Addiction at 27 Percent

A Story by Hanakuso

Personal thoughts on the cyberspace world.

If this so-called warehouse of erroneous facts and databases is so appalling, why is 27% of today’s youth addicted to the Internet?

Sad to say, I am one of the 27%.

My everyday life consists of waking up at four in the morning, turn on the laptop, open my Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Livejournal, Blogspot, Youtube, Ameblo, Nico Nico�"and if my friends are online, Skype�"accounts. Yes, I work through my life with 1,005, 653 tabs open and it’s not even 5:10 A.M. I chat, I cam, I laugh and I cry with each and every one of my accounts. The clock strikes six and with a heavy heart, I turn everything off and get ready for my 7:00 class.

I go to school, try to pay attention to my classes but my mind still goes back to the silly statuses on Facebook, the Japanese guy teaching me Hiragana on Skype, Ruki’s latest tweet of Reita’s jeans�"if you don’t know who they are, search the GazettE on the Net�", the weird woman and her video documentary of her cats in Youtube. Before I know it, it’s lunch time and I hurry off outside to the nearest Internet Café to continue what was left hanging in the morning. Never mind food, I have to know what everyone is up to now.

After school, I rush home, turn on the laptop and surf, surf, surf and surf some more. The same images appear, the same videos, the same people, but the relief of finding these familiar objects brings a sense of contentment in me. Next thing I know, it’s already midnight and I haven’t done any of my homework or studied. I bring out my notes and read through them for ten minutes or so and go to sleep. And the cycle repeats itself again.

Summer vacations were the worst. I enclosed myself in my room, tinkering the keyboard, refusing to budge. I didn’t go out of the house for one month and when I finally did, and it was because there was a power shortage and I had to look for a new Internet source; my mother actually cried.

You may shut down the program, but you can never delete the process.

Back in 1994 at the dawn of the Internet age, no one ever dreamed it would catch on so big and lay claim to so many of us. Flash forward to today and you can’t imagine the world without cyberspace. Even if many of us deny it, there will always be moments in time that we are gravitated towards the Internet. After all, it is a novelty that intrigues us. Frequently, we got lost trying to find things. All that changed in the intervening years with newer and more powerful search engines, broadband connections, and wireless mobile devices. But the more profound change occurred with us youth. All we know is a world of instant access. It is how we connect, socialize, pass time, gather information, and entertain ourselves. But it’s more than that: for many teens, the Internet has become an addiction.

The American Psychiatric Association has refused to find a place for addiction to the internet or the new term Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) in its forthcoming Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM) V classification, stating that further research needs to be conducted, before the diagnosis can be considered valid.

Experts who have argued that IAD should be classified in DSM V have divided the condition into subtypes such as excessive social networking, pornography use, online gaming, blogging, email, or e-commerce. Recent studies have shown that IAD is linked with other psychological disorders such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), depression and social phobias.

Some people might argue that even though the Internet has woven itself into the fabric of our lives, and most of us use it every day�" and most of us do not become addicted to it.

Scientists don’t yet understand what causes one person to succumb to addiction while another doesn’t. Some speculate that people can get addicted to the social aspects of online relationships, relationships that are less threatening and that can be tempting, but are ultimately less fulfilling because nothing can be achieved from it.

My parents are having me rehabilitated from my addiction through tapering my Internet consumption with lessened hours of 4 hours per day, making me do more chores and monetary benefits if I manage to keep things within control.

Some people may laugh at this, but I don’t. Remember the words of Carl Gustav Juno, “Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.”