h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"A typical addict is a single, white college-educated male in his 30s, who spends more than 30 hours a week on "non-essential" computer use, it found."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6062980.stm

Hmmm...

Single:
Well, I'm married but separated and I consider myself single.

White:
Check.

College-educated:
You don't need no stinkin' college degree to sling beer.

Male:
Check.

In my 30s:
Oh dear me no. That was many moons ago.

More than 30 hours a week on "non-essential" computer use:
Are you kidding? I can do that in three days without batting an eyelid. Two if it's the weekend.

Seriously though, my PC gets switched on when I wake up and switched off when I go to bed. It's a machine I use for getting information, whether that be from the IMDb, Wikipedia, h2g2, BBC news or streaming radio. I think of my PC and the internet the same way I think of my radio or (when I had it) my television. It's something to learn from and be entertained by.

So surely some of that can count as 'essential' ie the news gathering and learning bit. Essential to your daily life and ability to function usefully in your corner of the world.

Maybe you're not such a lost cause as they think

I think the '-aholic' suffix introduces confusion. It's not possible to drink vast quantities of alcohol without problems, but it doesn't follow that vast usage of the interent is similiarly not possible without problems.

The signature of addiction isn't level of usage, but the ability (or lack of it) to give up or set aside. If someone gambles a lot, they're only addicted if they find it very hard to stop, or feel a compulsion to gamble. So using the internet a lot is not neccesarily a sign of addiction. Or am I just in denial?

"It's not possible to drink vast quantities of alcohol without problems"

It isn't? Damn.

B

""non-essential" computer use"

Aye, there's the rub! Who's to say that staying connected to the world and to one's real and virtual friends is non-essential? Could only be the warped view of a non-addict!

Being able to listen to the BBC is essential to me, which is why I got a little out of whack a few days ago when the sound on my PC stopped working. But I don't think that's the sort of essential they're talking about. I imagine they're talking about work-related internet access and a handful of home-related activities such as reading and replying to emails.

I know I spend too much time online in the mornings before work because I'm always in a rush to be on time. And I do IM on my days off when I should be cleaning house. So, I guess I need better habits. But I don't think I'm addicted. *starts shaking*

I worry when I realise I've been surfing: aimlessly clicking on links, often with no idea what they're linking to, and then clicking on without reading the page that appears.

I do it usually late at night, when I've been on h2g2 for a while, and my conversation list isn't changing much because everyone else is in bed (where I should be too).

I end up going to Google and looking at the search box and wondering what interesting phrase I could type in there to generate someting to read. Now that is stupid, because I'm too tired to read whatever it turns up properly anyway.

That's when I turn the computer off and go to bed, if I have any sense. I'm getting better at it.

I don't usually count my h2g2 time as surfing. Indeed, time spent here is rarely squandered. I've learned a lot from hootoo, and have been improved by it.

(I'm slightly worried now that I might have introduced the image of all hootooers being in bed together.)

TRiG.

If anyone's addicted to the Internet I am, because I seriously think I could not function without it. I depend on it heavily for so many purposes, from research to staying in touch with friends to entertainment to falling asleep at night (which I generally do to the lull of streaming Radio 4).

Because I'm a bit of a nerd and my family doesn't have a TV, many of my classmates seem to think that I wouldn't have a computer as well. They are frequently shocked.

30 hours a week? If you don't count h2g2, I probably spend about 15 hours a week doing non-essential stuff. So I guess it could be worse.

I'm well under the thirty.



Mainly because I've a very slow connection at the moment and the local library service only allows 2 hours per day.

Otto has a point. The story only referred to a 'typical addict', it didn't say that if you a like this then you are an addict. Mind you, I think most of us would find it hard to give up h2g2.

<>

Though that seems to be getting increasingly less difficult these days.

This story also surfaced on a -related email list I belong to. Here's what someone wrote:

"Sorry, you think 30 hours on the computer in one day is a problem? Ever heard of multitasking? Ever heard of two or three computers in one room?

Ever heard of chairs with wheels on them? "

I don't even want to calculate the hours. I'm more of an addict than ever before now. Last year I got hooked on the Kingdom of Loathing (it's one of those MMORPGs or some other combination of letters that denote there's a whole lot of people playing it but this one's kind of a send up of the others using nothing but stick figure art and lots of puns and pop culture references). Now I schedule my time around this game. If I have a weekend trip planned where I know I will have no internet I have to stay up late the night before I leave so I can get the next days turns used up. Worse is when I schedule my real life around the moon cycle in the game.

I don't know how I'd function if I ever got hooked on one of the big draws like World of Warcrack or Seconal Life.

You've mentioned KOL before and I know I want to have a look at it, but that would be such a dangerous thing for me to do. I know how easily it's been in the past for me to spend far too much time on:

Arcade games when they first appeared in pubs and... arcades.
My friend's Gameboy and the Mario game that was on it.
Arcade games again when I discovered the Mame emulator.
Ratchet and Clank when BV bought a PS2.

KoL is *awesome*!

See?...



(I now have a bumper sticker on my car that reads "I Seals", its a KoL thing. (It wouldn't take the ascii character for the club suit.))

Stop it - you're dangling far too much temptation in front of me

Here's the latest on the "surfaholic" research front: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/10/AR2006111001571.html

Having a sense of well-being or euphoria while at the computer.
Check

Craving more and more time at the computer.
Nope

Neglect of family and friends.
Nope (no friends and family to neglect, you see )

Feeling empty, depressed or irritable when not at the computer.
Nope. Well, sometimes, but that's for other reasons.

Lying to employers and family about activities.
Nope

Inability to stop the activity.
Nope

Problems with school or job.
Nope

Reckon I'm okay