Growing concern over Internet addiction

cnn ^ | 5/20/06

[DTogo]

It's JimRob's fault!

[tubebender]

I have been able to cut my time on FR by 2/3...now that I found how many usless things there are to buy on eBay :<(

[BunnySlippers]

Sounds like more psychobabble. She talks about building unhealthy pseudo-relationships online. Can we count the number of unhealthy relationships NOT online.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

naw...email.

Our courtship was done on IM, though...

[Sacajaweau]

The internet is more than likely the largest source of research in the world. Few of us can get to the Library of Congress to do research or to Paris for that matter.

It becomes no different than going to a library or shopping or whatever. At age 62, I've probably learned more from doing Web searches in the last five years (including coming to FR) than I've learned from reading the newspaper or books over my lifetime.

TV is just as addictive, NOT an information center and biased. The web gives you the ability to separate the garbage we are fed by a very biased Media. My favorite writer/media person...Charlie Krauthammer.

[Irish_Thatcherite]

What they're doing they don't need the Internet for.

Except if she's got a headache....

[Irish_Thatcherite]

Hi Bill!

[Uddercha0s]

Haha.. the honeymoon is over

[Smartass]

Basic Information

Introduction

Ten years ago, the only people who spent a majority of their leisure time on the computer were paid members of the technology industry. Today, however, surfing the Web has become a pastime as social and marketable as bar hopping or going to the movies. As the web has become a part of mainstream life, some mental health professionals have noted that a percentage of people using the web do so in a compulsive and out-of-control manner. In one extreme (1997) Cincinnati case, unemployed mother Sandra Hacker allegedly spent over 12 hours a day secluded from her three young and neglected children while she surfed the Web. For better or for worse, this phenomena of compulsive Internet use has been termed 'Internet Addiction' based on its superficial similarity to common addictions such as smoking, drinking, and gambling. Internet Addiction has even been championed as an actual disorder, notably by psychologists Kimberly Young, Ph.D and Continue Reading This Article >>

 

 

[Slings and Arrows]

True...crack addiction can be treated.

[Slings and Arrows]

What they're doing they don't need the Internet for.

Except if she's got a headache....

Don't tell me Ireland's run out of sheep.

[Irish_Thatcherite]

Who ever said anything about sheep?

[Slings and Arrows]

Who ever said anything about sheep?

Ummm...never mind.

("Baaaaaaa!" "Shutupshutupshutup.")

[Irish_Thatcherite]

It's a nanny-goat, actually... hehe

[napscoordinator]

I received a 42. I believe the tipping point was the question about converstations with people on internet and of course I was thinking FREEPERS and all the great people I converse with so I guess that shot my score way up. No worries. I don't care what this on line test says anyway.

[Mears]

"Your answering machine/voice mail sounds a little like this...."BRB. Leave your S/N and I'll TTYL ASAP". "

---

Hysterical ! I'm a 73 year old grandmother and I can interpret the above.

I don't consider myself addicted,I consider myself in step with the times.

[AFreeBird]

Damn....I just noticed the sun is up.

And just think: the last to you looked up from your screen and out the window - the sun was setting.

I solve this problem by just keeping the blinds closed all the time and removing all references to time.

[sphinx]

How many games have you won and lost, and what are your longest win and loss streaks?

My longest win streak is 184. (Not in one sitting ...:)) I've given up on the game. It's too tedious to run another string out to the high water mark.

[MikeHu]

The flaw in this observation is the fallacious one that Internet use comes at the expense of doing essential tasks (personal hygiene, exercise, childcare, etc.) and relating superficially with reality and others -- rather than that it supplants more unproductive (leisure) activities like mindlessly watching television, reading fiction and propaganda, hanging out at bars for social interaction and communications, etc.

The activities now possible were not possible before -- allowing everyone to do things productively and purposely rather than randomly, purposelessly as before -- because one has information interaction and feedback, instead of acting in a vacuum because the information only flowed one-way -- from the mainstream media, and other self-designated information sources. So the cultural context is unprecedentedly richer and so although it seems like very little has changed -- the relationships of everything to everything else has changed, and is changing, in the interactions. Previously, there was no interaction; the cultural context was static -- and controlled by the powers-that-be, and wished to remain so.

Those are the people now producing all these polls, studies, experts warning us of the dangers of believing and listening to anybody but themselves. How the world has passed them by and every manipulation that might have worked in the last century, is so obvious to the citizens of the 21st century. They want us back reading the Dead Tree Scrolls -- and no other!

[mcvey]

Ping (as to name)

McVey