"Informative ... a terrific resource!"
Dr. Linda S. Mintle
author, Divorce Proofing Your Marriage
"[A] sobering account of how easily we can slip into technological idolatry. ... We ought to heed his warnings and consider his practical solutions."
Quentin Schultze
author, Habits of the High-Tech Heart
Weblog archives
October 2002
From the University of Southern California's student newspaper, The Daily Trojan, Sara Hall writes: "This morning I sent someone I don't even know a threatening e-mail. Why? Because I am in the throes of an eBay addiction, and this person has not fulfilled an obligation to me. It has been one month since I 'won' the salt and pepper shaker set shaped like a gorilla in a palm tree and rebel987**@aol.com has yet to come through with the goods." Hall's flame-throwing is a symptom of her self-described "eBay addiction," which, she adds, "makes me blind to the impracticalities of my buying habits."
From AllAfrica.com: "The typical South African Internet addict is not a pimply, bespectacled teenage boy. Instead, it is a young white girl who uses the Internet to chat up strangers and trawl porn sites."
"[I]n addition to the news, there's that one world on the Internet that separates the average fan from the addict. Its (sic) wear (sic) bad grammar reign's (sic), where outrageous opinions are bountiful, redundancy is welcome, where terrorists allegedly exchange information, and where trash talk and threats are distributed freely like manna from heaven: The Fan Forums. It's so many things to so many people -- where people tell the world what they think, where tickets are bought and sold, where those who are too damn lazy to look at tvguide.com ask what time the game is this weekend, where love and hate are exchanged like junk bonds -- empty and worthless and from unknown entities that disappear shortly after they appear, be it from a board monitor or from scrolling off the bottom of the page into the abyss of lost posts." From Bucknuts.com.
This being a blog about Net addiction and all, it's only fitting that I post the results from my test:
I am 40% Internet Addict
I could go either way. Deep into the madness of nights filled with coding CGI-Scripts and online role playing games, or I could become a normal user. Good luck!
Take the Internet Addict Test at fuali.com
Disclaimer: The author of this site does not endorse these kinds of tests. They have no validity whatsover, and should be taken for amusement purposes only.
Point and bet
The latest Newsweek reports on "the dizzying growth of online gambling" and notes that virtual gamblers will lose "some $3.5 billion ... on Internet bets this year, about three times the revenue of porn sites." Online gambling is unregulated, and it's easier and faster to lose money online. The article points out that the action moves about twice as fast online as it does in real-world casinos.
"Laura Harbert, a single mother in Portland, Ore., got hooked on Internet bingo two years ago. She would put her kids to bed, then start surfing and betting. 'These bingo sites -- there are hundreds of them -- made me feel like I was going out for the evening,' says Harbert, who figures she blew through several thousand dollars. When she no longer had money in her checking account, the bingo sites offered to debit her phone bill to pay for her bets."
Speaking of addictions, and addicts: this issue also includes fascinating excerpts from Nirvana frontman and heroin addict Kurt Cobain's diaries. "Every junkie I've ever met has fought with it at least 5 years and most end up fighting for about 15-25 years, until finally they have to resort to becoming a slave to another drug the 12 step program which is in itself another drug/religion. If it works for you do it. If your ego is too big start at square one and go the psychological rehabilitative way. Either way you’ve got at least 5 to 10 years of battle ahead of you." Cobain's fight didn't last that long. He killed himself on April 5, 1994.
From Toledo, Ohio, TV station WTOL comes this report about a new video game that combines the excitement of BMX bicycle racing with soft-core pornography. While the official news release announcing the game, called BMX-XXX, makes no mention of porn, it does promise that gamers will be "interacting with hot chicks, shady characters and other players in the most outrageous and humorous action sports game ever, as scripted by some of Hollywood's top comedic writers." The Toledo news report, however, notes, "The 'BMX-XXX' preview web site has very little to do with BMX racing, and a lot to do with vulgar acts and suggestive images." Ah, yes. Hollywood's top comedic writers at the top of their game.
Related links:
Game creator responds to criticisms. "We believe that there is a general, unfair characterization of the interactive entertainment industry and as a result, our product is being held to an entirely different standard than other entertainment media with comparable content, including movies, television and radio."
The BMX-XXX website. Must be at least 17 to enter. (And not for the faint of heart. The language gets pretty raw and raunchy.)
