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internet addiction posts

Cell Phones, Web, Social Networking

Judge Disciplined Over Facebook Addiction?

We've heard plenty of stories about people losing jobs due to inappropriate posts on Facebook, but this is the first time we've heard it suggested that a person was disciplined for Facebook addiction. Sources have suggested to the Staten Island Advance that Criminal Court Judge Matthew A. Sciarrino, Jr. was transferred from his post in the Forgotten Borough to a Brooklyn court, due, at least partially, to his constant use of the social networking service.

Until very recently, Judge Sciarrino's Facebook page was public, allowing people to view his frequent updates. These public updates included photos of friends and family, as well as detailed information about his location and activities. This wouldn't be an issue for many, but it does seem odd for a person whose job it is to send people to jail to post information about his family and location in a public forum. Additionally, the Advance states that Sciarrino updated his status at least once while on the bench, and uploaded a photo he took from his perch in front of his crowded court room.

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Cell Phones, Web

People Get Anxious When Disconnected, Finds Study

You know that pit in your stomach you get when you're out at night, you reach in your pocket for the obligatory, mindless, precautionary cell phone check, and (gasp!) the battery's dead? Or how your hands get all clammy and your mouth turns to the Mojave desert whenever you're trying to check your e-mail, but, for whatever reason, your Internet connection just won't cooperate? Don't worry. You're not alone.

A recent survey shows just how dependent we've become on communications, and reveals that many of us feel "anxious" when disconnected from the Internet or a mobile phone network. The study, undertaken by Future Laboratory for Virgin Media, found that 85-percent of full-time moms are connected to the Internet all day, and that a third of all surveyed didn't feel "guilty" about having their cell phones or computers turned on at all times. In fact, full-time parents were the most likely to be connected, with about 49-percent saying that they keep their digital TV roaring throughout the day. This demographic also uses cell phones more often than any other. Siobhan Freegard, co-founder of the parenting social network Netmums, rationalizes that statistic by pointing out that new mothers, in particular, "are confined to the house for quite long periods," and that Internet and cell phone connectivity is their primary "link to the outside world."

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TV, Web

MTV Searching for Internet Addicts for 'True Life' Reality Series

Forget those boot camps for Internet addicts in China. In America, we work out our problems on television. That's why MTV is searching for Internet addicts to star in a new installment of its 'True Life' series. According to urlesque, the episode will be titled 'I Can't Disconnect.' If you've never watched the documentary series, each episode focuses on a different topic, from the absurd ("I'm a Southern Belle") to the sad ("I'm Addicted to Crystal Meth"). Camera crews follow people as they deal with the issues and problems surrounding the topic.

For this episode, MTV wants people, aged 16 to 28, who are living in "fear of missing an email, tweet or text," or who have "problems with family, friends, co-workers, boyfriend/girlfriend" due to the time they spend on the Web. While this might sound like it falls into the absurd category, scientists are beginning to take Internet addiction much more seriously. It's not just that kid barricaded in the basement, playing 'World of Warcraft' for hours on end, who's addicted.

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Cell Phones, Computers, Web

U.S. Gets Its First Net-Addiction Rehab Center

reSTART
Internet addiction has been blamed for bad grades, lackluster sex lives, and violence. Now, finally completing its rise to the status of a serious affliction, it has its first rehabilitation center in the U.S.

reSTART, a new Internet addiction recovery center 25 miles outside of Seattle, features a 45-day tech-detox that includes group counseling, individual therapy, 12-step meetings, wilderness adventures, fitness programs, and even vocational coaching and academic tutoring. Located in a residential-styled home, the center sits on five acres of Pacific Northwest forest land, home to deer, raccoons, and goats.

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Web

Family Time Decreasing as Web Use Grows, Study Shows


Folks are finding less time to spend with those closest to them, and are spending more time pecking at a keyboard and stare at a glowing square. In no way should we be the first to cast stones here, but the findings of a new study by the Annenberg Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California bother us just a bit.

USA Today reported that, according to the study, 28-percent of those surveyed last year told researchers they were spending less time with their immediate family. That number has shot up since the center's 2006 study, when it stood at 11-percent. According to the new survey, families spent an average of just 18 hours per month together in 2008, as opposed to nearly 26 hours per month in the early Oughts.

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Computers, Web

Using Meditation to Overcome E-Mail Stress

We've discussed before how constant connectivity has become a source of stress, distraction, and even addiction for Americans. We've even suggested taking regular breaks from technology, where you completely unplug for a day or a week, just to get a respite from the constant barrage of IMs and e-mail that so many of us face.

