*"The Internet : Dangerous ?"*

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I think that it's a bit like two people who want to draw, but only have one pencil and one piece of paper, between them.

I agree except for the use of the word "addiction".

I think it is important to clarify the meaning of the word addiction:

I discovered that there is some debate about what addiction is, ( especially the psychological variety); about whether most so called addiction is better described as the expression of various other mental health problems, ( independent of the "object" of the addiction) , whether it has to involve harmful consequences, and even whether it is a social construct which serves to stigmatise certain people or activities.

ie: If my son had been passionately into reading I might never have even asked myself if I should control it, so long as he seemed happy, but because it was "the internet", and "video games" I got worried, put limits on its use for several months, experienced conflicts over imposing them, and had to think hard about what was really going on.

If it is an addiction, it is in the old sense of the word :

I am fairly sure that your son had heard his playing on WOW described as addiction long before he used the term for it himself. In fact I expect he frequently heard it referred to in this way.

It is even possible that his "foul moods and meltdowns" were less the result of playing itself, but of the mounting, and repeated, anxiety about "being addicted". Remove the construct "addiction", and perhaps it would not have had that effect. Equally his friend's social phobia was more likely the reason he played so much , and not the other way round. But it served as a good bogeyman, put that way.

Just remembered the old scare that used to be put into boys not to masturbate or they would go blind, so that some boys were terrified whenever they "gave in and did it". It must have seemed very much like addiction. And as anxiety inducing.

Last edited by ouinon on 30 Mar 2008, 11:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

No!
I just asked him. He said "I just couldn't stop playing. It was like XX smoking and not being able to stop. I kept playing because all my friends were on really high levels and I just had to get to the next level. It wasn't even fun all the time. But I just had to play."
I asked hil how he felt when he had played for a long time:
"My head started aching but I was so used to it I didn't notice."

So the problem arose as a result of social pressure? Competitive behaviour which drove him where the internet on its own might not have done.

I more or less abandoned Runescape when it would have taken a lot of grinding, really hard hours and hours of work, to go to any more of the places I was interested in. I might have felt differently about it, persevered, if I had been part of a group all pushing for top levels. But I self-regulated, realised that it wasn't fun, and dropped out. My son took over because he was interested in trying out other things ( magic, runecrafting etc, which I hadn't investigated at all), which he could do for a while without grinding, but his involvement has declined as it becomes clear that to advance significantly he would have to grind.

(People who can afford it, and can work out how to circumvent game rules, buy "points" and "skill-levels" and game-money online from companies in Asia whose workers spend hours "grinding" online; "goldfarming" as it is known).

I'm ready to believe that the internet for children in school may be more potentially alarming, because of the pressure children in school put on each other about so many things; clothes, gear, coolness, etc.

I think that the internet is great for children and adults alike (can't even really remember what we used to do without it?).

My concern for my children is not that the internet is dangerous or a waste of their time, there are so many interactive, educational, safe fun options online, but that other offline activities are just as/even more beneficial and enjoyable and that if they spend hours and hours online everyday they will miss out on trying some of those things. But it is the same with anything, not just the internet. I really, really, really love to read, but it is good for me to occasionally put the book down and try something different. Today my sons have been building Bionicles for approximately 4 hours. It is their main focus right now, and while we give them lots of space and encouragement to explore their special interests, we are asking them to put away the Bionicles in a half an hour so that we can go to the museum together. Yesterday we had them put away the Bionicles so that we could watch a series of shows about dinosaurs on TV and play a board game by candlelight during earth hour, both of which they enjoyed immensely but would not have chosen to try on their own without being encouraged to.

Awhile ago when they were focused on Webkinz we did the same thing, not because we felt that the internet was a horrible thing that would rot their brains or were worried about internet addictions etc., we simply encouraged them to participate in a balanced variety of activities because we feel that it's good for them to do so. They could still enjoy their special interest by writing stories, drawing pictures or playing with their actual Webkinz toys with other children.

So we do limit internet time, but because there isn't enough time in the day to do and explore all the cool stuff my children like if they spend too much time on the computer not because I see any particular problems with the internet, gaming etc. itself (it's all in how you choose to use it).

before i start my diatribe, you need to realize that we only have one computer & it's located within the main portion of the house where everyone hangs out....................ok, now, the problems we've run into with internet usage are :

1. MySpace. This is just a disaster. son doesn't always think before he writes or posts things. this resulted in us spending Christmas 2006 in the psych ward of the local hospital..it seems son was frustrated with his ex-girlfriend and posted some phrases on his MySpace account which could be construed to be suicidal. The cops were called. It was a mess. Son was not suicidal, but we were forced to take him in anyways. Merry f-in Christmas to me!


2. Surfing on the net about medicines . This is part of our current dilemma. Son has been spending inordinate amounts of time, evidently, surfing on the net to learn more about the meds he takes. While I'm all for him learning more about the meds he takes, I'm concerned about where exactly he's getting his information, and how accurate the information is he's getting. He's terribly upset because he currently takes a drug classified as an anti-psychotic. He doesn't take it because he's psychotic. He takes it for anxiety. We (and the dr) have tried to explain to him that many people take meds for off-label uses. His dad, sister, & me all take off-label use meds.....Son went to the drs and announced that he no longer wanted to take any meds.Not because they were meds per se, but because he didn't want to take the one pill that is classified as an anti-psychotic. The dr is not willing to take him off this med, because son is finally stable.........

