Comments on: I'm So Cold...So So Cold

I'm So Cold...So So Cold

Gnostic Novelist — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 05:16:50 -0800

China is taking steps to curb Internet addiction. This isn't the first time they have moved to regulate use. Are you addicted?

By: mr_book

mr_book — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 05:34:12 -0800

It'll be just a few years before I can get the internet in my cyberbrain and some white labcoat tries to blur the line between Internet Addiction and Physical Dependence.

By: maryh

maryh — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 05:36:43 -0800

"I gradually became obsessed," said Li Yanlin, a university student whose grades plunged after he became addicted to Internet games. But after several weeks at the Daxing facility, the 18-year-old said he "recognised the falseness of online gaming". Cured... like Ted Haggard was cured. See you online, Li Yanlin.

By: DU

DU — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 05:38:02 -0800

If wasting time on the internet to such an extent that I lose my job and my family is wrong, then I don't want to be right.

By: saraswati

saraswati — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 05:51:59 -0800

I can quit whenever I want to, Gnostic Novelist. WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE ME

By: Faint of Butt

Faint of Butt — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 06:16:37 -0800

I'm not addicted to the Internet. Just to MetaFilter.

By: psmealey

psmealey — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 06:24:14 -0800

The third Opium War will be fought over the internet.

By: She Kisses Wyverns

She Kisses Wyverns — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 06:33:21 -0800

Metafilter: Are you addicted? Too easy - sorry.

By: signal

signal — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 06:37:53 -0800

By: b1tr0t

b1tr0t — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 06:44:01 -0800

On a more serious note, the whole bannig of new internet cafes and crackdown on minors seems to be a fairly transparent attempt at demonizing and restricting the places where you can go online with (some) freedom, no? It seems to me that public internet cafes would make it easier to regulate browsing and information exchange than at home.

By: eatdonuts

eatdonuts — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 07:01:45 -0800

I feel this notion of internet addiction pretty idiotic. Twenty years ago everyone worried for my generation's believed addiction to television, in the late 80s and 90s it was video games on PCs, somewhere in between the TV and home gaming, my older brother was regularly handed pamphlets on the addictions of Dungeons and Dragons... now the internet. I think people are just obsessed with creating social obsessions. It will always be that some people can control themselves and some people can't. If all we had was books, some peple would never sleep and there would be the notion of 'over-reading.' I think it's just a bunch of people at the CATO institute getting freaked out over their perceived loss of the tubes.

By: talitha_kumi

talitha_kumi — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 07:20:50 -0800

Dungeons and Dragons is addictive. I started playing Neverwinter Nights a few weeks ago, and now I'm dreaming about it. So far it's fun, but I can imagine that slaying bugbears all night long might get a little tiresome after a while.

By: Faint of Butt

Faint of Butt — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 07:52:54 -0800

Neverwinter Nights is not Dungeons & Dragons.

By: caddis

caddis — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 08:19:07 -0800

Have you demonstrated "loss of control" when trying to stop or limit the amount of time on the computer? (Breaking promises to self or others. Promising to quit or cut down and not being able to do so) Do you find yourself being dishonest or minimizing the extent of the time you stay on the computer, or covering up or being dishonest about what activities you participate in when on the computer? Do you have feelings of depression or anxiety when something or someone shortens your time or interrupts your plans to use the computer? Alright, fess up MeFi addicts.

By: Cyclopsis Raptor

Cyclopsis Raptor — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 08:33:08 -0800

Guys, I have a problem. I'm addicted to blinking. I used to deny it, but now....it's just ruining everything! Do you know how much time you lose with your eyes closed because you're blinking!? It might possibly be over 15 months a year! Call 1-800-555-5595 if blinking is a problem for you or one you love.

By: gorgor_balabala

gorgor_balabala — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 09:09:23 -0800

Why aren't people boasting about their scores the way they do with the games? 48 baby!

