The New Disease - "Internet Addiction" By, JK
Edited by, Lauren Weiss

In the early 90's if a guy wanted to gamble on blackjack or poker, but the closest casino was 2 hours away in Atlantic City, and he couldn't convince his friends to jump on the slow-moving, retirement home infested “party-bus” to get out and gamble, he was stuck at home playing solitaire off his start-menu programs, watching “Celebrity Poker” and calling it a night.

In 2005, that same guy doesn’t even need a friend, or a bus to any flashy city to gamble. He just needs to click on his desktop shortcut and can go to partypoker.com, or any of the millions of gambling sites online. Four clicks and he is sitting in his desk chair, but at a virtual poker table, in his own personal casino. He has discovered what many Americans are realizing. We live in a culture of accessibility, whose muse has become the internet, and that is the catalyst for the rapid rise and infestation of the new disease consuming a consumerist nation-internet addiction.

The Internet was created as a new way of communicating secure messages for the military. It quickly thereafter went on to become a new learning and communication medium for the masses. Naturally, as anything that reaches the public, it then was exploited thru every facet imaginable, and thus was born the fanatic activities of online "gambling, gaming and pornography."

"Gambling, gaming and pornography" on the internet is big business,and it is THE business. It is so big in fact, that it out-performs football, baseball and basketball combined in revenue. The Internet makes everything easier to access, and so we are caught in the dichotomy and ironic dilemma where we can get information that can be ultimately act as beneficial or morally decaying.

It seems that popular culture has been overtaken by a world of virtual addicts. The internet is accessible, free and expands our realm of knowledge and entertainment, BUT there is a price to pay for being enveloped by this new digital trend, an opportunity cost if you will. The cost of not doing something beneficial like meeting new people, reading, working to create art or music, "gettin busy" with a human being (in person), educating yourself, etc. The challenge is to use the internet (as amusement in particular) in moderation. As soon as it becomes an addiction it becomes like any other disease, or "an impairment of the normal state of the living animal or one of its parts that interrupts or modifies the performance of the vital functions." {Via Dictionary.com}

Internet addiction is quickly becoming a scientifically recognized illness. "Mental health professionals who support the diagnosis of Internet addiction say, a majority of obsessive users are online to further addictions to gambling or pornography or have become much more dependent on those vices because of their prevalence on the Internet." [Via indiatimes.com]

And what better way to perpetuate an addiction then to continue to not be a part of the non-addiction, non-internet life. Once isolated and on a digital island in their living room, it is difficult to return and acclimate to the “real” world. Addictions are fueled not only by access, but by fear as well. We can only assume that in being that dependent on a form of technology, will in time make you less reliant, and less interested in the human form and what was once known as "interpersonal relationships."

This subject matter has become so huge that MSNBC.com has launched a massive Internet advertising campaign. They are promoting a special day of TV programming taking place on Wednesday, December 14th. The day is unofficially called "Digital Day" and will feature special on-air programming, an on-air blogger, and interaction with bloggers throughout the day to get the digital age's version of the "Man on the street" [Via PimpWiz.com]


Related Links:

• Technorati Search: MSNBC + BlogAds
• MSNBC's Confusing Digital Day Splash Page
• MSNBC's Plan to Inundate the Internet
• MSNBC's Big Week for Online Ads
• Blogads Sells The Farm!
• Offensive MSNBC Porn BlogAds
• Why I'm Happy I Didn't Get the MSNBC Porn Ad
  
  

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