China Defines Internet Addiction 201
narramissic writes "Three years after the first clinic dedicated to Internet addiction opened in Beijing, Chinese doctors have now officially defined it as an ailment. Those afflicted with this ailment spend six or more hours a day online and exhibit at least one of the following symptoms: difficulty sleeping or concentrating, yearning to be online, irritation, and mental or physical distress. Do you meet the criteria? You're in good company: About 10 percent of China's 253 million Internet users exhibit some form of addiction to the medium, and 70 percent of those people are young men, an official Xinhua News Agency report said."
Yes (Score:2, Insightful)
How to tell if you are addicted to Slashdot:
You your recent posting history has more posts than days.
Even better than opium! (Score:1, Insightful)
The internet: it's way cheaper than opium, and way more effective at controlling the masses!
Not addicted (Score:4, Insightful)
The Internet is simply ingrained into my life. Imagine a world without coffee. I wouldn't care much because I don't have a taste for it but I bet that millions will cry out in terror and will suddenly be silenced(faiting by lack of cafeine in their bloodstream :) ). Now imagine a world without the internet. I can't. I could. Around 10 years ago we got 33k dailup to get access to "this curious thing called the internet". We used it more and more untill one day we got a bill of 120+ eur and we knew it was time to switch to cable. Every since that moment I and the internet have been connected. If I want to look up an address or zipcode I go the right site and tada, zipcode and address. If I want to look up a term I go to Wikipedia, type the word in and tada, I've got the meaning and some deeper information about the subject. I check my mail every day to see if I have recieved any messages from people and institutions all over the world. If I want to know about technological development I visit tweakers.net or slashdot. I discuss on internetforums in many different countries and have developed my skills in some foreign languages that way.
I am not the only one. The whole world is addicted to the internet. Sending data is now something you do with a few clicks and a few lines of text. You can send huge amounts of data from Vladivostok to Bogota in a matter of seconds. People all around the world can check videomessages people leave on youtube.
Now imagine that somebody "turns off the central switch". I can only fear what would happen. Stock markets would probably go bananas because they are not being fed regular data. The most important letter exchange format in the world(e-mail) would cease to be and sending messages to eachother would become a matter of days not seconds. Distributed projects would die and it would cease to be effective. And that's only the things I can think of. Imagine the extra effects.
We are all addicted to the internet whether we use it or not. That's the paradox.
Re:Wow work related injury here I come (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, they can't fire you over your injury.
But, hey, these last few weeks your productivity has been rather low, and, well, you don't mesh well with our corporate climate. We're going to have to let you go.
Korea (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is just as bad, if not far worse there. The prolific MMO play-rate [plus localised social networking] doesn't help either.
But somehow, I don't see Korea classifying it as an illness anytime soon.
Re:Wow work related injury here I come (Score:4, Insightful)
"Internet addiction" is no more or less real than "Television addiction." Both have the same cure - TURN THE DAMN THING OFF!
Ditto for "XBox addiction", "Playstation addiction", "Wii addiction", "Gamers addiction", "SMS addiction". Turn it off. Can't turn it off? No problem - it's currently a self-correcting situation, since you'll end up not being able to afford your habit.
It's like people who weigh 600 pounds and say "I can't help it - it's glandular." No, it's not. It's from shoveling food into your face regardless of the consequences. Same thing with smokers. They go from "I can quit any time" to "I can't stop." We don't excuse drunk drivers because they decided to have one to many, we should do the same for other "lifestyle addictions."
I'm all for helping people who help themselves, not those who want to hide behind the "addiction" label as an excuse to do nothing. Look at how many lardos say they need gastric bypass surgery to lose weight ... while scoffing down their 3rd box of Twinkies and washing it down with their 4th gallon of soda pop. Here's a thought - make it illegal for anyone who's obese to buy or possess junk food. Ditto for the enablers - you know, the parents who also weigh 500 pounds and insist on shoveling sh*t down their kids' throats.
As for the "internet addicts", who gives a frak? They're antisocial slobs anyways. In times past, they would have been hooked on TV, or crack, to fill their hollow lives.
