Are you Internet Addicted?

[Freethinker]

"Internet junkies in chilling cold turkey experiment"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/23/internet_junkies/


A study sponsored by Yahoo and OMD keep study participants away from their internet connections for 14 days. They found themselves quickly succumbing to "withdrawal and feelings of loss, frustration and disconnectedness". They even had problems finding people that would volunteer for the experiment. People don't want to give up the the Internet for two weeks even for a scientific study.

After many years of highspeed connections on a daily basis I know I have trouble even putting up with dial up connections. Could I give up the Net for two weeks? ERG!

What about you?

[IrishEyes]

Two weeks without you guys???? BRING ON THAT STUDY!! I'll make the sacrifice in the name of science

Seriously though, I think internet addiction is like any other addiction. In my opinion certain people, or more probably - certain personality types, are more prone to become addicted to anything. Personally, I do not have an addictive type of personality, and have a hard time understanding those that do. I almost view it as a character flaw. I quit smoking cold turkey. I quit watching television when I felt my family was watching too much (others in the house were not so pleased that I had the cable disconnected, but oh well!). I have put myself on a break from the computer on more occasions than I can remember - usually when I feel that some site (ebay, Hypography, and others) is starting to have more control over me than I have of it. There are times that I have lost myself in a certain site for a while, such as the 2 mentioned above. Usually though I will realize what is happening fairly quickly and am able to stop. I was at this point with this site when Tormod asked me to be a Moderator. As it is now sort of a requirement to be here on a fairly regular basis, I no longer feel that I am being controlled by the site.

I have dial-up and am glad for that. If we had high-speed, I might have a harder time stepping away.

[Tormod]

Originally posted by: Freethinker
They found themselves quickly succumbing to "withdrawal and feelings of loss, frustration and disconnectedness".

What about you?

Huh? You talking to me? I did *not* volunteer, you hear me? Not! I have no problems staying away for 14, er, hm. Minutes?

Seriously, I think I have some of that addiction, yes. Had it for years now. It is very stressful and since I work in front of a PC all day and then spend time with Hypography etc in the evenings I guess I'm in some sort of high risk group.

[Tim_Lou]

believe it or not, i AM addicted to computers.

i play computer everyday, but i still have a life though...

ive been trying to play lesser and lesser to get rip of it....
well, i can live without computers for a couple days, but i cant live without computers for a month....


"withdrawal and feelings of loss, frustration and disconnectedness"
yes, very true.


also, when i sink into the fantasy world of math and sciences, "withdrawal and feelings of loss, frustration and disconnectedness" same thing happens.

its like as if there is no body around, the world stops.... and you just keep thinking and thinking until....

[geko]

Im addicted to the internet. I even recently upgraded to dsl cos 56k was so annoying. Hell of a job trying to get the ruddy modem to work though - about a week it took of hours a night pff - phoning the isp and manufacturer and they didnt have a clue themselves in the end, they suggested i google! lol Anyway, yep, i love the internet! I think it's great. Im even thinking about upgraded my connection speed again cos it's not as fast as i want it, or expected it to be... i mean, i have to wait for like 3-5 secs for a page to load... jus' not good enough im afraid... think i will pay the extra fiver for 512. hmm lol

what connections you lot have anyways? Heard cable is good, probably would have gone this route myself if i could get it in the area.

[Freethinker]

I have a T1 at work. And it seems slow at times. But that is compared to my Cable connection at home. (Which costs a magnitude less). But Cable speeds are not constant. I am fortunate to be on a node which is not heavily loaded yet. In a network that is fairly new with a massive fiber to node deployment. I know of Cable in other areas that at times is no better than Dial up. While the T is dedicated and gauranteed.

An internet connection, no matter how fast the connection to your location, is often ultimately limited by the ISP's infrastructure. Many ISP business models are based on % of over subscription. They will guess that some limited percent of their total customer base will be d/ling at any one time. 10/1 was a popular ratio. I have seen local ISP's sell full T's to multiple customers are very low prices. To find out that they themselves only had ONE T to the net themselves.

Then the other side of the question is how fast of a connection the server you are trying to access might have.

[sanctus]

It's seem that I am the only one not addicted to internet here. The proof:
from July to october I didn't write a message on this forum (or anywhere else in the net), just because I didn't have an internet access. I didn't have any of these feelings.

The cause maybe is because I'm a bit slack (that means very very lazy in Australia, don't know if it has another meaning in the US, I thought I better specifiy it because thinking of the differents meanings of "to root") , so if I have nopthing to do on the net I don't feel like turning on the computer.

[geko]

Yeah, you got to have something to do otherwise there's just no point. I used to spend hours just reading about certain stuff online. Since my last post above mind you i havent actually been on much, but the time that was taken up with being online reading what i used to read is still taken up with it but in printed form as i bought some books on the stuff. I guess i'm saying that the internet kind of replaces other written types of material for me - plus there's also the odd forum you can visit or someone you know on msn.

I feel as though ive only just plugged myself into computers, and i'm not unplugging yet!

........

I never really realised until i read this thing the other day how new an invention the internet actually is (with the current hyper text and protocols i mean). Sure, i realsied it was new but the other day i was reading a book (A brief history of the future - John Naughton) and had nearly finished it before the dates hit me! It was like 93 or something when irc started i think, but 97 (!!) or so when 'normal' public started going on here - and even then it was like 2000 - 2001 before business and people realised the importance of getting a E address! It nearly blew me away... i was like i lived through it all in my teens, and yet i MISSED IT!

"A marvellous invention" - by no-one in particular

[geko]

By the way, those dates and specifics are not taken fromt he mentioned book. I have no doubt that in some way they're inaccurate, but wanted to make the point and really didnt want to go and get a reference to see, but just wanted to make a point and felt that it could be done without being entirely accurate with the dates. For e.g. i think it may have been like 94 when the first user friendly 'browser' came out (netscape) and not, "93 for irc"

My apologies, but hopefully you get the idea

[geko]

And now i'm back to dial-up :'( signal was degrading, too far away from exchange i was told... and now i cant recieve phone calls! :S