Soren Gordhamer, a self-proclaimed stress-reduction expert, however, suggests that occasionally unplugging is less important, and less effective, than learning to be "consciously' rather than 'constantly' connected." Gordhamer suggests using techniques practiced by Zen Buddhists, like breathing exercises and five-minute meditation breaks, to maintain focus and prevent yourself from feeling overwhelmed.

We're generally pretty skeptical of self-help books like Gordhamer's 'Wisdom 2.0 - Ancient Secrets for the Creative & Constantly Connected,' but we think he might actually be on to something here. We're still big supporters of taking an occasional sabbatical from technology, but, if we learn to slow down and manage our constant electronic input, perhaps it won't be as necessary to disappear into the woods with no cell phone reception for two weeks. [From: Reuters]

Social Networking

Bad Grades? Blame Facebook.


Facebook has been blamed for a lot -- from firings and arrests to millions of dollars in lost productivity -- but now, according to a new study, Facebook can be blamed for ruining college students' GPAs. Aryn Karpinski of Ohio State University and Adam Duberstein of Ohio Dominican University surveyed 219 undergraduate and graduate students and found that, on average, students who use Facebook receive a full grade point lower than their Facebook-abstinent peers.

"Maybe [Facebook users] are just prone to distraction," Karpinski told Time, "maybe they are just procrastinators." While not a member herself, Karpinksi was inspired to undertake the study a few years back when, working as a teaching assistant, she noticed her students' growing obsession with the site. These days, Facebook is the largest social networking site on the Web, recently exceeding 200 million members.

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Web, Social Networking

Middle-Aged Women Flocking to Facebook -- and Getting Addicted



For people who follow Internet trends, the rapid evolution and proliferation of Facebook provides endless fodder for discussion and analysis. According to Facebook, the site now boasts a membership of over 200 million people, a number of cyber-citizens that, if real, would qualify Facebook as the fifth largest country in the world. Some analysts believe Facebook may be reaching its saturation point, though, as popularity with young people seems to be stagnating. Statistics indicate that membership increased less than 20-percent over the last six months for people under 25-years-old. But, in welcome news to Facebook, new evidence reveals that another group is now flocking to the site.

According to recent research, people over 30 represent the largest growing demographic on the omnipresent social networking site. This month, data from Inside Facebook, an organization that tracks the site's growth, breaks down that statistic even further; the past six months have witnessed a 550-percent explosion in membership among women over 55, making them the most rapidly growing segment of the Facebook population. Seeking to explain the movement, CNN turned to Stanford University professor B.J. Fogg for answers. Fogg attributes much of the phenomenon to women's desires to foster contact with family members, old college friends, and -- most particularly -- children, who may be more prone to open up electronically than in person or on the phone. Fogg also pointed out that as Facebook continues to expand, women may feel a need not to be "left in the dust" by their friends, co-workers, and children.

In a corresponding, and somewhat ironic, twist, addiction recovery centers have recently experienced an influx of women seeking help for Internet dependency. Coleen Moore, of the Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery, says she has helped women who don't bathe and abuse drugs in order to stay awake and chase the Web dragon. According to Moore, most of these women are either the mothers of adult children who use the Internet to fill a void created by an empty nest, or by new mothers who use the Web to combat feelings of isolation. So, husbands and children, it may be time to sit down with Mom and discuss healthy Internet habits, or maybe even limit her to a specific amount of Facebook time. Facebook has, in the past, adopted child-safety precautions, but hasn't released any details of future Mom-safety measures, yet. [From: CNN and CNN]

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Cell Phones, Computers

German Couples Prefer Internet, Cell Phones to Romance

German Couples Prefer Internet, Cell Phones to Romance

Remember when we indicated that half of women would rather spend time online than being intimate with their partners? Many of you reacted with disbelief and many of you agreed wholeheartedly. Regardless of your opinions on the subject, it seems that the sentiment is shared in Europe as well, with a survey of 20-something-year-old couples finding that 84-percent of them would rather break up with their current partner than break up with their Internet connection.

The study was conducted by a German Internet service provider named Bitkom, which found that survey respondents in the age bracket of 19 to 20 were far more enamored with their high-speed Internet connections than they were with their lovers. A whopping 97-percent of the 1,000 people polled said they'd prefer to keep their mobile phones than their partners, if given the chance.

That last statistic , we think, is a little bit sad, but given how attached we are to ours, it's not entirely surprising. [From: Reuters]

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Computers, Video Games

Internet Addiction May Breed Violence, Says New Study

Remember a time before video games and the Internet? When the world was a peaceful, loving place, free of murderers, sexual deviants and other purveyors of violence and filth? Apparently, some people do, as yet another study linking Internet usage and violence among the youth has been released.

