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Why Hello! And Welcome to my page. This is Mr. Squirrel. If you live with me here in DC you should know him quite well. He's the scary little bugger outside your door who points at you and screeches... He also says, I hope you like Jessi's Paper, she worked very hard on it. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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What are you doing Online? The Internet was created in 1983 as a means for the government to be able to transfer information to each other over extreme distances in a quick and confidential fashion. However, the Internet has since moved from the governments confidential system to allow everyone to partake of its pleasures. From research to pornography, to just surfing the web and chatting, the Internet contains an endless amount of possibilities, and one could waste the entire day away upon it, and that is exactly the problem. How often has one felt lost in the enormity of the Internet, spending hours upon hours doing nothing? Could this mean addiction to the Internet, and is there really such a thing? While some refute that Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD,) spending an unnecessary amount of time on the Internet while ignoring social issues, is just a hoax, others are extreme advocates for the problem. Numerous self-evaluation tests have been created and are available to figure out if one has a problem. If you do have IAD there are self-help groups and Clinics to go to for help. Much is still unknown about Internet addiction is, and why it occurs, the following will refute whether or not it is really a problem by citing examples from both sides of the case. Everyday thousands of people sign online to chat, surf the web, check their email, research information, play games and do whatever else they find possible in the vast galaxy of cyberspace. While most people are in control of the amount of time spent per day on the computer, others feel that they can not pull themselves away and literally have to pull the plug out of the wall in order to stop. Though it sounds like a joke, such an addiction can ruin their lives, and the lives of others around them. Tanya Bricking recently wrote an article for The Cincinnati Enquirer about such a dilemma. A 24 year old woman named Sandra Hacker locked her three children, ages 2, 3 and 5 in a room while she would spend hours a day on the Internet. Her children were taken away when the police entered the house and found it in utter disarray with glass on the floor and handprints of human fecal matter on the wall. Ironically the area where the computer was situated was immaculately clean. Strange as it may sound this is not the only case in which families have been broken up. A woman in the North Western region of the United States lost custody of her children after her husband divorced her when she spend too much time online and ignored important household and child-rearing activities. There are numerous cases of marriages that end due to a spouse neglecting responsibilities due to spending exorbitant amounts of time on the Internet. Dr. Joseph Woo believes that individuals addicted to Internet tend to show the following symptoms: "1) Using the online services everyday without any skipping. 2) Losing track of time after making a connection. 3) Goes out less and less. 4) Spending less and less time on meals at home or at work, and eats in front of the monitor. 5) Denying spending too much time on the Net. 6) Others complaining of your too much time in front of the monitor. 7) Checking on your mailbox too many times a day. 8) You think you have got the greatest web site in the world and dying to give people your URL. 9) Logging onto the Net while already busy at work. 10) Sneaking online when spouse or family members not at home, with a sense of relief. " Numerous sites are available online to test oneself to determine whether or not there is a problem, but the only dilemma stems from the fact that these are self tests. Unfortunately, self-tests are filled with human error due to the test taker fearing the results of the test, and second-guessing themselves. If it is at all possible for one to avoid admitting that they have a problem, lying to oneself on a self test, and convincing oneself that the answers are in fact correct is highly possible. Another problem is that because the people are volunteering to take these tests, and one must search to find them, they are only surveying a percentage of the Internet using population, and the results do not give a broad enough representation of the entire network of Internet users. For this reason the results from each test differ in the conclusion of the amount of hours that one uses the Internet in excess. While some people say 9 hours a week is too much, others say that 20 hours a week is OK. There are so many areas of the Internet that one could get lost in. With MUD's and other role playing games, one might find themselves lost in the ability to completely transform their person. It is estimated that 2 to 5 percent of the 20 million Americans who go online are addicted. But how can one be addicted if there is no real idea of what overuse or normal Internet use is? Such a question is completely tentative upon who is evaluating the online experience, and the great determinate is not how long one is online, but how much they are not doing because of the Internet. While it is frustrating to not know exactly who is making up the tests that can be used to evaluate oneself, another problem with the online self-tests is that they do no take into consideration WHY one is using the Internet. Even though you can search and find professional psychologists who compose self-examining tests, how many people receive evaluations without being face to face? They do not know they real user. There is a difference between someone who is using the Internet just for pleasure and someone who uses the Internet for work purposes. Maybe it is your job to make web pages, or you are constantly looking up information for your employer on the search engines. Students, especially in college, use the Internet more that most individuals for research, and keeping in touch with friends and families. Because they spend more time online that a mother, who works during the day and has children to take care of, does this mean that they are addicted? Certainly not. While there are