Sounds mean? Well, you know something - life can be mean. If you want to spend all your life glued to the internet, don't be surprised if nobody wants to hang around you in real life. You made your choice to be ultra-booooring. Just don't as me to help subsidize it.
Re:Wow work related injury here I come (Score:2, Insightful)
Same thing with smokers. They go from "I can quit any time" to "I can't stop."
Smoke 20 a day for six months. Then try to stop. Maybe you'll be able to, but you won't think it's easy anymore.
Re:Wow work related injury here I come (Score:3, Insightful)
Good job parroting a popular sentiment. (Score:2, Insightful)
By what methodology do you judge which addictions are valid? The cure to "crack addiction" is STOP SMOKING CRACK, but saying it in capital letters doesn't make it easy.
You make a good point that not *all* addictions are true "addictions", but it's a point we already know. The question is - how to determine which are, and to what extent? It isn't helpful to try to oversimplify a potentially complex question in psychology.
Re:Wow work related injury here I come (Score:2, Insightful)
Never said it would be easy for someone - just that there is NO excuse, and that it is up to the individual to stop, not hide behind the "I'm addicted" excuse as a "justification" to DO NOTHING ABOUT IT.
How many people do we know ho complain every day about their MARRIAGE, but DO NOTHING ABOUT IT? They stay in a loveless relationship, rather than either trying to improve it, or leaving.
How many people do we know ho complain every day about their JOB, but DO NOTHING ABOUT IT? They don't look for another job, they don't send out resumes, they don't try to improve their current job by making the work environment better ... just bitch bitch bitch and it's always everyone else's fault.
How many people do we know ho complain every day about their LACK OF A SOCIAL LIFE, but DO NOTHING ABOUT IT? You suggest they go volunteer at verious places, and they go "that won't owrk!" You tell them to stop spending their free time at home on the stupid internet, but they say "that's all I have." You invite them to a party, and they say "I don't want to go" or "I'm too busy" - doing what? Sitting at home doing sweet-fra- all
How many people do we know ho complain every day about their DEBTS SPIRALLING OUT OF CONTOL, but DO NOTHING ABOUT IT? They get a loan consolidation, then end up a few years later with twice as many debts ...
How many people do we know ho complain every day about their WEIGHT, but DO NOTHING ABOUT IT? They just keep shoveling it in like its' their last meal. To paraphrase Woodstock -
"It's 1, 2, 3, helpings, then ask for more.
I'm fat and I don't give a damn,
next up - 10 fish in a pan;
and it's 5, 6, 7, open up the pearly gates,
I'm just a fat slob and we know why
I'm gonna just up and die!"
It's a question of what people want. Do they want a better life bad enough to change their behaviour:? No? They don't want to make the sacrifice, do the dieting, go through withdrawal, whatever ... then they're just getting what, deep down, they really want. Whether it's internet addiction over a normal social life, or oral gratification instead of a healthier body, these are choices they make with every mouse click, every potato chip, every cigarette. If they don't care about themselves, why should anyone else?
It's always "I'll change ... maybe tomorrow. Next week. New Years." Never "It starts NOW!" Always one more cigarette, one more bag of Cheetos, one more hour on the web. Deep down, they know there's no reason, just excuses.
Re:Good job parroting a popular sentiment. (Score:5, Insightful)
You make a good point that not *all* addictions are true "addictions", but it's a point we already know.
All addictions are psychological addictions so anything that makes you feel good ends up rewiring your brain (this is why you constantly think about what you are addicted to, your brain is looking for ways to feel good again) - and hence your brain rebels against you when you try to quit (it literally becomes a civil war inside your head). So its not really a matter of what are "real" addictions - they are all real because you make them real - even if to the outside observer there looks to be no addictive component.
Re:Wow work related injury here I come (Score:2, Insightful)
Hey, way to completely miss the point on what personal responsibility means.
A prime example is all the fat people who I see at the supermarket with shopping carts overflowing with junk. Are you going to argue that the boxes of crap just jumped magically off the shelves? Or that they had no choice in their purchases? Do we add "Junk fod shopping addiction" to the "pigging out addiction"? I don't think so. There is NOTHING stopping them from asking for or paying someone to help them - either by doing their shopping for them (they even sell fridges with a lock and an alarm, you know ...), or just abandoning the shopping cart before they get to the cash. Oh, right - we have to add "compulsive pay-for-inedible-crap addiction" to the list. There are plenty of points in the cycle where it can be broken - but they CHOOSE not to, just as others CHOOSE to.
