When you think about an addict, what crosses your mind? A junkie in an alley? An alcoholic? Maybe even Tiger Woods reportedly getting treatment for a "sex addiction."
What you might not think about as addictive behavior is something you may be doing at this very moment: staring into your computer screen. Yes, "internet addiction" is a growing problem; and one that was examined in a recent PBS documentary. Nevertheless, technology made writing this story possible; I used my webcam to post a video on YouTube about internet addiction, linked it to my Facebook page in order to get responses from friends, and searched the internet to find out more information. Then, I used a word processor to write the story, and e-mail to send it.
On Tuesday evening, February 2nd, PBS aired a segment of Frontline called Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier. In this hour and a half segment, award-winning producer, Rachel Dretzin, joined by Douglas Rushkoff, a leading thinker and writer of the digital revolution, look at the repercussions of living in such a technologically-based society, as well as the positive or negative effects this could have on future generations.
Dretzin and Rushkoff began their expedition on the campus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). There, they interviewed students about their dependency on technology. Many claimed they considered themselves excellent multi-taskers, admitting they could not imagine living without constantly staying connected with family and friends through texting, e-mailing, and instant messaging. When asked the same questions, NYIT students responded similarly. The most popular answer given was that students could not live without their cell phones; internet was second. Suleyman Aydogan, a 23 year old sophomore at NYIT, is an international student from Turkey. He depends on his cell phone and chatting online to stay in touch with family back home. "I am addicted to it, in the sense that nowadays you have to use technology," said Suleyman. Alex, a student at MIT who was interviewed on the program, said, "Maybe it's some technology dependence I've developed over the course of the years, but at this point I don't think I can go back to just focusing on one thing."
Although the program did not specify what is behind our supposed addiction to the internet, one can make an educated hypothesis that it is the growth of easy access to information as well as the fact that technology has become more regularly accessible and cheaper in cost. According to Todd Oppenheimer's book, "Flickering Mind," young adults today become bored without some sort of stimulus. This results in repetitive distractions, such as checking e-mail while in class, or chatting with friends on AIM while writing a research paper. Ethan Debehar, a student at NYIT, graduating in 2011, could be considered a stimulus junkie--or at least, a multi-tasker. "In class today I will be watching a movie, [but] I'll be on my laptop doing homework for another class and for this class, at the same time," said Debehar. In addition to all of that, he "will probably be instant messaging two friends at the same time on my Blackberry. Technology is my life…It's who I am…It keeps me connected."
Where internet addiction is really a problem - and recognized as such - is not in the classrooms of NYIT or MIT, but in South Korea. "It's hard to follow the story of Asia's digital revolution without somehow ending up in South Korea," says Rushkoff in the documentary. According to Rushkoff, "South Korea's digital culture isn't characterized by the home computer, so much as its legendary internet cafes." These internet cafes are available to kids 24/7 for those who want to play online games all day or night. In accordance with Korea's news media, Rushkoff said, "some people have actually died in these internet cafes, where people have played marathons which lasted 50 hours or more with little food or water." Korea has become one of the first countries to treat internet addiction as a psychiatric disorder. They have set up rehab centers, where kids are enrolled in a two week program without cell phones or any type of networking device, specifically the internet. Younger children are shown activities that seem to help, "recapture a childhood lost to the computer."
One fascinating segment of the PBS documentary involved the military's use of digital technology. A recruiting center was turned into a gaming center, incorporating war video games such as Call of Duty, in the hope of reaching a video game generation of kids. According to Caitlin McNally, co-producer of Digital Nation, there are critics of the recruiting center featured in the program who feel as though it encourages young possible recruits to think of war as a game and be desensitized. If that's a strategy, however, it isn't working. Ms. McNally says there was only one person at the recruiting center who felt inclined to join only because of the games and simulations.
There are so many different aspects of technology discussed in Digital Nation that one has to watch it to fully understand. Visit http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation where you can watch the entire broadcast online.
Where would I be without this technology? I don't know, but I do like having the ability to connect and network with friends and family at the tip of my fingers. But, like David Rushkoff said, "I love being able to turn it off." However, not everyone does…
){kind=link}