The front page caught my eye — USA Today, international edition, 1996 July 2, Tuesday. Net overuse called a 'true addiction' by Marilyn Elias. Big shock. What? Now, on the flight from Hong Kong home to Tokyo I have the time and my HP200 palmtop computer is with me, so I write a story for the TPC (Tokyo PC User's Group). I quote the tiny article from said newspaper (fair use, I guess) and interleave my comments. Language lives. New phenomena and new technologies add vocabulary and shift definitions. That is why derivations in dictionaries are so useful. They provide a historic trail to the origin of words and assist us in understanding each other. On the opposite side, one of the weapons in psychological warfare is subverting the vocabulary and its definitions, thus shifting the moral values to a new allegiance. Free people rightfully oppose the censoring or alteration of books. Alteration of definitions and connotations of words is much harder to detect. Let's see how this article comes out. "Net overuse called a 'true addiction'" Sounds like truthful reporting to me. Someone likens the desire to use the Net more than usual (how much is over-use?) to the true physical addictions: drugs, medication, alcohol and nicotine, eating or dieting binges, chocoholics, workaholics, etc. "Obsessive Internet users have a true addiction that can hurt their relationships and leave them hung over or disabled at work, suggests the largest mental health study so far of heavy Net participants." Well, I think I understand that an obsessive (definition pending) users can hurt relationships. And I see the author explicitly agrees to call this a true addiction. However, calling physical exhaustion from lack of sleep "hung over or disabled" is new(s) to me. Disabled is a severe condition of injury, and rings a bell of compensation claims. "The study of 396 men and women on line for an average of 38 hours a week was presented to the American Psychological Society." Who are these men and women? Do they do business on the net or are they just surfing for fun? Without more data, we cannot tell. Come to think of 38 hours: besides work (40 hours +) and sleep (56 hours -), what else do we do for 38 hours a week? Theoretically, the week offers 56 hours of leisure. If someone spends 70% of his free time in front of the TV or with a hobby like model airplanes, is it labeled true addiction? Let's compare weeklies: "Net addicts are 'not just geeky teen-agers,' says psychologist Kimberly Young of the University of Pittsburgh-Bradford. 'They can look high-functioning but there are serious problems just under the surface.'" The rechargeable batteries in my HP remind me that I have used them up, totaling some 40 hours on the keyboard this week. My seat neighbor in the plane is casually watching me. Does he notice my serious problem under the high-functioning appearance? Mind you, I am not on the Net now. Instead of creative writing, though, I could just as well be reading downloaded web pages. No, thank you, shrinks. Listen to the children choir: We don't need no branding label (bass line - Pink Floyd, The Wall). We don't need no - thought control ... Not just in this article, but day and again through media of all kinds we get such subliminal messages. They seem to say, the world is dangerous, thy neighbor is strange, you all have a problem that needs (our) treatment Notice the messages and decide for yourself what to think. The article so far is null news to me, and besides, the definition of obsessive Internet users is still pending. "Heavy on-line users in her study all met psychiatric criteria for clinical dependence applied to alcoholics and drug addicts." This bold statement bears careful analysis and definition of terms. (I have to check this part with a dictionary when I come home). For now it may suffice to say that 38 hours on-line per week seems will do for psychiatric criteria. Clinical dependence is a contradiction in terms. Clinical means in practical research, as in the advertising slogan clinically tested. Clinical dependence thus could mean a dependence caused by the clinic, or dependence on the clinic? I can't believe this. I am certain, though, that the actual dependence of alcoholics and drug users is caused by chemical changes in the body that lead to withdrawal symptoms (poisoning) so severe that the body of the substance (ab)user forces him to continue in the direction of the lesser pain. The withdrawal symptoms of Net overuse are just comparable with those of broadcast addiction, bookworming overuse or maybe even gossip deficiency disorder. "Three rewards drive what Young calls 'Internet addiction disorder':" Ever in search for more paying patients and known for their imaginative and condescending vocabulary, the psych "sciences" have come up with a new creation in the "disorder" label category. Internet addiction tops the flurry of recent years, full of psychese fabrications like ADD attention deficit disorder (bored at school), ADHD ADD with hyperactivitye (bored, but good at sports), disobedience disorder (having a will), etc. ad nauseam. See how easy it is to make these labels up? Very soon, I predict from the thin air around me, we are going to hear the likes of superiority disorder (urge for success and career), obsessive creativity disorder (you write too much, paint too much, produce too much), processed food addiction (urge for sugary corn flakes), and countless other branding labels just as easy to create. Make up your own! All you have to do is to say them with authority, yessir! And convince the relatives and acquaintance that there is a chemical imbalance in the brain. Which one, doctor? "Hmm, that does not matter at this stage. We cannot leave this untreated. You don't want to risk this serious disorder to become worse do you? Here, we prescribe this, 3 times daily."" And by the time the bitter bill is paid, we are on our way to a counteraddiction on brainkillers like Valium and Prozac. Oh, back to the article. Now, what were these three rewards? And why do the rewards drive anything? Pavlov's dogs were driven by punishm.., er, sorry, stimulus and reward. Do these psychologists assume WE are reward driven? After all, we all naturally strive for