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Let us take a look at excerpts from a recent article from The Globe and Mail (Tuesday, October 15th, 1996).
Title: Hooked on cyberspace: The danger of the Net.
"My name is Rocky. I am 38 years old, I live in Newport, Oregon, and my marriage of 17 years
is ending because of my wife's addiction to the Internet. "
This message appeared recently on an Internet discussion group dealing with compulsive on-line
behaviour. It's just one of dozens of sad testimonials that show up each day on the Internet
Addiction Support Group bulletin board and many similar sites.
Counselling centres across the United States, too, are reporting a dramatic increase in calls
relating to addictive computer behaviour - usually from a concerned spouse or other family
member.
James Fearing, a psychotherapist who heads the National Counselling Intervention Services clinic
in Minneapolis, says computer-related distress calls -- like a recent one from a family complaining
of having lost their mother to the computer -- are commonplace now.
"My professional opinion is that we will see the numbers of these calls increase dramatically in
the future," says Dr. Fearing who is best known for treating professional athletes with
substance·abuse problems.
Dr. Fearing says that the negative repercussions for the family of the Net junkie are much like the
effects on the family of an alcoholic.
[...]
"You can apply the usual criteria of any kind of addiction to the Internet, says Dr. Adamse.....
Secondhand Internet, where are you?! Mygod, there must be something we can do to prevent yet another epidemic from taking place!
Quick, Bill, put together a new Communication (in)Decency Act, and get the Centre for Disease Control to add the browsing of the Internet to the list of addictive behaviours to be monitored. A few hundred millions dollars in grants should do.
Of course, it is not possible that poor Rocky's problems are due to inability to communicate, emotional incompatibilities, hollowness of values, or perhaps even sexual inadequacy (what kind of pornies was she looking at, anyway?): not at all, that damn Internet ruined his life!...
Mom throws herself into cyberspace to escape a perhaps unbearable situation? B.C. Health Minister MacPhail, this is a severe case. We need a grant to hire the exorcist of Poltergeist II to pull mom out of the screen, and a law suit against the web servers for knowingly polluting her mind!
The excuse structure of the North American culture is astounding. The blame for the unfulfillment of our lives due to the worshipping of materialistic values at the expense of intellectual and spiritual existence is put on external factors, instead of focusing on the reasons within.
Let us stop looking for the protection from ourselves by somebody or something else. Health protection. Sex protection. Smoke protection. Experts. Statistics. Crackdowns. Prohibition. Guilt. Blame.
Perhaps if we focus on something constructive, like blaming ourselves for our vulnerabilities, go through the pain of acknowledging that -- as a culture -- we desperately need to grow up, and detach ourselves from the tits of institutions, doctors, and state, then in a century or so we would enter adulthood.
But that hurts. It is much easier to drug ourselves with hysteria, excuses and contempt. The real North American addiction.
Gian Turci
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