Scott McCollum of WorldTechTribune takes on the "theory" put forward by some TV pundits that the sniper terrorizing D.C. these days could have learned his sniping from shoot-'em-up videogames. He compares the notion to blaming realistic soccer games for riots at European soccer matches and adds: "It’s easy to see where TV network news-types can easily point the finger at Counter-Strike: Players can choose to be 'terrorists' and a 'realistic' sniper rifle is one of the weapons gamers use to achieve their team’s goals. However, there’s quite a difference between 'realistic' gameplay on a video game by clicking a mouse and actually shouldering a sniper rifle."
Really, I don't know where some of these pundits come up with their theories.
From IHT Online: More than half of all Korean households have high-speed Internet connections - compared with fewer than 10 percent in the United States - and the exploding Web culture has driven economic growth and spawned civic movements that have powerfully affected everything from politics to consumer culture. But more and more these days, people are emphasizing a darker side to this technological success story."
Voyeuristic Web sites are the fastest-growing areas of Internet sexuality, says Al Cooper, editor of the newly released Sex and the Internet: A Guidebook for Clinicians. "The voyeur who cannot control the impulse to gaze at sexual images of an unsuspecting person for the purpose of sexual gratification has what psychologists and psychiatrists call a paraphilia, 'a condition in which a person's sexual arousal and gratification depend on fantasizing about and engaging in sexual behavior that is atypical and extreme,' Cooper said."
Jim Cramer, co-founder of the online investment news portal TheStreet.com, talks with Salon about bad investments, his book, and "why he wishes he'd never started TheStreet.com in the first place."
Clinicians have claimed that Internet gambling is threatening to produce a new generation of compulsive gamblers. Speaking at the seminar, 'Addiction Issues: The Relationship between Substance Abuse and Problem Gambling,' clinician and training consultant Kevin O'Neill said that Internet gambling fits the profile for compulsive gamblers because it provides action and escape for players. He said technology will change betting habits, just the way slot machines, keno, scratch-off games and lotteries have changed the gambling industry over time.
Not a serious 12-step program, a la Alcoholics Anonymous, but a list of 12 affirmations for the Net-obsessed. Link via /var/log/blog.
October 2002
October 31, 2002
Your brain on eBay
From the University of Southern California's student newspaper, The Daily Trojan, Sara Hall writes: "This morning I sent someone I don't even know a threatening e-mail. Why? Because I am in the throes of an eBay addiction, and this person has not fulfilled an obligation to me. It has been one month since I 'won' the salt and pepper shaker set shaped like a gorilla in a palm tree and rebel987**@aol.com has yet to come through with the goods." Hall's flame-throwing is a symptom of her self-described "eBay addiction," which, she adds, "makes me blind to the impracticalities of my buying habits."
October 29, 2002
South Africa's Net addicts: young white females
From AllAfrica.com: "The typical South African Internet addict is not a pimply, bespectacled teenage boy. Instead, it is a young white girl who uses the Internet to chat up strangers and trawl porn sites."
Sports and Net junkies, unite!
"[I]n addition to the news, there's that one world on the Internet that separates the average fan from the addict. Its (sic) wear (sic) bad grammar reign's (sic), where outrageous opinions are bountiful, redundancy is welcome, where terrorists allegedly exchange information, and where trash talk and threats are distributed freely like manna from heaven: The Fan Forums. It's so many things to so many people -- where people tell the world what they think, where tickets are bought and sold, where those who are too damn lazy to look at tvguide.com ask what time the game is this weekend, where love and hate are exchanged like junk bonds -- empty and worthless and from unknown entities that disappear shortly after they appear, be it from a board monitor or from scrolling off the bottom of the page into the abyss of lost posts." From Bucknuts.com.
October 24, 2002
Take the Internet addict test
This being a blog about Net addiction and all, it's only fitting that I post the results from my test:
I am 40% Internet Addict
I could go either way. Deep into the madness of nights filled with coding CGI-Scripts and online role playing games, or I could become a normal user. Good luck!
Take the Internet Addict Test at fuali.com
Disclaimer: The author of this site does not endorse these kinds of tests. They have no validity whatsover, and should be taken for amusement purposes only.