By: Maias

Maias — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 09:15:45 -0800

This shows very beautifully how socially constructed the concept of "addiction" is. This seems completely absurd to us when we think of the familiar "internet" but if you replace that word with "heroin" we would mainly be believing that the tough love was probably a good idea, the social disruption of the Internet cafes was caused by the pharmacology of the evil drug and its "bad influence" was destroying otherwise normal kids. That's not to say that heroin doesn't have a pharmacological effect or to claim that addiction doesn't exist-- but the pathologizing of it is highly related to whether we see the "addicts" as "us" or "them." When they are "us" we ridicule the idea of harsh treatment and isolation of users and see the harm as being related to misuse of the substance or personal weirdness-- when they are "them" we see both the substance and "them" as evil and leading to decay and collapse.

By: katillathehun

katillathehun — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 09:18:08 -0800

The best thing about your job heavily involving the internet and your friends being mostly online is that nobody's gonna complain.

By: malaprohibita

malaprohibita — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 09:57:30 -0800

Are you addicted? I'm here now, aren't I?

By: docjohn

docjohn — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 10:02:38 -0800

It goes back further than being "addicted" to TV. There have been proclamations of tragedy since the advent of any new technology, from automobiles, to the telephone, to the radio. Imagine all that time people spent glued to their radios every evening! They must've been addicted to them. So it's very convenient for a government which already has issues with free, uncensored information to fall back to a nonexistent disorder to justify further actions. A decade from now, we'll look back at these things with a fond smirk.

By: psmealey

psmealey — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 10:04:54 -0800

Why aren't people boasting about their scores the way they do with the games? 48 baby! 30. But I have a strong suspicion that I am in deep denial/lying to myself about it.

By: mert

mert — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 10:22:30 -0800

I agree with signal... the free exchange of information (i.e. the internet) is a threat to the stability of the current regime. It makes sense that they would make do what they can to limit its spread. This is pretty transparent.

By: The Straightener

The Straightener — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 10:44:59 -0800

I've been using the Internet for so long now I can barely feel it anymore. It'll never be like that first time again.

By: Sparx

Sparx — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:23:10 -0800

I'm with you, The Straightener! I keep on having to increase my bandwidth just to stay on an even keel. And that's just the porn.

By: pernoctalian

pernoctalian — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 18:50:22 -0800

How often do you prefer the excitement of the Internet to intimacy with your partner? Does Not Apply is damning enough, but they forgot a possible answer there. "Oh, my Pleasure Extender means I never have to leave the keyboard." That one's an automatic 200 points, of course.

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 00:16:40 -0800

Maias writes "That's not to say that heroin doesn't have a pharmacological effect or to claim that addiction doesn't exist-- but the pathologizing of it is highly related to whether we see the 'addicts' as 'us' or 'them.' "When they are 'us' we ridicule the idea of harsh treatment and isolation of users and see the harm as being related to misuse of the substance or personal weirdness-- when they are 'them' we see both the substance and 'them' as evil and leading to decay and collapse." This may have been true of earlier generations of people with no experience of illicit drugs, but I'm not at all convinced that it holds for today's under 50's, most of whom either do have personal experience, or who will have friends with personal experience. I'd challenge the claim that people see addicts as 'evil'. Most surveys of the general population support treatment rather than punishment, so 'weak' or 'sick' are much more common responses than evil. But this generation pathologizes addiction because in almost all cases it actually is pathological -- and for many people, it really *does* lead to decay and collapse. The twenty eight sex workers that I interviewed to on Friday night weren't standing on cold street corners, selling their bodies to buy internet access. All but one of them admitted that they were selling sex to buy either crack or heroin or both. When people start selling sex to fund their internet habits, then I'll accept the analogy as an appropriate one, rather than just the complete bollocks that it actually is.

By: Maias

Maias — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 09:04:24 -0800

Actually, i wasn't trying to argue in favor of internet addiction, which i agree in most, perhaps all, cases is indeed a ridiculous concept. it just struck me how you could replace the words and have the same exact rhetoric and claims. but i think the us has a more extreme hatred of addicts than the UK -- and i think it's far more confounded here by race. so we are happy to have treatment not punishment for white people, but when it comes to poor and dark and when it comes to actually funding it as opposed to funding prison and when it comes to actually changing the policy to reflect this supposed belief, it doesn't usually actually happen. so i think the "us" and "them" thing is still valid-- and this is also reflected in the support for "tough love" for addicts that is not supported for the mentally ill.