college students who are addicted to the Internet, and have had to have professors come in and pull the plug on their use, one example can not be used to generalize for the entire student body (Boheim). Much as an adult who uses the Internet for work can not be compared to everyone else in his or her age bracket who uses the computer. If IAD is real, whom does it affect the most? While most studies hypothesize that men would be more addicted to the Internet, most of the online studies have shown that women around the age of 45 spend the most amount of time online. Because women have so many burdens to face in today's society such as fitting into an unrealistic model dominated world, women see the Internet as an escape from the burdens of reality. They use the Internet in order to avoid the stereotypes society has given them and just be themselves. The real question is not who is using the Internet in unhealthy doses, it is WHY are they so addicted to a machine. John Suler Ph.D. at Ryder University believes that people are addicted because it provides them a feeling of accepting and love that they transfer these feelings as needs that they either did not receive or miss from their parents to the Internet. Because the Internet has such a feeling of anonymity in areas such as the chat rooms where people can Interact with each other, one does not have to feel unwanted because they might not be slender and attractive. In these areas people like then for their personality and not for their looks. They can be whoever they want to be and describe themselves as whatever they want and not be judged and pushed away by their appearance. People perceive the computer as the parent, such as if the parent made the child feel frustrated or confused, the user will see the computer as frustrating or confusing. As an example, there was a case of a woman who portrayed her father as very frail and sick, she treated her computer as a very delicate object, always running virus tests and afraid to use it too much or else she would run it down. People feel that the computer draws them closer to relationships that they had with their parents and by working on the computer a lot they feel as if they are somehow working out the glitches they might have had with their parents. However, this is just the opinion of one man. Others believe that there is no such thing as Internet addiction at all. The idea of addiction was first brought up in 1995 when a psychologist wrote a spoof article on the idea. The media picked up on it very quickly and did not believe it was a joke. It has been a problem ever since. The argument against IAD is that, the Internet is just something that people enjoy. They do not feel that everything people spend an excess of time on has to be considered a disorder. People like to read books, and can spend hours a day reading a book ignoring their surroundings because they are so engrossed in its pages, but we do not call them book-addicts. Kimberly Young, who is an advocate for Internet addiction, shows that the people she surveyed spend an average of 38.5 hours a week on the Internet, while other polls show that the average American spends 28.10 hours a week watching television. These people are not considered addicts, so why should people who use the Internet. There are thousands of jokes on this issue. David Letterman even did a Top Ten List once on what happens when people are addicted to America Online. He made reference to all the real problems, and people laughed thinking, "oh, I do that too," but not worrying about it at all. The World Headquarters of Netaholics Anonymous put out a top ten list also, number one being, "your hard drive crashes. You haven't logged in for two hours. You start to twitch. You pick up the phone and manually dial your ISP's access number. You try to hum to communicate with the modem. You succeed." Though this is made up as a joke, there sadly is some truth in it, which Kimberly Young Ph.D. would quickly point out. Dr. Young first began studying Internet Addiction when one of her best friends called her for advice about her husband, who had begun to spend hours upon end in front of the computer. He had stopped going out, and enjoyed the Internet more than his everyday life. It was upon hearing that this could actually happen to someone that Dr. Young began researching the subject. There are hundreds of cases of American's who would readily agree that they are addicted to the Internet. They believe that they are addicted, because they dream about the Internet, they move their fingers in a typing motion while not in front of a keyboard, and mostly, because it is the only thing they can think of and they find it impossible to go a day without it. One woman finds herself stalking another cyberuser, telling him she is in love with him, though she knows that he has a fianc� and has no interest in her. A 17 year old boy dropped out of school because he felt the need to spend so much time online, and when not infront of a computer, shakes like a heroin addict. Marriages are affected when spouses would rather sit infront of the computer than go out and enjoy themselves. It is a terrible problem, but because people are not considered addicted to television if they watch it a lot, or to their cars if they drive a lot, where can they go for help? Unfortunately, help for these addicts can be found online. That seems as if one is just creating a problem to solve a problem. If you are addicted to the Internet, is it really a good idea to be on it in search for help? I think the preceding examples have show that it is possible to be addicted to the Internet. Lives have been ruined, and thousands have dollars have been wasted on a machine. Addiction is a terrible thing, and if it ispossible to occur with drugs and other elements, I see no reason why it is not possible to happen to people who use the Internet. Though some may refute the idea, the problem is definitely out there, and while no, it should not be treated with drugs, it should be treated somehow. Unfortunately I do agree with many of the preceding arguers that the addiction has been to glorified by the press, and for this reason many cases probably are not true, but there are people out there who have real problems. If you do not think it could happen to you, I invite you to try it out yourself. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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