Posted by yxibow on July 31, 2008, at 0:45:11
In reply to Re: Internet addiction - help! » okydoky, posted by Marty on July 30, 2008, at 19:21:00
>
> I've just randomly stumble upon that site discussing possible causes of Internet/TV addiction: http://causeof.org/
>
> Ever heard of "serotonin irritation syndrome" caused by positive ions coming from your CRT monitors and TV ? This is actually interesting!
>
> Many hypothesis are discussed on the site.
>
> /\/\artyI dunno -- more than ten years ago it was merely proposed as a ruse to include it into the DSM.
There is a stalwart (yes, religion again) Catholic, "Kimberly Young, Psy. D" who is campaigning against Catholics and internet addiction.
Neither the AMA nor the APA, nor the American Society of Addiction Medicine believe in including it in the DSM-V
Instead they grouped it into a category of not completely true addictions such as video game addiction and lumped "internet addiction" into it.
There's dependency, I'm sure -- on any medium. As a communications person, I don't know if anyone is old enough to know "The Medium is The Message". McLuhan though ahead of his time, wavered between a futurist and a luddite and religious views -- he was a crafty Canadian and a deserved scholar of communications.
If you're spending 4-6 hours playing MMORPGs such as Warcraft instead of doing your studies, you have a "videogame addiction" or habit on your hands.But as someone who happens to be connected with an institution that was on the nodelist for the DARPAnet, what would become the Internet, I can't say what we have seen in the past 30 years of use of the internet brings it to something that is addictable any more than eating a pound of brie or binging out on cereal.
I saw personally the birth of the WWW and also the beginings of arguments for .com at the same time and was sort of dismayed because I felt it should be left for academia.
But here we are today, a world society using, working with and making money on, the Internet, a project originally meant to be a redundant place for cold war scenarios.
I think there is too much restriction in corporate America and in the eyes of parents on just what people should be seeing and watching -- nannying can go quickly to fascism as we look towards China which has millions of internet users of which only the upper eschelon know how to get around the firewalls everywhere.But I digress -- whether you call it a true addiction or not my point still stands, if you believe it is a true addiction, then behavioural management and therapy or 10/12 step programs if you believe in them are ways to go, not blasting yourself with medicine passively as if it will go away (which if it is OCD, I can tell you, it won't).
Yes -- I roam the net at night, sometimes too late -- Wikipedia as noted before is a favourite -- but there's an easy control for that -- set yourself an alarm to pop up, etc. Limit your time that you even spend on here, even if you get a lot of therapy out of it, if you believe there are negative consequences.
There will always be small sites without the HON code posting or similar medical vetting saying that something is the end of the world -- I'm not trying to trivialize it, but everybody has a theory to promote and you do have to read through information on "medical" sites with a fine tooth comb.
We live in a day and age now when we can't pull the cord out of the wall. A computer is basically useless without a) an expensive corporate program like a video editing turnkey machine or b) a home user's internet hookup, today, to name countless examples.Once you've finished playing solitaire, there's not a whole lot to do with it. Hence, the need for finding a provider, etc.... I'm not saying anything anybody doesn't know.
I guess it comes down to using common judgment, and if you feel that you are having trouble using it, join some group that will pull you away from it, doing two things -- one helping you, and two, for people with anxiety and depression, actually helping you meet some new friends.
I don't know -- as they say your miles may vary and this is just my view on this subject, but I have never been able to see past it any more than the number of hours watching TV instead of doing something else. In the end, we find ways of doing things we want to do, rather than doing things we need to to do. It would be great if the two were the same, that would be -- an enjoyable job for example.
-- tidingsJay
poster:yxibow
thread:842485
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080727/msgs/843188.html