9 ms·

> But internet addiction is invisible; it masks itself as the person being just slower than their peers, or lazier. Socially isolated, failure to obtain/hold j

> But internet addiction is invisible; it masks itself as the person being just slower than their peers, or lazier. Socially isolated, failure to obtain/hold jobs, failure to reach traditional milestones (marriage, own house, children, etc.).

fhood 9y ago
Funny how the the symptoms of so many addictions boil down to this.
terminalcommand 9y ago
I also think that internet addiction is visible. When you submerse yourself into the digital world, you don't take care of your health, your physical appearance. I guess internet addiction varies in its severance. I have a friend from high school, he was the smartest kid in class, was a math-genius. Somehow he lost interest in school. He has a Youtube channel, where he posts game videos, earns a bit money from there (i guess 500 dollars per month). He is "trying" to study economics, but he is still in the same semester after three years. He does lead a life, but not in the physical world. He was a handsome kid, now he doesn't eat and doesn't care about appearances. He only drinks iced tea (no water) and eats limited food he likes (like pasta or chocolate). Although his life may seem weird, I respect him. That's his choice to live in the digital world.
- euyyn 9y ago
  The very nature of addiction is that he's not completely free to make the choice, though.
  - terminalcommand 9y ago
    The question is, is it really an addiction? Can we specify it as a lifestyle choice? The individual in question thinks, has goals, becomes sad, happy and most importantly his intelligence is intact. He is not like an advanced heroine addict playing the same tape over and over again.
    - euyyn 9y ago
      Coffee and tobacco are addictions that let your intelligence intact. It's a choice only as long as he's able to chose not to; otherwise it's an addiction.
      - bdamm 9y ago
        Not so. Addiction has a medical definition; it is the experience of craving. Thus, if the gamer in GP stops playing games, then experiences intense overwhelming craving for the game, he is addicted, and his thought processes are compromised as a result.
        euyyn 9y ago
        Isn't that pretty much what I said?
        svachalek 9y ago
        having a craving !== having no choice
        bdamm 9y ago
        Yes but I think the fine distinction is being lost. "having no choice" (such as social collapse) is not the same as "having a craving." But, psychotic obsession on the same outcome (to execute the addictive behavior), endlessly and for days, is effectively no choice. The suffering is real, and the suffering is temporarily relieved by satisfying the addiction. This is not the same as having no choice, but I don't want to marginalize the experience of addiction as merely "having a craving".
    - prodmerc 9y ago
      It is if deep down he knows the Internet has fucked him. Maybe he looks back and thinks about all of that colossal waste of time he wanted to use for something else. And then he gets into the games and on Reddit and forgets everything. It's exactly like heroin (not the Wonder Woman type), the cycles are just longer.
  - harshreality 9y ago
    What choices are any of us free to make? How long are we going to continue the probable charade of the existence of some ethereal "free will"? Ordinary choices we make are different from addictions not because we lack choice only in the narrow realm of addictions, but because addictions are harmful to normative human goals like self-sufficiency (job), relationships, and such. But relationships and self-sufficiency are both a matter of degree, and there's fuzziness about where something is harmful enough to justify psychological/pharma intervention. (Not that that's the only characteristic of addictions; they also seem to be very strong single-inputs (will this make me happy or be pleasurable now?) that are able to drive decision-making... short-circuiting all the other more normal