Tag: INTERNETADDICTION

Share A new site called Do Nothing for 2 Minutes challenges visitors to do exactly what it says -- absolutely nothing. Created by PopJam CEO Alex Tew and developer Ben Dowling, the page features an appropriately ascetic layout. Users are asked to sit in front of a seaside photograph, listen to the sound of waves crashing against the shore, and that's about it. A timer at the top of the page ...

Police in Uniontown, Pennsylvania were shocked to find a home stinking of feces and six children sleeping on bare mattresses. The childrens' mother, who had left the pantry bare and food rotting in the refrigerator, was neither absent nor an alcoholic; she was a gaming addict. After the children, three of whom are toddlers, were removed from the residence Monday, their stepfather told WPXI that ...

Share Do you open your laptop as soon as you wake up? Do you sneak out of the office to tweet from your smartphone? Do you get the shakes if you go several hours without visiting Switched? If so, you're not alone, because, according to a new study, we're all physically addicted to the meth of new media. The study, titled 'Unplugged,' was undertaken by the University of Maryland's International ...

On Monday evening, a 15-year-old boy in South Korea got into a heated argument with his mom. The mother apparently felt that her teen was spending too much time playing online video games, and scolded him. But, instead of just storming off to his room and wallowing in teenage angst, this gamer decided to take things several tragic steps further. According to police in the southeastern city of ...

Need further proof that the Internet is turning us into anti-social, asexual balls of pathetic brain mush? Look no further than the results of a new survey from security firm PC Tools. According to the survey, 29-percent of American Internet users see no problem whatsoever with accessing the Internet during a wedding, 41-percent think it's perfectly acceptable to surf during family dinners, ...

If you're a regular reader of Switched then you know by now the addictive power of technology. Gamers in South Korea are being prescribed antidepressants and are dropping dead of exhaustion, Americans routinely pick the Web over sex, and evidence is mounting that too much time spent online can lead to depression, anxiety and fatigue. It's no wonder that many people and organizations have urged us ...

We already knew that hardcore Internet use could make us all feel lonely, depressed and pathetic. According to a new study out of China, though, teenage Web-addicts may be particularly susceptible to a nasty case of the blues. The study, which was authored by researchers Lawrence Lam and Zi-wen Peng, involved 1,041 teenagers who were identified as being free of depression at the beginning of ...

The Chinese version of the Internet may be watered down and heavily censored, but, for many of that nation's youth, it holds the same kind of allure that keeps the rest of us glued to our laptops all day. For some, though, allure soon turns into outright addiction, and, in response, many Chinese parents are now sending their kids to digital "rehab" clinics to cure them. The effectiveness of these ...

Monetizing a highly addictive game like FarmVille can be great for business, and it can be devastating to personal accounts. Just ask the mom of a 12-year-old boy who recently piled up nearly $1,367 (£900) in credit card debt, simply because of his online agrarian addiction to FarmVille. The mother, who understandably chose to remain anonymous, says that after her son emptied the $478 ...

Forget gym memberships or weight loss plans. For her 2010 New Year's Resolution, fiction writer Edan Lepucki decided to do something truly remarkable, and quit both Facebook and Twitter, cold turkey, for three months. As she describes in TheMillions, Lepucki felt like her life needed a serious break from social networking, which, according to her, had become something of an insidious obsession. ...

We knew that 'FarmVille' was popular, and potentially addictive, but we were always under the impression that it was bored stay-at-home parents and 13-year-old girls that were driving its popularity. We never imagined that the Facebook-based game would prove to be a major concern for the City Council of Plovdiv, Bulgaria. A couple of weeks ago, several members of the council were found playing ...

The Capio Nightingale Hospital in London has just launched a rehabilitation program dedicated to Internet addiction. The program is being offered as a one-stop shop for intensive in-patient treatment, day care, and group therapy sessions. While treatment will be offered to children as young as 12-years old, it is particularly aimed at tech-junkies aged 15 to 17. The need for Net addiction ...

Fans of massively multi-player online games (MMOs) frequently receive ridicule for their fervent devotion to online avatars. Rarely do those devoted gamers become so engrossed in their multiple virtual personalities that they face criminal charges, though, let alone negligent death accusations. In a horrific case of Net obsession, a South Korean couple has been charged in relation to the death ...

And here we thought it was just another case of the wintertime blues that had us laying in bed and staring blankly at the ceiling for hours. Turns out, though, it may just be a simple case of Internet addiction that's been getting us down. According to researchers at the University of Leeds, spending too much time online can unleash a "dark side of the soul," and can even lead to legitimate ...

Rickets, a disease that practically disappeared from the developed world in the 19th century, is rising again, reports British scientists. The condition, a softening of bones that leads to painful deformities and fractures, is most commonly caused by severe vitamin D deficiency, which is essential for absorbing calcium. The primary natural source of vitamin D is sunlight (i.e., going outside), so ...