The report, published by the Journal of Adolescent Health (with a disclaimer that the results are not definitive), studied over 9,400 Taiwanese teenagers, ultimately determining that the teens who exhibited signs of Internet addiction more frequently admitted to having hit, shoved, or threatened someone in the past year. So, does this demonstrate that Internet addiction fuels violence in teens? Or, could it be that violent children are more likely to develop an unhealthy Internet habit? We'll leave that up to the reader.

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Computers

Is Facebook Destroying Kids' Brains?

Facebook Destroying Children's Brains?

Okay, look, we know that unchecked addiction to the Internet and social networking sites is going to have a negative impact on your mental abilities and attention span, but warnings from neuroscientist Susan Greenfield make Facebook out to be an epidemic worse than the Bubonic Plague and Rickrolling combined.

Most of the news isn't new; scientists believe that the Internet is changing how our brains develop as we get older, affecting everything from how we associate information to how we socialize. Greenfield and others, however, are beginning to argue that social networking sites, video games and other electronic media are doing more harm than good. According to an interview with the Daily Mail, Greenfield believes that such input may be "infantilising" the brain, creating a generation of "children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment."

Greenfield takes her sensationalistic and alarmist views a step further, postulating a link between rising occurrences of disorders like autism and the prevalence of social networking sites.

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Computers

Internet Addiction Clinically Defined in China

Internet addiction defined in China, entire Engadget staff now officially certifiableWhile American psychiatrists continue to debate whether an unhealthy affinity for all things online is really a illness or just a passing fancy, their Chinese counterparts have made up their minds. After creating halfway-houses and clinics to wean netizens off of their dependency, doctors there have now created an official classification of Internet addiction for people who spend six hours or more online daily. The affliction's symptoms include poor sleep, irritability, mental distress, and (surprise, surprise) a "yearning to be online" -- a condition that we typically call "visiting the in-laws."

We're not entirely sure if this means that Chinese physicians can now subject anyone who is symptomatic to mandated shock therapy, but we've gone ahead and indefinitely postponed our 2009 Shanghai MeetUp just to be safe.

Cell Phones, Computers

Internet Addicts Start "Unplugging" Once a Week

Is It Time for a Tech Sabbatical?
It is well established that we are a culture driven by connectivity. And its not just Americans that check E-mail on the john. or text while driving -- it turns out hat even the Italians and British are choosing TV over sex. But some out there are choosing fight back against their (our) addiction.

Sharon Sarmiento realized she had a problem when she started blogging in her dreams and hearing phantom instant messages while far from her computer. Similarly, Ariel Meadows Stallings compares her time in front of the new boob-tube to being blackout drunk: "I would sit down to check my email and it was almost like I would wake up six hours later and find I was watching videos of puppies on YouTube," Meadows told a Reuters reporter. Both women have taken to "unplugging" at least one night a week and have blogged about their battles with Internet addiction.

Unplugging once a week, one weekend a month, or even for two weeks out of the year is probably good not just for your personal relationships, but also for your mental health. It's difficult at first, and many even suffer from withdrawal symptoms such as tremors or extreme nervousness and irritation, but we can assure you that once you get past the initial pain, it's amazing how pleasurable not having to hear the ping of your instant messenger every 30 seconds can be .[Source: Reuters]

Computers, E-Mail Addiction

China's Summer Camp for Internet Addicts



Federal or state programs to help citizens deal with drug and alcohol addiction is something we're used to in the U.S. In China it's a little different. The scourge of the streets in Shanghai and Beijing is... (bum bum bum) the Internet. Over the past few years, there have been a series of Internet and gaming related deaths in China (both from sickness and from murder), which has finally led to government action.

A pair of Internet addiction treatment centers have opened in China. One is a summer camp specifically geared toward young adults age 14 - 22. The camp will treat the youngsters for depression, fear, and social anxiety.

The new treatment centers are part of the government's attempt to stem the tide of Internet addiction that has overtaken a reported 13 percent of Internet users under the age of 18. The government has banned new Internet cafes and is considering legislation restricting violent video games.

From Tech Digest

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Audio/Video, Cell Phones, Computers, Video Games, Advice, Editor's Picks, eBay

Are Your Gadgets Making You Sick? (5)

Addiction


Are Your Gadgets Making You Sick? Addiction
The condition: Like just about everything else that's fun in this world, the Internet is a magnet for compulsive types. Whether it's in the form of a poker site, role-playing video games or even eBay, online addiction is estimated to affect between five and 10 percent of the population, ruining lives and relationships along the way. Think we're exaggerating? Check out eqdailygrind.blogspot.com for tales of breakups and divorce at the hands of massively multiplayer online games like 'EverQuest', 'World of Warcraft' and 'Second Life'.

How to prevent or cure it: The first step in curing online addiction is to take this online self-diagnosis test. The other 12 steps can be found here, here, here and here. And if traditional treatment options don't stick, you can always book passage to China for shock therapy.


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