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Internet Addiction Spawns US Treatment Programs (reuters.com)
SpzToid shares a report from Reuters: When Danny Reagan was 13, he began exhibiting signs of what doctors usually associate with drug addiction. He became agitated, secretive and withdrew from friends. He had quit baseball and Boy Scouts, and he stopped doing homework and showering. But he was not using drugs. He was hooked on YouTube and video games, to the point where he could do nothing else. As doctors would confirm, he was addicted to his electronics. "After I got my console, I kind of fell in love with it," Danny, now 16 and a junior in a Cincinnati high school, said. "I liked being able to kind of shut everything out and just relax." Danny was different from typical plugged-in American teenagers. Psychiatrists say internet addiction, characterized by a loss of control over internet use and disregard for the consequences of it, affects up to 8 percent of Americans and is becoming more common around the world.
"We're all mildly addicted. I think that's obvious to see in our behavior," said psychiatrist Kimberly Young, who has led the field of research since founding the Center for Internet Addiction in 1995. "It becomes a public health concern obviously as health is influenced by the behavior." At first, Danny's parents took him to doctors and made him sign contracts pledging to limit his internet use. The "Reboot" program at the Lindner Center for Hope offers inpatient treatment for 11 to 17-year-olds who, like Danny, have addictions including online gaming, gambling, social media, pornography and sexting, often to escape from symptoms of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. âoeRebootâ patients spend 28 days at a suburban facility equipped with 16 bedrooms, classrooms, a gym and a dining hall. They undergo diagnostic tests, psychotherapy, and learn to moderate their internet use.
"We're all mildly addicted. I think that's obvious to see in our behavior," said psychiatrist Kimberly Young, who has led the field of research since founding the Center for Internet Addiction in 1995. "It becomes a public health concern obviously as health is influenced by the behavior." At first, Danny's parents took him to doctors and made him sign contracts pledging to limit his internet use. The "Reboot" program at the Lindner Center for Hope offers inpatient treatment for 11 to 17-year-olds who, like Danny, have addictions including online gaming, gambling, social media, pornography and sexting, often to escape from symptoms of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. âoeRebootâ patients spend 28 days at a suburban facility equipped with 16 bedrooms, classrooms, a gym and a dining hall. They undergo diagnostic tests, psychotherapy, and learn to moderate their internet use.
From "Three Men in a Boat":
In the present instance, going back to the liver-pill circular, I had the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief among them being “a general disinclination to work of any kind.”
What I suffer in that way no tongue can tell. From my earliest infancy I have been a martyr to it. As a boy, the disease hardly ever left me for a day. They did not know, then, that it was my liver. Medical science was in a far less advanced state than now, and they used to put it down to laziness.
“Why, you skulking little devil, you,” they would say, “get up and do something for your living, can’t you?” — not knowing, of course, that I was ill.
And they didn’t give me pills; they gave me clumps on the side of the head. And, strange as it may appear, those clumps on the head often cured me — for the time being.
Another place to take your money under the guise of treatment for an unrecognized ailment?
Last week I was in a library. A woman walked in with 2 daughters. She told me later their ages. They were standing in front of the self-checkout computer. The 2 1/2-year-old pushed the 6-year-old out of the way so she could stand on a stool and do the self-checkout.
I asked if the 2-year-old had her own tablet computer. The mother said no, but the 2-year-old often played with the 6-year-old's tablet.
Obviously, the 2-year-old doesn't go to work, doesn't cook, and doesn't clean the house. So she has a lot of time to teach herself the user interface of the tablet.
What you’re referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called “Linux”, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.
There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system.
Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.
Living off their parents salary/pension, contributing nothing to society except consuming tons of manga from illegal manga sites and playing online games all day. Once in a while they go out, either buying more manga at Akihabara or stabbing a bunch of innocent people. And we, the working people, are indirectly paying for their 'lifestyle' as taxes only seem to go up. They should reintroduce workcamps to make these people contribute something to this society.
is the answer. Trump went to one. And look how he turned out.
Trumptard Nazi.
One in all in. Perhaps people spend a lot of time on the internet and gaming because shock horror, that is the fun interaction they prefer. So why is mass consumption of a depressants, it crowded places, full of fake, desperate, plastic people, so much fucking better, do you know how annoying drunks are, the only way you can effectively interact with them is by being drunk. The sports field to express your combative sexual hormones to beat the opposition, now that's fucking gay. How about acts of mass mutual masturbations, when you expressly do not want real relationships or to shock horror try to have children, that is the fucking point, but no, sex sells, so they sell sex. Perhaps the empty purposeless consumption of canned content, A OK to be zombified by the Idiot Box and corporate approved propaganda. All fucking idiot victim of marketing.
