I finally ended up having sudden 'stock shortages' and found a way to talk them out of the parts, but still...