evaluations, from a more balanced network of inputs: economic constraints, past experience, outcome prediction, social judgment... with immediate happiness normally only one factor, and often not even a very strong one.) There are other behaviors besides addictions that are harmful to self-sufficiency and relationships. Many of them are treated as mental health problems, especially when they're severe enough. Some aren't, though, and are considered just someone being quirky or eccentric. We (should) want to encourage diversity, while reducing the misery of people on the fringes who are engaged in truly self-destructive behaviors. But plenty of people we all know are only functioning in modern life because of medication—whether it's opiates, amphetamines, neurotransmitter modulators, marijuana, or whatever. Trying to improve people who are self-destructive is a noble goal, but when self-destruction seems closer and closer to the norm every day, intervention may make those people happier but it begins to reek of Brave New World. If the world is so fucked up that most people are either too addictable or too depressed (or too something) to function without assistance, what does it say about personal happiness or a functioning society if that can only exist with enough drugs to coerce people into doing "standard" things: maintain a job, a home, some relationships, etc? It seems to me that either we have to accept BNW's dystopia as more of a judgment-neutral prophecy than a cautionary tale, or we have to start politically outlawing things that are causing people to be so addicted or so distressed that they can't maintain reasonable productivity and happiness without medication. Unfortunately, the second option would involve wreaking havoc on the conservative and libertarian ideal of free markets (and maybe parts of the 1st amendment too), so we as a society seem hellbent on sleepwalking our way down the rabbit hole to the BNW "drug-everyone" scenario.
    - 9y ago
- rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
  A while back I did a bit of lurking around 4chan, particularly /r9k/. That board is a poster child for people who have given up entirely on the physical world and embraced the digital to the fullest extent. Once that happens, you become programmed by the addiction, in the same way that opiate addicts end up having their entire lives revolve around their addiction. Worse I'd say is a place like /r9k/. Any semblance of normality is to be instantly branded a "Normie" and howled at to leave the board immediately. Absolute detachment from the physical world is lauded as the highest achievement. Imagine a board of drug users harassing each other to inject the highest dose, every time. These people sit around in their own filth and both hate and take pride in their filthiness. Internet addiction is real, and it can be very, very damaging. Instead of a drug poisoning your mind and body, it's ideas. Information. Snow Crash
- WalterBright 9y ago
  I know a lot of very smart people who never amounted to anything. This isn't new.
euyyn 9y ago
Of course, those are the consequences, but the cause isn't physically visible. If you meet a person with those difficulties but he looks like a crack head, it's obvious he's got a problem. If he looks perfectly normal, addiction to the internet is one of a hundred possible causes.
- reader5000 9y ago
  Thats true. There is evidence internet addiction shows up on brain scans though.
icantdrive55 9y ago
Your "milestones" might be another person's hell? I don't think the problem is internet addiction, it's two fold: 1. The economy is so much worse than the numbers suggest. 2. Mental illness must be at an all time high, with treatments proving slightly better than placebo in terribly designed clinical trials.(I am so disappointed in their statistical/methodology, I hate even using the word clinical these days. Clinical what? Clinical lying? They do get the symptoms right, it's the Treatment that's lacking. 4. I don't want to argue. I'm a nobody, so my views hold no weight.

