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Gas to liquid could be the answer for po... Web will be part of life for new genera... Window washers could be out of a jo... Lost in the deepening chasm of... |
Lost in the deepening chasm of the Internet
The Information Age has given rise to a new social ill - cybersurfers who can't get enough, writes TANYA ACCONE
But pity the mouse potato. Unlike TV where there may be a few dozen channels, the web has thousands of offers jostling for user attention. There is a bewildering amount of competition and most of what's on offer can be sampled at no cost, or only at the cost of your time. Beyond the humour there is a dark side, and it's no joke. In one of many cases, a 24-year-old Cincinnati woman was arrested on charges of child neglect - and investigators said it might have grown out of an addiction to the Internet. Her estranged husband, who attributed the breakdown of their marriage to her addiction to the Net, reported that she was spending up to 12 hours a day at her computer, leaving her three young children to take care of themselves. Internet Addiction Disorder, Cyberspace Addiction, Pathological Computer Use, Webaholism, Online Addiction, call it what you will, the symptoms are serious and the social and psychological impacts more so. The affliction is not yet officially recognised in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the psychological diagnostic Bible). But psychologists in practice and academia find themselves faced with growing numbers of surfing sufferers. While a number of local psychologists say they haven't yet treated a patient for Internet addiction, they expect to see such cases in the near future. "The reason this hasn't hit SA yet relates to awareness as much as other factors," said one Gauteng therapist. "It's a case of people not recognising this type of behaviour as cause for concern and therefore not seeing a need for treatment." Although the Net requires conscious interaction by the user, we are seeing the advent of a generation of wire junkies who jack in to experience life vicariously and who spend more time interacting with technology than with other humans. Psychologists the world over are struggling to come to terms with this new disorder. Dr John Suler of Rider University suggests that perhaps, on a broad level, it makes sense to talk about a "Cyberspace Addiction" - an addiction to virtual realms of experience created through computer engineering. This could include addictions to games and competition-oriented content, to elements fulfilling social needs such as chatrooms and e-mail, and in some cases, the addiction may simply be an extension of workaholism. "The normalcies for time and space disappear. It becomes a pretty powerful drug," says David Greenfield, a psychologist from Hartford, Connecticut, who has conducted considerable research on the problem. He maintains the disorder overtakes its victims in much the same way that people get hooked on gambling. The harm addicts are doing themselves ranges from people losing their jobs and flunking out of school, to being divorced by their spouses because they cannot resist devoting all of their time to virtual worlds. Experiments have even shown conditioned physical responses in addicts, such as increased pulse and increased blood pressure when the modem connects. Some patients have reported disturbing dreams which appear like scrolling text. These extreme cases of pathological addiction are clear-cut. But, as in all addictions, the problem is where to draw the line between normal enthusiasm and abnormal preoccupation. Addictions, loosely defined, can be healthy, unhealthy, or a mixture of both. In truly pathological addictions the scale has tipped towards the unhealthy: the bad outweighs the good, resulting in serious disturbances in a person's ability to function in the "real" world. Almost anything could be the target of a pathological addiction - eating, spending, exercising, gambling, drugs, work and the Internet. The symptoms of Net addiction are much the same as those for any addiction, and include: If this sounds like you, take heart. Despite its relative newness and lack of official medical recognition, a vast array of help is available. Ironically, the bulk of information, support groups and self-help initiatives can be found online - a state of affairs one report likened to "serving cocktails at an AA meeting". Counsellors who have dealt with sufferers advise that a starting point for anyone who is concerned about their Internet use is to write down the amount of time they expect to spend online, log the actual time spent and compare the two. They suggest keeping an alarm clock or timing device by the computer to limit the time spent online and that surfing or checking e-mail should be the reward for completing other necessary tasks. Only in extreme cases do psychologists recommend getting rid of the computer. Professional help remains the key for those whose Internet use is seriously interfering with other aspects of their lives. As the Internetters Anonymous serenity prayer says,
"Almighty webmaster,
Are You a Mouse Potato?
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