Internet creates unnecessary addiction 

I finally gave in yesterday and signed up for a Gmail account, adding one more thing to the ever-growing list of Web sites I have to visit during the day.

I was prompted to make this addition after AppalNET let me down again, and I was not able to access my e-mail for a couple of hours.

This would not have been such a big deal, but we are in a day and age where the majority of our communication is in some online format—and it’s sad, but true—we need access to our e-mail 24/7.

Being part of the editorial board of The Appalachian means I spend a good portion of my production nights sitting in front of a computer—and I am certainly guilty of wasting a few minutes here and there, checking my e-mail, my Facebook account, online news sites and blogs.

I find I am not alone—I see more and more students logging into their favorite social networking site immediately upon entering class.

I have professors who notify students if class is cancelled via Facebook status updates.

I see rallies and demonstrations organized by sending out online invitations. People find jobs based on online job boards.

Some even let off some steam after a hard day by posting their experiences on the popular site, fmylife.com. (One user wrote, “Today, I lost 200 dollars while playing poker with my new sunglasses. Turns out you can see the cards in the reflection”).

Even CNN—a respectable, major news network—had their focus centered on Facebook after the Web site caused a stir when they changed their terms of service last week.

When CNN promotes this as the network’s lead story over the controversy surrounding the stimulus bill, you know we have reached a new level in terms of the online world. 

And again, when I was browsing the Internet today, an article on venturebeat.com titled, “Where were you during the great Gmail outage of February 2009?” immediately jumped out at me.

Apparently, the Gmail service was down for a few hours early Tuesday morning, making it the first time it has crashed since offline support was added earlier this year.

It appeared most of the United States had the service restored at approximately 4:30 a.m.; however, those in London struggled severely when beginning their workday because they couldn’t access their e-mail.

This caused quite a stir, and according to the article on VentureBeat, people began posting Twitter updates immediately, when the term

“Gfail” rose to the top of the list as one of the most used terms.

The Internet has taken over our lives, and we are finding that we simply cannot live without it.

I barely believed it when I read on the Internet that addiction to the online world is a real and growing problem.

Especially with the advances we see daily, our dependency on the Internet could potentially become much worse.

According to psychcentral.com, individuals who experience Internet Addiction Disorder suffer from a desire of not wanting to deal with other problems in their lives.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Show/Hide comments