Same with "internet addiction." If you've been sitting at the computer so long that your rectum has prolapsed (and ys, there are people who have done that), your ASSHOLE is telling you something - TURN IT THE FRAK OFF!
Same as people who wear Depends so they don't lose "their" slot machine - they made a conscious decision BEFORE they entered the casino.
The simple fact is that sometimes people have to hit rock bottom before they can accept that they need help, and they they'll also have to be a part of the solution, instead of just looking for excuses.
Those Are Symptoms, Not the Disease (Score:3, Insightful)
Those are symptoms of people who aren't high-functioning addicts.
Any addiction is defined by one simple criterion: can the person exercise self control over the behavior?
The question can become existential: what if they don't want to quit? If they're high-functioning, they might never have call to exercise self control. In which case what's the difference whether they're addicts or not? The only question then is whether something might change requiring their quitting, and they might not be able to, which could be a problem.
Besides, everyone is "addicted" to food. Few complain about the addiction, except people who can't afford to eat, who have some other compulsion/obsession that conflicts with eating, or who have a compounded problem of eating too much. But we all live with our basic addiction to food, which isn't really a problem, and is even celebrated. Why should any other addiction matter, if there are no bad symptoms?
Re:I can quit any time.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't forget that there is a huge mental health industry with a vested interest in creating (oops, I mean "identifying") new classes of illness that they will have to paid to treat.
I suspect that what's happening is that they are identifying something that has become a pillar of an individual's life-style and then claiming that this constitutes an "addiction" because the person suffers anxiety when the thing is taken away. A person with a normal social life would start to exhibit anxiety and yearning if socially isolated. How often do we hear someone who is trapped at home due to short term illness say something like "I need to get out, I'm going mad stuck here"? That person must be addicted to going down the pub or addicted to work.
I probably fit the Slashdot stereotype of being fairly dependent on Internet access. I had to go without Internet access for a couple of days recently and I found it frustrating not to have it. By the time I got onto the ISP customer support, I was sufficiently perturbed to be firm with them. However, I haven't watched live broadcast TV in over ten years. Instead, I watch things off-air from my video/DVD collection in addition to downloaded content. I suspect that most of the population of the UK would find it difficult to go any length of time without access to a TV with an aerial. Same goes for lots of them in regard to access to a mobile phone with text messaging. Actually, amongst poorer people in the UK, treatment for "pointless mobile phone use complex" probably would save them some money if nothing else.
Re:Wow work related injury here I come (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wow work related injury here I come (Score:2, Insightful)
We don't excuse drunk drivers because they decided to have one to many, we should do the same for other "lifestyle addictions."
We don't excuse drunk driving because it can lead to physical harm or death of another person. Being addicted to food or the internet currently only harms yourself. Your point is a logical fallacy.
What's amusing is how harshly you condemn people with problems and yet it seems as though you have stress management issues. I guess that means no mercy for those people that can't manage stress...
Re:Wow work related injury here I come (Score:4, Insightful)
... DO NOTHING ABOUT IT ...
Unfortunately it is not quite as simple as "doing something about it"; it's like saying "everybody complains about America's addiction to oil, but they DO NOTHING ABOUT IT". As you probably know, you can do a lot about things and still not have any success.
When you are trying to beat addiction it feels like you are fighting against your whole body and all your instincts; which is why that old "Just say no" campaing was so cringelingly stupid and totally missed the point. You can decide all you want that now you are going to stop smoking/shooting heroin/overeating or whatever, but when the craving hit you, it's amazing how obvious it suddenly seems that you don't actually need or want to stop,
Re:Good job parroting a popular sentiment. (Score:3, Insightful)
Fallacy of the excluded middle. What if free will doesn't always exist? What if there was a disease of the mind that impaired or eliminated freedom of choice? We could call that disease something like, oh, 'addiction', and then we might think about how it ought to be treated.