Women love to sit and gossip and family stuff, in the genes, men, well, like the hunt working alone and together, striving, in the fucking genes. The genetically confused fuckers, are genetically confused fuckers, go no idea how their bits work properly.
I didn't ever feel lonely except in a crowd of strangers, unpredictably idiots, in the majority, capable of believing abso-fucking-lutely anything, the kind of silly shite, that gets people burned at the stake, stoned and not the fun stoned the idiotic and sick Islamic stoned, basically abused and killed in all sorts of fun and rewarding ways for those idiot believers.
Why the routinely call the escape from psychopathic capitalism an addiction, well, I got news for you dumb fuckers, psychopathic capitalism is the addiction for the immorally corrupt driven by insatiable egos and lust, that people are desperate to escape from by any means possible. Check your fucking selves, for who is the sick and the harms you cause.
OHH NOES people who do too much internet need to be cured and people who do too much war and blind hate filled fucking, they deserve to be CELEBRATED. Fucking sick world.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
What you are seeing is a symptom, not a disease. Many people withdraw from the world at varying times to varying degrees. When it becomes obsessive, we suspect a problem.
In another time and place this problem could exhibit symptoms of 'TV addiction', 'romance novel addiction' or 'ham radio addiction'. Don't confuse symptoms with causes. Don't insist on easy answers to incredibly complex problems.
...omphaloskepsis often...
You're not done when you get the crotchfruit out of the crotch hole. You have to bring it up, until it is a human being capable of taking care of itself.
Yes, as a matter of fact, some of them are.
We're all mildly addicted. I think that's obvious to see in our behavior
Speak for yourself, n00b. I went through all of this back in the 80's. First video game addiction in the late 70's/early 80's. Then BBS's in the mid-80's. After some years I realized I was just wasting time not accomplishing anything so I reshaped my behavior into something more healthy.
This is how I avoided MMRPG addiction when it was new and got big in the late 90's. Everquest? I've never played it. Internet addiction. Facebook? Pfft, I visit once a month.
I've already been through this crap and kicked the habit.
I love this thread. I love this site. It is run by idiot millenials. What's next? Treatment centers focused on white board marker huffing addiction?
Better yet, I could see one from drunk BeauHD with a retarded title: "Study Shows Brasilian Women Prefer Anal Sex Over Vaginal Sex But This Seems Gross"
Anyone wanna get with me and double team Beau? With enough wine, he'd definitely let us DP (DA) him. And I'll provide the lube!
-AA-
You only have the right to say this if you have consciously mever ever picked up a phone or a tablet or used a computer to watch some mindless but rather entertaining fail videos on YouTube for the fifth time, or to binge watch a 12 part series on Netflix with a bottle of prosecco or whatever other legal drug you chose... Kids copy their parents, or siblings, or friends or whoever really. Fact is we all spend a lot of time with our face in the screen. On demand entertainment and the huge variety that ensures everyone will find something to stare at constantly have evolved to match our desire to be able to switch out from reality. Instead of inciting this constant hatred for people we never met, never known, lets for once look into ourselves and realize that by showing compassion and understanding will we only be able to change this world for the better, so our kids wont have the need to want to switch off from the life the previous generations left for us here.
"Women love to sit and gossip and family stuff, in the genes, men, well, like the hunt working alone and together, striving, in the fucking genes" - Interesting theories, you must be a pseudoscientist. Go outside, nutbar.
Go hunt a clue.
And just how much does it cost to enroll a child in the the 28-day "Reboot" program, pray tell?
I play a lot of games, I'm on the internet a lot. I also read books, go to the gym and other "productive" things. But the one crippling addiction that I have is television. I've spent entire days in front of the TV. With Netflix and the ability to binge entire seasons, this has only gotten worse. The second that they have treatment for TV addiction, I'm signing up.
What you think is "society" is actually the capitalist mode of production, which is a thinly veiled machine to extract wealth from workers, and hand 99% of it to capitalists. (It can't be 100% or the workers will literally die, failing to reproduce the next generation of workers to exploit).
Your thinking is rooted in the "protestant work ethic", however that ethic is a zombie ideology in modern industrial society. A throw-off from when workers were controlled using religion and fear of supernatural punishment.
If you have capital you must exploit.
If you don't have capital you must be exploited (or die).
Actually contributing to society is not a choice under capitalist exploitation.
Being angry at your fellow worker is retarded and pointless.
Here are some resources that might help you find some peace: Gay Couseling Links
And I thought the new entry in the MCU was Secret Origin of a Slashdotter
And we, the working people, are indirectly paying for their 'lifestyle' as taxes only seem to go up.
