Guest Post by Pat Tate
Two sides of the same coin
We all enjoy spending time chatting with friends. It is such a wonderful world, isn’t it? It is such a pleasure reading through micro-blogs written by our friends and looking through the photographs on Facebook. It probably makes us happier than anything when our display picture is ‘liked’ by so many people.
Board games were fun, but that was a long time back when there wasn’t much interesting online. But today, the world is different! Information sharing and networking has never been easier. E-bay is such a boon, when you can pretend like you have spent days looking for that perfect gift for your girlfriend!
And then comes a point in time, when you lose all the fun abruptly! Your mother asks you to get yourself out of that room and go along to the vegetable market. The heat outside makes you wish you could shop for vegetables also online! However, tough times do not last, and you get back into the protected and very comfortable zone of the air-conditioned room with your very own laptop!
Things get better with each passing second in from of the laptop with you over whelmed in the extraordinary world of Internet while you conveniently forget that you were going to purchase Lego Hogwarts Board Game for your best friend’s birthday!
This surely is not an uncommon event. Everyone must have had a similar, if not exact occurrence in life. And surely, we all try and ignore it as stress and infrequent absent-mindedness. But there is something else that researchers have to say about it.
Well, for one point, the scientists working on theories that explain about stress and depression hold an opinion that the high levels of stress are directly related to their addiction to Internet and computer based life. They say that slowly but surely the whole world is turning into a place of web-addicts.
They say that a group of people classified as ‘heavy users’ of computers in general and Internet in particular, are found to have severe stress and also in a lot of cases acutely prone to depression. They find it extremely difficult to mingle with the normal social groups and show a variety of signs of a consistent unhappy life. Of course, this is only in regard with people who are heavy users.
Also, taking into consideration the fact that this research was done was back in 1998, when Internet was a treasure for a limited lot, we have to be forewarned that these symptoms would have grown more common in today’s world. We need more surveys and statistics in order to know how the world today is faring against the Internet invasion.
Despite the fact that it is a very small fraction of people who suffer this syndrome critically, it is important to note that a large majority of us are prone to it today. Most of the users of computers already show typical signs of stress and depression though the effects are very mild.
Carnegie Mellon University was one of the foremost places in the world where the issue of computer addiction was taken up seriously as a matter of mental illness. Lots of work in terms of study, research and documentation has been done since. Also, surprisingly, even without Facebook or Twitter still active in the plethora of online applications researchers at the university had found an abject need to study the negative consequences of computer addiction.
Today, computer addiction has overgrown to a stage where it has become a threatening possibility of an epidemic. Think about a time when pastimes were still playing a game of chess with a neighbor or practicing music. Surely, they would have thought it lame to imagine a world obsessed with the electronic machine, trying to make friends with people you don’t even know.
An addiction beyond anything that man had ever known before!
They said alcohol was the root-cause to all problems in life. With alcohol came instability, monetary loans and losses, losing track of personal life, irresponsibility, gambling and other vices. Trust me, Internet addiction leads to all these vices; in fact, only more directly. With Internet addiction, you tend to lose track of life and most importantly social responsibilities and the tactics to deal with the society.
A medium of communication that keeps you from doing it!
Yes, isn’t that exactly what the computer communication is doing to us these days? Yes, we agree the social-media is in itself a massive tool for communicating what you think to the world. It gives us a variety of options through which you could speak up your mind to the world. You could speak to people; make friends, exchange information and shop on the web. You could actually even look for Top Toy Christmas 2011, right a click away on the Internet, instead of going all the way to the store!
However expressive the ‘smileys’ in Facebook might get they surely cannot bring forth the expression that dwells on your face. Communication in the face-to-face mode is often a mixture of facial expressions, mannerisms and mild modifications in voice and tone. All this cannot be accommodated into the set of words that make up your conversation during the online networking.
Scientists say that meeting people everyday makes one a more confident person in general. Face-to-face communication on a daily basis apparently, also serves as a magnet to pull you away from web-addiction. And then, there is of course the advantage of making real friends that know you better than just your words.
In fact, some scientists also claim that friends made over Internet break up too easily. They say that these bonds are based on unreliable factors which make them weak and easy to lose. In turn, a life full of such empty relationships tends to become superficial and fake. It doesn’t take too long for a person to feel distressed about being unable to make real friends and the end-result without exception is low confidence and depression.
Smart bloggers- Shy speakers
The young mind is often the devil’s workshop, because it is so easily influenced. Parents have relentlessly found a problem with their kids’ addiction to a lot of things- junk food, television- and now the Internet. It is not surprising that there are so many under-age owners of Facebook profiles today!
