At What Point Does Internet Addiction become too much ??? (illegal aliens, compare, state)
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For a lot of older, senior folks the internet is becoming more important. The kids are gone, many have lost their companion and live alone. A link to the rest of the world is very important and beneficial. I've noticed over the past year or so that my spelling is getting worse. Sometimes I stare at a word for minutes and can't connect the proper spelling. Spell check helps but I'd rather wrestle with the word on my own terms. The internet helps to keep my mind sharp. I even bought a play station 2 just a couple months ago just to keep my mind sharp and exercised. My Dr. agreed.
All the knowledge of the world is at your fingertips and sometimes seniors can generate a post that gives knowledge to the rest of the world or at least the forum you post on. This is invaluable and gives a sense of satisfaction to an aged person. Instead of just TV and the cat, one can interact with the rest of the world.
Love your work! I have my stuff here and there, but not one dedicated site like deviantart. I'm going to join there or somewhere similar. You understand, then, how important it is to have a well-working monitor for editing. Fortunately, my dad has offered to buy me one for christmas. I'm going to get a cheap one (dell on sale at bestbuy tomorrow). I'm looking forward to it.
While we're OT, can you recommend a good storage option that isn't expensive? I have so many pics on my laptop that I'm using up way too much space. I need to unload them somewhere, but external hard drives are expensive. I'm also concerned about putting everything on cd/dvd since those can get damaged pretty easily or lost.
No, those actions in and of themselves are not addictions but they can be. It is just like saying that if someone does heroin once a year, they are not a heroin addict, which would be a correct statement. But if another person does heroin once an hour, you could correctly refer to them as an addict. It is not the action itself, it is the frequency of the action. So, washing your car can be an addiction if you do it 5 times a day. It is about the behavior, not the action.
Not all addictions are physical, so some will not cause physical withdrawal symtoms when the person is deprived of his/her "fix." When a crack addict is deprived of crack they do not experience physical withdrawal. They are still considered to be addicted to crack, though.
There are many different definitions of addiction but one thing that all of those different theories have in common is obsession and compulsion. Someone who is an addict is not "free" in the sense that their day revolves around fullfilling their particular obsession. Addiction is ritualistic, in that the addict repeats the same behavior over and over to quench their thirst for whatever it is they crave; therefore, rendering the addict incapable of meaningful thought or action. Addicts are insulated from situations that are outside of their ritualistic processes.
So take your case, jtur88. You have thousands of posts. You make an average of a little over 12 posts a day. If the time you spend awake, and not eating or taking care of other domestic situations is 12 hours (which I believe is a reasonable assumption), then you make an average of 1 post an hour. So it is safe to say that a good portion of every hour that you are awake is involved with submitting posts to one on-line forum. Even if City-Data is the only site you frequent on the internet (which is unlikely), that is a lot of time to spend on one thing. One could make the argument that you are addicted to City-Data. And this is something that you have been doing for a few years now. Did you ever think about what would happen if you took a break from posting on CD for two months? Could you do it? And if you could, how would you feel? Do you think you would experience some sort of emotional withdrawal?
The term addiction is used in many contexts to describe an obsession, compulsion, or excessive psychological dependence.
I believe using the term addiction is overused, and often leading nowhere, if we use it in areas other than substance taking.
How can one determine if a person is addicted or simply just having a passion for a certain activities?
If we go back and look at some scientists, philosophers and other people who made history with their achievements, we find out, that most of these people (if not all of them) spent their entire life in their particular field. They just slept, ate, very litlle something else, but extremly lot of time spent by studing/researching whatever was the area of their interest. For example, those of you who are familiar with Bobby Fisher's biography (one of the gratest chessplayers), know that his life was essentially nothing but chess.
Are these great people considered addicts, because they spent too much time doing one activity? According to your definition, they clearly are.
You conclude, that the addicts are incapable of meaningful thought or action. Addicts are insulated from situations that are outside of their ritualistic processes.
Really? Somehow it is difficult to imagine Einstein, Newton, Fisher and bunch of other addicts being incapable of meaningful thought...
For a lot of older, senior folks the internet is becoming more important. The kids are gone, many have lost their companion and live alone. A link to the rest of the world is very important and beneficial. I've noticed over the past year or so that my spelling is getting worse. Sometimes I stare at a word for minutes and can't connect the proper spelling. Spell check helps but I'd rather wrestle with the word on my own terms. The internet helps to keep my mind sharp. I even bought a play station 2 just a couple months ago just to keep my mind sharp and exercised. My Dr. agreed.
All the knowledge of the world is at your fingertips and sometimes seniors can generate a post that gives knowledge to the rest of the world or at least the forum you post on. This is invaluable and gives a sense of satisfaction to an aged person. Instead of just TV and the cat, one can interact with the rest of the world.
Way to go Man, good for you. Keep swingin for the fences.