Okay, I'll bite. How much of the taxes you pay, as an American, go to supporting Japanese Hikikkomori?
the medical industry seems more and more like a used car salesman every day....
Yes, the pitiful few who can actually be helped - they know in their guts they have a problem; and while they're ill enough to be unable to do anything about it, they desperately hope for someone who will force the issue.
Pity they're so few in number - the blissfully ignorant seekers of gibs will ensure no remedy ever occurs.
I don't know why my kid likes this because I don't understand it, so it must be addiction because I can't enjoy it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Why is the parent letting the kid get away with this kind of behaviour?
I'm japanese.
It's the people you KNOW who are boring, ugly, depressing, and mentally stunted.
When someone is a stranger they are fresh and new and maybe will overturn your expectations of them. It's when you've known them for a while that your expectations turn out to be true, or understated their actual issues.
Fuck people, yeah!
A 13-year old with poor hygiene? This has to be a new symptom.
It's nothing but another means to make more money for big, for-profit healthcare. There is no internet addiction.
Societies are going to have to find a way to keep boys engaged especially
There is no great war, or great challenge to overcome
Education has been feminized to such a high degree that it won't interest males that find no interesting or challenging component there
Women will be addicted to social media more than video games, but society hardly requires them to do much and offers them a leg up for no reason at basically every juncture, and safety nets in case they become too degenerate
If society allows men to degenerate to that level it may find it very difficult to recover, as there is very little to no safety/unfair advantage for them
I mean honestly I have a choice between going in to a fake world in the evenings where I'm raiding peoples houses, killing zombies, and building structures while wiring up complex traps and things. Maybe spend some time working on a 2D level generator I've been playing with in Java and C++. Maybe get inspired and work on a game level with a level editor.
Oooor.. I could...
* Sit around and be bored listing to other people flap their mouths like a ducks bottom.
* Be put in environments where spending money is required to do something interesting on a more constant basis.
* Listen to the political garbage going on about liberals and conservatives instead of people just running things properly and not dehumanizing anyone that isn't themselves.
* Realize that no matter how hard you work. (2 or 3 jobs even) you'll never make the millions some people are by screwing over a lot of other people.
* Not really interested in screwing over other people to make it in the world so yeah.
I think getting lost on the computer is much less of a problem then people make it out to be. If I want to be social then it's because you are interesting. One other thing I noticed about being alone. It's much less drama filled of a time.
Being angry at the social parasites who refuse to work is well placed anger. An adult who refuses work and lives off of their parents and collects pointless things is a social parasite(along with the capitalists you point out as well). Nobody likes a freeloader.
At the psychiatric hospital, the nurse said to me : "We take only the sane in the hospital, those we can cure. The fools of the world are too numerous to be interned. Take and eat a banana, for I like you and I find you are a genius."
I'm turning Japanese, I really think so!
ok, now let's take look at american WOW addicts lol...
Prove you're not: TURN OFF YOUR PHONE FOR ONE WHOLE DAY.
Hell, don't answer *any* texts for 8 hours.
If you can't do either of those, you're a damn addict. At least regular drug addicts go off in a private place to shoot up, while you walk, drive, eat dinner and "watch" a movie, or, hell, go on a date and you CAN'T GET OFF.
I blame the parents for refusing to say 'no' to their children. I see it all the time... kids bossing their parents around like they own the place, and the parents folding like cheap newspaper at the slightest complaint.
It's no wonder we have kids going around shooting up schools all the time.
Better yet, let's take a look at American football / basketball / baseball / golf / soccer / tennis / etc. addicts. Surely they could be contributing something better to society than worshiping a ball moving from point A to point B. They must be given help.....
If you have a problem with someone else's "gaming addition" perhaps you should look in the mirror. There's bound to be plenty of things you enjoy that we could consider "troubling" and "worth intervention." Also, maybe make the crapsack world we live in a better place if you want people to not try to escape from it. A good number of people with "gaming addition" started because there wasn't anything else for them to do with their freetime, that they had any interest in. I'd love to visit an arcade, or maybe go for a walk in the park. Only issue is the arcades closed up years ago, and anytime I go to a park I'm constantly under pressure to leave by Blackhawk helicopter parents who think I must be there to cause trouble. Same thing happens for pretty much anywhere else I try to go. So, I say home and go online. Now the society that rejects me being among them wants to complain that I'm not sociable enough and wants to place an "addition" label on me for their choices!?!?!?
TL;DR This is yet another attack on younger generations for being "different" than their predecessors. Now with the added "disease" label and a medical diagnosis of "gaming addition". (As if that new addition to the mental medical dictionary wasn't going to be used for this.)
Way to go with misusing the term there, which dilutes its true meaning. Why don't we just open the doors to treatment centers 24x7; after all, everyone is addicted.