fhood 9y ago

Funny how the the symptoms of so many addictions boil down to this.

terminalcommand 9y ago

I also think that internet addiction is visible. When you submerse yourself into the digital world, you don't take care of your health, your physical appearance. I guess internet addiction varies in its severance. I have a friend from high school, he was the smartest kid in class, was a math-genius. Somehow he lost interest in school. He has a Youtube channel, where he posts game videos, earns a bit money from there (i guess 500 dollars per month). He is "trying" to study economics, but he is still in the same semester after three years. He does lead a life, but not in the physical world. He was a handsome kid, now he doesn't eat and doesn't care about appearances. He only drinks iced tea (no water) and eats limited food he likes (like pasta or chocolate). Although his life may seem weird, I respect him. That's his choice to live in the digital world.

euyyn 9y ago
The very nature of addiction is that he's not completely free to make the choice, though.
- terminalcommand 9y ago
  The question is, is it really an addiction? Can we specify it as a lifestyle choice? The individual in question thinks, has goals, becomes sad, happy and most importantly his intelligence is intact. He is not like an advanced heroine addict playing the same tape over and over again.
  - euyyn 9y ago
    Coffee and tobacco are addictions that let your intelligence intact. It's a choice only as long as he's able to chose not to; otherwise it's an addiction.
    - bdamm 9y ago
      Not so. Addiction has a medical definition; it is the experience of craving. Thus, if the gamer in GP stops playing games, then experiences intense overwhelming craving for the game, he is addicted, and his thought processes are compromised as a result.
      - euyyn 9y ago
        Isn't that pretty much what I said?
        svachalek 9y ago
        having a craving !== having no choice
        bdamm 9y ago
        Yes but I think the fine distinction is being lost. "having no choice" (such as social collapse) is not the same as "having a craving." But, psychotic obsession on the same outcome (to execute the addictive behavior), endlessly and for days, is effectively no choice. The suffering is real, and the suffering is temporarily relieved by satisfying the addiction. This is not the same as having no choice, but I don't want to marginalize the experience of addiction as merely "having a craving".
  - prodmerc 9y ago
    It is if deep down he knows the Internet has fucked him. Maybe he looks back and thinks about all of that colossal waste of time he wanted to use for something else. And then he gets into the games and on Reddit and forgets everything. It's exactly like heroin (not the Wonder Woman type), the cycles are just longer.
- harshreality 9y ago
  What choices are any of us free to make? How long are we going to continue the probable charade of the existence of some ethereal "free will"? Ordinary choices we make are different from addictions not because we lack choice only in the narrow realm of addictions, but because addictions are harmful to normative human goals like self-sufficiency (job), relationships, and such. But relationships and self-sufficiency are both a matter of degree, and there's fuzziness about where something is harmful enough to justify psychological/pharma intervention. (Not that that's the only characteristic of addictions; they also seem to be very strong single-inputs (will this make me happy or be pleasurable now?) that are able to drive decision-making... short-circuiting all the other more normal evaluations, from a more balanced network of inputs: economic constraints, past experience, outcome prediction, social judgment... with immediate happiness normally only one factor, and often not even a very strong one.) There are other behaviors besides addictions that are harmful to self-sufficiency and relationships. Many of them are treated as mental health problems, especially when they're severe enough. Some aren't, though, and are considered just someone being quirky or eccentric. We (should) want to encourage diversity, while reducing the misery of people on the fringes who are engaged in truly self-destructive behaviors. But plenty of people we all know are only functioning in modern life because of medication—whether it's opiates, amphetamines, neurotransmitter modulators, marijuana, or whatever. Trying to improve people who are self-destructive is a noble goal, but when self-destruction seems closer and closer to the norm every day, intervention may make those people happier but it begins to reek of Brave New World. If the world is so fucked up that most people are either too addictable or too depressed (or too something) to function without assistance, what does it say about personal happiness or a functioning society if that can only exist with enough drugs to coerce people into doing "standard" things: maintain a job, a home, some relationships, etc? It seems to me that either we have to accept BNW's dystopia as more of a judgment-neutral prophecy than a cautionary tale, or we have to start politically outlawing things that are causing people to be so addicted or so distressed that they can't maintain reasonable productivity and happiness without medication. Unfortunately, the second option would involve wreaking havoc on the conservative and libertarian ideal of free markets (and maybe parts of the 1st amendment too), so we as a society seem hellbent on sleepwalking our way down the rabbit hole to the BNW "drug-everyone" scenario.
  - 9y ago
rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
A while back I did a bit of lurking around 4chan, particularly /r9k/. That board is a poster child for people who have given up entirely on the physical world and embraced the digital to the fullest extent. Once that happens, you become programmed by the addiction, in the same way that opiate addicts end up having their entire lives revolve around their addiction. Worse I'd say is a place like /r9k/. Any semblance of normality is to be instantly branded a "Normie" and howled at to leave the board immediately. Absolute detachment from the physical world is lauded as the highest achievement. Imagine a board of drug users harassing each other to inject the highest dose, every time. These people sit around in their own filth and both hate and take pride in their filthiness. Internet addiction is real, and it can be very, very damaging. Instead of a drug poisoning your mind and body, it's ideas. Information. Snow Crash
WalterBright 9y ago
I know a lot of very smart people who never amounted to anything. This isn't new.

euyyn 9y ago

Of course, those are the consequences, but the cause isn't physically visible. If you meet a person with those difficulties but he looks like a crack head, it's obvious he's got a problem. If he looks perfectly normal, addiction to the internet is one of a hundred possible causes.

reader5000 9y ago
Thats true. There is evidence internet addiction shows up on brain scans though.

icantdrive55 9y ago

Your "milestones" might be another person's hell? I don't think the problem is internet addiction, it's two fold: 1. The economy is so much worse than the numbers suggest. 2. Mental illness must be at an all time high, with treatments proving slightly better than placebo in terribly designed clinical trials.(I am so disappointed in their statistical/methodology, I hate even using the word clinical these days. Clinical what? Clinical lying? They do get the symptoms right, it's the Treatment that's lacking. 4. I don't want to argue. I'm a nobody, so my views hold no weight.