Love your work! I have my stuff here and there, but not one dedicated site like deviantart. I'm going to join there or somewhere similar. You understand, then, how important it is to have a well-working monitor for editing. Fortunately, my dad has offered to buy me one for christmas. I'm going to get a cheap one (dell on sale at bestbuy tomorrow). I'm looking forward to it.
yes! a color-true monitor is a huge deal when working with digital art. glad you are getting a good one.
Quote:
While we're OT, can you recommend a good storage option that isn't expensive? I have so many pics on my laptop that I'm using up way too much space. I need to unload them somewhere, but external hard drives are expensive. I'm also concerned about putting everything on cd/dvd since those can get damaged pretty easily or lost.
hmmm. i'm not actually too sure about this, but google documents might have a jpg storage allowance or something.
for small documents (generally under 10 megs), you can just email them to yourself and redownload them when needed.
what i did was finally invest in a nice laptop and a nice external hard drive. i was entering the digital media track at my school, and spent a decent amount of money on a macbook pro, the entire adobe suite, and a 500 gig external drive.
now i have a very nice amount of storage.
now, to relate all of this to the topic:
we live in a changing world. the web has revolutionized how we connect with people, how we sort and store information, and how we access and use that information. we are never going to go back to the old system unless a post apocalyptic hollywood movie scenario becomes reality.
the digital world is brutally fast paced, and those of us that are trying to make a living within the world of digital media have to stay on our toes to keep up. i don't live on the net, but i might as well. i do a good portion of my homework online, upload almost all of my homework that i do offline onto a teacher's website somewhere, download raw video from clients' websites, send them edited clips, and do all sorts of other things online.
then i screw around on this site when i have the time, sating some sort of masochistic urge to stick my beliefs and opinions out there onto a web full of anonymous, satomasochistic miscreants.
it's a weird world that we are creating/inheriting, and we are at the forefront of a fairly monumental period of social change.
The term addiction is used in many contexts to describe an obsession, compulsion, or excessive psychological dependence.
I believe using the term addiction is overused, and often leading nowhere, if we use it in areas other than substance taking.
How can one determine if a person is addicted or simply just having a passion for a certain activities?
If we go back and look at some scientists, philosophers and other people who made history with their achievements, we find out, that most of these people (if not all of them) spent their entire life in their particular field. They just slept, ate, very litlle something else, but extremly lot of time spent by studing/researching whatever was the area of their interest. For example, those of you who are familiar with Bobby Fisher's biography (one of the gratest chessplayers), know that his life was essentially nothing but chess.
Are these great people considered addicts, because they spent too much time doing one activity? According to your definition, they clearly are.
You conclude, that the addicts are incapable of meaningful thought or action. Addicts are insulated from situations that are outside of their ritualistic processes.
Really? Somehow it is difficult to imagine Einstein, Newton, Fisher and bunch of other addicts being incapable of meaningful thought...
Comparing individuals like Einstein and Newton to heroin addicts or to people who post on internet forums all day long is beyond absurd. What the latter are involved in have no redeeming social value. Also, the actions and behaviors of addicts are self-centered and self-seeking. The people that you so absurdly tried to compare to addicts were involved in studies and adventures that benefitted the human race in terms of science and specified knowledge. It would be like saying that a person who spends every waking hour looking for a cure for AIDS is esssentially acting the same way as a person who spends every waking hour trying to pick-pocket people at a busy subway station. That is why I added to my theory on addiction the aspect of self-centeredness, to avoid the comparisons that you make. The essential difference between the two types of individuals that you tried to compare is self-centeredness as opposed to selflessness. Einstein, Newton, Fisher, and others of their ilk fall into the category of selfless, while a heroin addict and a person obsessed with spending their whole existence alone on the internet are self-centered.
Addiction is different than having a strong passion for something. A person who smokes marijuana regularly but is able to hold a job and take care of their personal responsibilities is not an addict, especially if thier life does not change if there comes a time when there is no marijuana available. That person can be said to have a strong passion for smoking pot.
On the other hand, imagine a person who smokes pot just as much but that is all they do. Marijuana is the center of their life, the procuring it, the using it, and the obsession of getting more of it. That person can be said to have an addiction because they are insulated from any normal activities. Their whole day revolves around marijuana. That is why I made the distinctions of obsession and compulsion along with an unmanagable and self-serving lifestyle in my previous post; to avoid confusing addiction with having a strong passion for something.
Comparing individuals like Einstein and Newton to heroin addicts or to people who post on internet forums all day long is beyond absurd. What the latter are involved in have no redeeming social value.
You would have to convincingly argue that Einstein and Newton did what they did because it had social value which they thought would be redeemed. What they did was still obsessive compulsive, and the social value that it had was something external what they were doing or their own self-perception of it.
Do you think Einstein would have given up on relativity if somebody convinced him that it would have no redeeming social value? By the way, what IS the redeeming social value of the theory of relativity? What about the guy who proved Fermat's Last Theorem, after decades of tireless work? What was the redeeming social value that drove him? Was it of greater or lesser redeeming social value than what Evil Knievel was driven to do?
People are driven to do what they have to do, and if society doesn't find their outcome to be of redeeming value, that's society's problem.
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