3. surfing on the net about medicinal herbs. .........This is related to our current dilemma, and also the reason that son is grounded. no computer, no cell phone, no unsupervised time.............It seems that the internet is full of amazing facts. Unfortunately, because of son's current obsession with getting off the anti-psychotic he's on, he's taken to surfing about the effects of medicinal plants. This led him to do all sorts of experiments. He's picked and purchased a variety of herbs. He's combined these together ,based on information gathered from the internet, & formulated his own herb compound to smoke. We found him with a pipe ( which he learned to make from directions on the internet) with which he had been smoking his "herbs"
................i don't even know where to begin talking about my fears about all of this......i haven't decided what concerns me most. his looking for alternative herbs? his actually attempting to smoke them? him picking herbs from the woods ? did he identify these herbs correctly, or is he smoking something else?


Now after all is said and done, I'm not against internet usage. There is some great information out there. I am concerned about the plethera of inappropriate information out there. I'm not really sure that much of what i consider inappropriate should be on the internet. The problem with this sort of censorship, though, is that what i consider inappropriate might not necessarily be what you find inappropriate, and vice versa......There aren't any easy answers here. As for now, son will continue to be off the internet. The other 2 kids are allowed to surf.....honestly, i'm considering upping the parental controls on internet usage but don't know how much that will limit productive internet usage. Because I work in a school, there are internet restrictions on the computers. This is all well and good. The problem, though, is that many websites that are appropriate are blocked. Like I said, there aren't any easy answers.

Been thinking that perhaps one reason for the increasing worry, concern, even hysteria, about internet use by children is that parents can see that something is "wrong"; that children are increasingly passive, increasingly irresponsible, alienated from adult concerns, from society; that they are often tired, numbed out, stupefied, stressed, driven, depressed, increasingly negative/cynical/affectless, etc, ... and are looking around for the cause, which as it obviously "can't"/mustn't be school, must be the thing they are increasingly keen on, video games.

When I read another headline declaring that "between the world of absolute freedom in video games and children's daily life there is a permanent and increasing gulf"...[leading to dependency]...it is , one, obvious the writer cannot have played video games, or is deliberately distorting the issue, because what makes a game is its rules; the interest lies precisely in the fact that one can not do everything, and , two, that what is meant by "daily life " is actually school.

I am wondering seriously whether video games are being scapegoated to cover for the damage that universal state/public school attendance is doing.

You know, ouinon, I love that you are who you are and your thought process is almost predictable.

I disagree with you conclusion, however, in large part because I can also do something you do: infer from my own experience. Which has been entirely different from yours. In my life the internet is clearly the bad thing. Can't say I'm scapegoating from school, because I don't GO to school.

But, really, I appreciate your consistency. In a crazy world, sometimes it can be really frustrating to talk with someone so singularly directed, but this morning it felt very comforting, and it made me chuckle. Funny how that happens some days.

good point.

still laughing.

I think the internet is mixed, it can be soo different for every family. I put we negotiate but it can be up to 8 hours although that is only on weekends and actually pretty rare, in our house we have 8 internet able computers, although two are out of use currently, my husband and I are also both game designers, so internet , computers and games are pretty much what we do. That being said our kids will play outside read go to the beach with us go hiking and actually vary what they do depending on what interests they have and things like the weather and they usually aren't online all that much, we also let them read almost any book they want from the library. I think for some people anything can become unbalanced in their life , like say overeating...there are some people for whatever reasons if given free access to food will eat to excess and the internet is like that and almost anything alcohol, books , religion ( my mom's "addiction" or rather obsessive irrational attachment to religion caused my parents divorce) etc , Yes it can be because of an underlying personal problem but I have to say I don't think it's the internet per se , so if it becomes a problem you need to deal with it, Our entire family plays WoW in a guild made up of only our family and a family friend, but play time is maybe two hours a week if that for the kids, the parents play together sometimes at night after they sleep.

In our house video games and computer time have not led to meltdowns and fights, the kids know when they have to log off and they know we monitor what they do and see online.

Each family is different though and parents need to decide for themselves what works. This summer one of our family projects will be building a new computer with the kids for our daughter.

I don't think that public school is all that much trauma for everyone I was admittedly home schooled for three of my school years grades 8, 9, 10, and had only four years of not special ed schooling otherwise.

So what is the internet acting as scapegoat for in your case? I remember your saying that you were happier when you went shopping instead, and that the internet is "too easy".

Unless something is chemically addictive it is a person's own reactions to the world, their own needs, which are expressed in the "addiction" dynamic. It is a kind of acting out, which can comfort or "distress" depending on what is being acted out.

I can't believe that you really think the internet is capable of forcing you to the keyboard to interact with it. Why are you choosing to perceive it that way?

But that's why I think perceived "addiction" to the internet causes so much worry, because at heart everyone knows that unless something is chemically addictive, addiction to something is about the person and not the "thing".

Addiction to video games/ the internet says more about a person (child just as much as adult) than any inherent dangers in the internet.

But addictions are chemical based: things like shopping/internet stimulate the release of the same neurotransmitters drugs do! We become addicted to the internal drug.

The internet does this to you? Does everyone become addicted to shopping? No. It depends on the person's psychology, their mental state.

Certain individuals' reactions to certain situations, towards things with which they can roleplay a certain dynamic, may produce those chemicals. Or not, and even so constitute an addiction for them.

Yes, lately I've used MUCH too much time on WP!
I also "swallow" novels when I have the chance.
And games - I had a rather embaressing sims obsession at one point.
I tend to do these things for days or weeks, and then suddenly loose interest.

You are right, some personalities are more prone to addiction than others. Mine is... means I have to be more careful and know my own red flags...

I study really, really hard. This, I think, is a good, healthy way of using my obsessive personality