October 23, 2002
Point and bet
the allure of online gambling
The latest Newsweek reports on "the dizzying growth of online gambling" and notes that virtual gamblers will lose "some $3.5 billion ... on Internet bets this year, about three times the revenue of porn sites." Online gambling is unregulated, and it's easier and faster to lose money online. The article points out that the action moves about twice as fast online as it does in real-world casinos.
"Laura Harbert, a single mother in Portland, Ore., got hooked on Internet bingo two years ago. She would put her kids to bed, then start surfing and betting. 'These bingo sites -- there are hundreds of them -- made me feel like I was going out for the evening,' says Harbert, who figures she blew through several thousand dollars. When she no longer had money in her checking account, the bingo sites offered to debit her phone bill to pay for her bets."
Speaking of addictions, and addicts: this issue also includes fascinating excerpts from Nirvana frontman and heroin addict Kurt Cobain's diaries. "Every junkie I've ever met has fought with it at least 5 years and most end up fighting for about 15-25 years, until finally they have to resort to becoming a slave to another drug the 12 step program which is in itself another drug/religion. If it works for you do it. If your ego is too big start at square one and go the psychological rehabilitative way. Either way you’ve got at least 5 to 10 years of battle ahead of you." Cobain's fight didn't last that long. He killed himself on April 5, 1994.
October 22, 2002
New game adds porn to the mix
From Toledo, Ohio, TV station WTOL comes this report about a new video game that combines the excitement of BMX bicycle racing with soft-core pornography. While the official news release announcing the game, called BMX-XXX, makes no mention of porn, it does promise that gamers will be "interacting with hot chicks, shady characters and other players in the most outrageous and humorous action sports game ever, as scripted by some of Hollywood's top comedic writers." The Toledo news report, however, notes, "The 'BMX-XXX' preview web site has very little to do with BMX racing, and a lot to do with vulgar acts and suggestive images." Ah, yes. Hollywood's top comedic writers at the top of their game.
Related links:
October 18, 2002
"Beltway Sniper" a videogame addict?
Scott McCollum of WorldTechTribune takes on the "theory" put forward by some TV pundits that the sniper terrorizing D.C. these days could have learned his sniping from shoot-'em-up videogames. He compares the notion to blaming realistic soccer games for riots at European soccer matches and adds: "It’s easy to see where TV network news-types can easily point the finger at Counter-Strike: Players can choose to be 'terrorists' and a 'realistic' sniper rifle is one of the weapons gamers use to achieve their team’s goals. However, there’s quite a difference between 'realistic' gameplay on a video game by clicking a mouse and actually shouldering a sniper rifle."
Really, I don't know where some of these pundits come up with their theories.
October 10, 2002
Korea's Net obsession?
From IHT Online: More than half of all Korean households have high-speed Internet connections - compared with fewer than 10 percent in the United States - and the exploding Web culture has driven economic growth and spawned civic movements that have powerfully affected everything from politics to consumer culture. But more and more these days, people are emphasizing a darker side to this technological success story."
Researchers: Net encourages voyeurism
Voyeuristic Web sites are the fastest-growing areas of Internet sexuality, says Al Cooper, editor of the newly released Sex and the Internet: A Guidebook for Clinicians. "The voyeur who cannot control the impulse to gaze at sexual images of an unsuspecting person for the purpose of sexual gratification has what psychologists and psychiatrists call a paraphilia, 'a condition in which a person's sexual arousal and gratification depend on fantasizing about and engaging in sexual behavior that is atypical and extreme,' Cooper said."
October 5, 2002
Confessions of a Street Addict
Jim Cramer, co-founder of the online investment news portal TheStreet.com, talks with Salon about bad investments, his book, and "why he wishes he'd never started TheStreet.com in the first place."
October 3, 2002
Clinician: online gambling fuels addiction
Clinicians have claimed that Internet gambling is threatening to produce a new generation of compulsive gamblers. Speaking at the seminar, 'Addiction Issues: The Relationship between Substance Abuse and Problem Gambling,' clinician and training consultant Kevin O'Neill said that Internet gambling fits the profile for compulsive gamblers because it provides action and escape for players. He said technology will change betting habits, just the way slot machines, keno, scratch-off games and lotteries have changed the gambling industry over time.
October 1, 2002
A 12-step program for Internet junkies
Not a serious 12-step program, a la Alcoholics Anonymous, but a list of 12 affirmations for the Net-obsessed. Link via /var/log/blog.
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