Internet Addiction Essay Research Paper Slaves to

Internet Addiction Essay, Research Paper

Slaves to the Machine: . Everyday millions of children and adults hurry home after school for the samereason. The reason is not to greet their parents or get a snack as one may think. Rather tosit down in front of a monitor, in order to indulge in the electronic interconnected wonders of the internet. The millions of chat rooms, online games, as well as informationsources can be found to be mesmerizing. This type of person may find him/herself”surfing” to one area of the net after another. Or they might even go to the same placesover again many times trying to master the infinitely complicated informationsuperhighway. These “slaves to the machine” are normal people just anyone else. Whatthey do not realize is that is that their hobby is potentially addictive, as well asdetrimental. Online services are creating a new generation of couch potatoes, or mousepotatoes. The excessively priced internet servers offer a whole realm of services to theusers. Slowly the unsuspecting browsers become dependent on the internet for everythingfrom research to meeting the people of their dreams. Users may send and receiveelectronic mail constantly throughout the day. In some instances users check theirelectronic mailbox from twenty to thirty times per day (Le). This compulsive need tocommunicate is not what is dangerous at all. The problem is much more serious in somecases. Even though there is something fundamentally wrong with checking the weatheronline instead of simply going outside, for example. Some people are skeptic about the idea of internet addiction, and suggest thatthose who are supposedly addicted simply need a life. As cited by Hamilton and Kalb, those who doubt internet addiction believe that those who are mentally weak are “makingan excuse for not having a life”(60). Some experts believe that the concern about internetaddiction is blown out of proportion(Hamilton and Kalb 61). They point out almosteverything that we as humans use has the potential to be considered addictive. Books,television, and movies are all capable of reducing contact, or making relationships withothers. This is a valid point, but does that make the effects of those other mediumsacceptable. Of course not, none of the skeptics would condone one who does nothing butstay home and watch movies or read. Any such actions would be socially unhealthy.There has never been a documented report of men or women who underwent withdrawalsymptoms form books of movies, like those who eliminated the internet from their lives.Another person who has done considerable research on internet addiction claims thatinternet addiction is purely psychological. In other words the concept is” likepathological gambling: an enjoyable thing to do to such an extent that it interferes withthe rest of one’s life.”(Brenner 1) If internet use is like pathological gambling, the why arethere such extreme withdrawal effects. Other purely psychological addictions have fewor no withdrawal symptoms. Some of these “cyber-addicts” are unable to stop on their own free will. One stay-home mother spent up to eighteen hours a day online. She ran up four-hundred dollarsmonthly on the family phone bill. Then, after being scolded by her husband, sheproceeded to hire a computer hacker to get her free hours so as not to be noticed by herfamily (Hamilton, 60). These secret surfers are present in other ways as well. One manadmits to doing most of his surfing “late at night, when my wife and kids are asleep.”(Le)Going to such extents to surf the net seems to point to a very obvious problem. Thatproblem being that one with an internet addiction “has no sense of social risk, noguarantee of anything actually being true, and having no real physical humancontact.”(Brenner 1) Addiction to the internet is a growing problem in today’s society. There has beenestimations by “experts” that approx. two-hundred-thousand of the estimated 8.6 millioninternet customers are in fact addicted (Hamilton, 60). In some instances the dependencyis quite serious. When some addicts are not allowed access to the internet theconsequences can be quite severe. One boy “has cold sweats and nightmares…. He’d cryfor it, cry in his sleep, and wake alone in the dark,… his hands clawed to the bed slab,….trying to reach the console that wasn’t there.” He missed life online just as if it were aparent or a relative (Kidd). Seventeen-year-old Zachary Loafman says, “I’m going to killmyself,” whose problem caused him to distant himself from family and friends. Hisinternet addiction then had him lying in order to get online, and eventually hospitalizedfor serious depression (Le).Of course these are some very extreme cases, and most of thecases are not of this caliber. For example, other symptoms of withdrawal include “psychomotor agitation, anxiety, obsessive thinking about what is happening on theinternet, fantasies about the internet, and voluntary or involuntary typing movements ofthe fingers(Goldberg 1).” These mild symptoms can nonetheless interfere with one’sconcentration in the workplace, at school, or during any other time that thought process isrequired. To take care of these or other symptoms the addict has to use the internet(Goldberg 1). One may inquire as to why the internet can be so addictive. What is it about aningenious information source that can cause one to change his or her life. In most casesthe net inspires an unparalleled feeling of freedom in the addic