We shouldn’t forget that it is often more serious an issue than just ‘sticking to the laptop always’. What is more important is the adverse effect of this inappropriate addiction.
Youngsters today often suffer from under-confidence and lack of focus. In working environments they find solace in closed cabins instead team building activities. This is not checked in the right time could lead to isolation from social circles, which is not such a good thing, after all!
Real problems need real solutions
Life is never fair. Life is imperfect. You might feel that you are a little too heavy for your height. You might think you do not have the most perfect face. You might think your more successful colleague is a fake. You might not want to face embarrassment, failure or disgrace.
The Internet, in these problems, offers a quick and short-term solution- escape. Social-networking sites offer you a new world. In this world, you can afford to be everything you actually wish you were in real life. You can be your hero, and can hear everyone sign your praise.
However, what is not in place is the fact that however much we choose to run from real problems, they keep chasing us back. Solutions lie not in the glorified fake world of social media but in the dull and boring everyday life full of challenges and questions.
Realize that escaping to a virtual world will never solve your problem. Find the nerve to tackle your situations with smartness and positivity, life in reality is much more beautiful than any glorified fake.
The common-place thing
This has over the past two decades become the in-thing. Back then, there were board games for people to play. And they would have expected that we would be playing better versions of the same board game in the years to follow. What we did, is buying a Lego Hogwarts Board Game online or rather playing an online version of it, altogether!
Everybody loves chatting online and creating profiles on Facebook. Each one is busy interacting with a large bunch of online-friends. Everyone loves doing this, so this must be the right thing to do. With so much inspiration, we all definitely know what is right. Right?
Sometimes, it might also be the easier thing to do, to sit online, than go out and play basketball with a bunch of friends.
A good thing after all!
It is common sense to understand that if something were to get as popular as the Internet and other forms of computer usage, it had a reason why it did.
The Internet is a big mass of information. It connects you to knowledge and people from different parts of the world. It creates a platform over which you could connect to a diverse range of people from different countries and languages. This surely gives you an edge over the non-users when it comes to the variety of friends you make.
The Internet is a place that connects people. It connects people with friends, buyers with sellers, actors with fans, writers with readers, and you with the world! You could get anything by booking it on the Internet- from a fresh pizza to Top Toy Christmas 2011.
There have been researches, which say that people connected through the Internet to a wider population have shown to recover from ailments by mutual understanding and connection due to similarity.
So, what should you do? Is the Internet good, or is it bad?
It doesn’t take extreme smartness to understand that everything in the world comes with advantages and disadvantages. It is always a package of good and bad and in the end, it is for us to choose what proportions of these qualities we choose into our personalized pack.
- Time limits are often easy ways to analyze your Internet usage. Once you know how much you are using today, you have your solution. They say, half the solution to the problem lies in understanding the problem itself.
- Read, write and listen to music. Try and list out what you used to do way before the Internet became such an indispensable part of your life. Make them a part of your life now. It’ll help you de-stress in addition to getting you rid of your web-addiction.
- Did you ever spend hours on the Internet changing pages and not sticking to anything in particular? It could be because of boredom. Maybe it isn’t really what you want to do, but end up doing as a mere matter of lethargy to think of options. Answer this question, and find a solution for many other unasked ones.
- Make a detailed time-table as to how you would rid yourself of the addiction. Like de-addiction from alcohol or drugs, Internet-de-addiction also needs a serious forethought a plan. Make it a point to plan easy steps and achievable goals and begin the program right away. Tomorrow never comes!
- Get yourself some exercise. Often it might happen that you might get stressed out working on the computer. Your mind might be tired, but the body not-so-tired. This is when it leads to insomnia and restlessness. Find the sport you enjoy most and engage a couple of friends to join you play it. This way, you’ll reduce stress and make friends; two birds in one catch!
We must always know and understand that the Internet got to our doorsteps all the knowledge in the world. It is a symbol of information and communication. It got to us people and places that would never have touched our lives otherwise.
We must take Internet as a boon and use it responsibly. Choose what part of it helps us become better people and carefully filter out the over-dependency. That is the key to a great, informed and happy life!
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As a senior Pat Tate started to explore Internet Marketing. She uses her blog as a journal to keep track of the people and programs that she has met along the way. Grandma’s Internet Marketing/blog. She is an avid golfer and invites women to join her to talk golf at Women’s Golf Center. She has always loved toys and as the proud Grandmother of five beautiful Grandchildren she gets to play with new ones at Grandma’s Toy Review.
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