pleasure, the reward for successful pro-survival activity. But in a free world, outside of the confines of psych experimentation, are there rewards that drive our behavior? We must be thought of as Pavlovian puppets. On-line reward one: "Community — meeting friends on line. Overdoing it can be a sign of neglected real life personal relationships." "Can be..." da de dum. It is similar to telefonitis, the HAM Amateur Radio hobby or any other pastime involved with telecommunication. If the hobby eats up so much time that one ceases to stay in touch with family and friends, there may be something going to pieces. Or it is the other way around, the hobby as an escape from unfulfilling relationships, just before one can make up his mind to improve oneself and the situation. In any case, there may be something to repair, and in order to do that, one needs sharp observation and new knowledge, not new pills that dull the powers of the mind. The knowledge one had was obviously not sufficient, otherwise the problem would not be existing in the first place. So, where does one go to learn more? Friends, books, libraries, churches, other places of wisdom and of course the Internet. This reward turns out a potential antidote for the "addiction". Better meet on-line than being all alone, right? On-line reward two: "Fantasy — adopting new personas or playing out sexual fantasies." Hear, hear, despicable creativity is the reward that drives Internet addiction disorder. When I went to school, and later in professional training, role play was very educational and pleasurable. So is sexual play, but this is everyone's privacy, regardless of the distance or media involved. All psychiatric labels of the world will not be reward enough to shift people's attention from sexual and other creative fantasies towards turning themselves in for disorder treatment. Or does the article infer a fantasy of having sex paid by the health insurance - what with a percentage of psychiatrists admitting to sexual involvement with their patients and a number of them convicted for this every year. On-line reward three: "Power — instant access to information and new people, a positive that can go bad." Thus the article in USA Today ends, no further explanation, nothing. Maybe the editor had the scissors on it to shoehorn the article into the 6 by 16cm free space on the front page. Well, let's see the subliminal message in this one. How about power corrupts? This is of course equaled with instant access to information and new people (...corrupts, we may be led to think). An unneeded warning. Anything can go bad, spilt milk included, and most things are indeed positive before they go bad. Or bad before they go positive. It is almost as if they say anything could be expected to unpredictably change or remain the same. What about 38 hours on-line, that can mean lots of information or pleasant interaction, how does this generate power as a reward that drives addictive behavior? When do the obsessive Internet users (definition remains pending) have any time left to USE all this information and CREATE any power with it? No thank you, null news. Conclusion: For me, this article is just unreflected journalism and warped verbiage , tooting the horn for special interests: more business for the psychs. Alarmed relatives might now suspect to see signs of the dangerous Internet addiction disorder in their next of kin. If they have the bad luck of asking for professional advice (ha!), it might go like this: Of course this is a serious condition, not to be taken lightly. One cannot take away the computer or close the Internet account, that would be negative feedback and worsen the addiction. The only evidence of a successful cure is when the patient voluntarily ceases to use the addictive agent. This mind-alteration can be easily and comfortably achieved, thanks to modern pharmacological clinical research and the safe and effective prescription drugs. If the patient does not return to normal social intercourse while under the treatment, this should not be regarded as a failure. All possible side effects of the medication are explained on these three full pages of small print. Sign here for informed consent and there for the medical insurance. What is so bad about spending 38 hours a week in pleasant or excited solitude, only virtually connected to a much larger array of distant friends than would be possible to meet face-to-face? How many of those "overusers" are actually working with the Internet, trade information or goods, arrange dates or meetings? Compare this to the violence and criminality so often intimately connected with alcohol, street drugs, prescription drugs and psychiatric malpractice. "Net overuse" can be expected to have positive social effects, quite unlike typical one-way addictive media such as TV, video and computer games. People are coming back to basics again, they write each other letters, they talk on-line, and more. Social Implications One-way broadcast media foster public opinion, the one opinion no one has because we are all individuals with our own opinions. Broadcast side effects are manipulation and thought control, virtual brainwashing. Two-way communication as it is possible on the 'Net builds virtual communities of increasing real understanding. Newsgroups and bulletin boards give consumers power because of large numbers of more or less unsolicited reviews on almost anything. Ha, maybe that's why the Internet is not welcome to some and professional advice is offered how to keep the masses ignorant. Would not be for the first time in history. Of course, any hobby when overdone can cut into sleep which reduces power and performance on the job. So do the wondersome prescription pills. All I object to is labeling simple overdoing an addiction or even disorder, implying that the user must have fallen prey to the vast powers of the Internet, lost personal will or freedom of choice and thus needs treatment (by certain ilk) to be saved from himself. Lord, save us from those who try to save us. Please. If overdoing it on the Internet is not fun or makes you tired, there is always the big switch labeled OFF. Thank you for reading.
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