Topic 120

social consequences of addiction to the Internet by Oliver

The Internet is an endless tool to waste countless hours of time. The Internet is a medium that provides games, social networking (Myspace, Facebook), chatting (MSN, Yahoo!), emailing (Hotmail, Gmail) gambling, etc. While many of us feel it’s perfectly fine to be spending so much time on the Internet, we could be in the early stages of what is called Internet Addiction disorder.

Online games are becoming a very popular use of the Internet. Many sites provide free, addicting Flash and Java games that can be played on any computer with a working Internet browser. Another very popular online game genre called the Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game or more commonly known as the MMORPG. The MMORPG has become a major source of serious Internet addiction.

A very popular example of a MMORPG is World of Warcraft. There have been cases of where people have died playing the game. In June 2005, a child died due to parental neglect, as the parents were heavily addicted to the game. This issue of World of Warcraft addiction has become so prominent that the People’s Republic of China have begun regulating the hours of playtime their citizens can have with the game. Although the ethics of regulation from the People’s Republic of China is questionable, definitely something should be done about game addiction.

Another popular Internet phenomenon falls under the name of Web 2.0. Web 2.0, a term coined by Tim O’Reilly, refers to a new generation websites that strongly encourage collaboration between users. Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace are now becoming increasing popular for teenagers to be a part of. Teenagers are now spending increasing amounts of time developing their personal Facebook page, as opposed to paying attention to school work. A similar but less recent phenomenon is chatting. Chat programs such as MSN and Yahoo have also become a distraction for teenagers from their academic duties.

As people being spending more and more time on the Internet, so does the tendency for them do develop Internet Addiction Disorder. If you begin developing symptoms of Internet addiction such as skipping social activities to surf the Internet or beginning feeling withdrawal symptoms such as anxiety attacks and psychomotor agitation (lol), you may need to seek help. Surprisingly, there are actually rehabilitation clinics to deal with Internet addiction, which may come in greater need in the near future.


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social consequences of addiction to the Internet by Andrew

Internet addiction is the new problem these days. There is always someone that’s online and doing something that’s related to the internet. For example people play games such as World of Warcraft, typing an e-mail to a friend, calling friends over the internet using skype, others are using an instant messaging service over the internet and there are other things that I am not allowed to mention on the topic. People spend hours using the internet because it is such an addictive thing. Over the internet you are almost allowed to do anything that you can imagine…other than meeting a person in real life, though you can set up dates and meeting points.

The main source of people being addicted to the internet these days are all the games that are available to anyone who have access to the internet. These games could be anything from FPS’s or first person shooters such as Half Life 2 to MMORPG’s or Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games lick World of Warcraft, to all the flash games of any genre on sites such as addictinggames.com. Some games are more addicting than others of course but that depends in the player. Half Life 2 has a wide range of players that can either play a single player mode or a multiplayer mode that requires an internet connection. This on multiplayer gives the player an experience to play with other players from around the world to see who has more skill at the game. This game can be addicting to people who like to have a different selection of fantasy based guns to take people out. There are different multiplayer modes such as death match where you are your own team and you try to score the most points in the game by looking for other players to kill. There is also Team Death match where you are within a team that takes on the opposing team.

World of Warcraft, an MMORPG, is one of the most widely played MMORPG in the world. This game has economics, different types of jobs such as tailoring, leatherworking, mining and blacksmithing, and of course there are other players that you can interact with in the game. There are 2 general factions, the Alliance and the Horde, where each faction has 5 different types of races to choose from, so in all there are 10 races in the game. Each race has their own unique abilities and be their own certain classes. There are many other aspects of the game that attract the players to buy the game and pay for it every month or so. This game has had made people loose their friends because the person plays it for so long he is like he is the character he has created in the game. The eye site of the person lowers just by staring at the screen for too long a day and not getting any other range from an object and so the eyes change to look at an object that is close to the face. This game has even caused people to loose their jobs. Also the game has even caused people to go to court for playing too long and having to have their game play time reduced. Some people even get divorced from playing this game too much for not paying enough attention to their partner.

Game addiction mainly causes people to loose their friends, girl friends, and wives. It also can loose your job, but of course you still got your job in WoW…It mainly depends on how much you are addicted to the game. If you decline having to go and chill with friends, you are really addicted.