Post by galactapuss on Jun 23, 2009 8:30:49 GMT -8
5.25.09, Day 0
Carol thinks I have an addiction to the internet (specifically regarding information, not gambling / porn / online gaming / online chatting). I told her I disagreed. I tried to address with her why I thought I was not addicted. I suggested testing the matter. She became angry and refused to talk about it any more. I decided to try a test on my own.
For 28 days (until May 53, or June 22) I will go without internet access, with the following exceptions: Work stuff will have to continue- timesheets, expense reports, work-related searches (looking up an address or directions, etc.). I will continue to check my personal email (communicating with family members, bill notifications, etc.). I asked Corrine what she would suggest for testing criteria, but she only copied information I had already read out of Carol's book. Corrine also suggested that it's an information addiction and that I might transfer my need for news to other formats- television or radio. I will also, for the next 28 days, not listen to news / talk radio or watch news television. Music or audio books in the car are still ok. Non-news television is still ok.
I'm not at all certain how valid or invalid my testing criteria are, because i'm the person who designed them. One large point of uncertainty is test length and the fact that i'm aware of the test length. I don't know if it invalidates the test if I know that, at a certain, particular point in the future, i'll be able to get back online, as opposed to an unknown test length set by someone else. I also don't know whether or not using my personal computer for other things (long term family photo scanning project, playing video games on the computer, playing video games on the PS3/Wii/DS) invalidates the test. I enjoy playing video games and I have several thousand remaining family photos to scan for Pop that I want to get scanned by the end of 2009. If I set the conditions of the test too broadly, then it might not address the particular question at hand. If the test is whether or not i've got IA, then going 28 days without, say, using electricity, would be too broad and introduce other issues (inability to communicate with family members by phone, inability to prepare food, inability to turn the bathroom light on to shave before going to work, etc.). I think i'll stick with these criteria (28 days, no non-work net use, no news television, no news radio).
I wonder if writing this invalidates the test? Does generating information do the same thing for people with IA that receiving information does? I'm not sure. I want to know what's going on out there, but I don't have to know.
Carol indicates that i'm on the net whenever her friends come over. I don't know if I am on the net all of those times, but I acknowledge that I am on the net many or most of those times. Carol and the 1 friend of hers (both of whom raise the same kind of dog) that comes over most of the time usually have dog stuff to talk about, which doesn't interest me.
I told Carol that I had looked up the Wikipedia page on Internet Addiction (IA) and found that, for it (IA) to be an addiction, it has to have a negative effect on other aspects of a person's life (work, interaction with others, etc.). She said that, because anyone can edit a Wikipedia page, anything that appeared on such a page didn't matter.
Task 1: Check Wikipedia IA page citations, or corroborate via library.
Carol cited her Abnormal Psychology textbook (ISBN 978-0-07-313396-6). I looked in her book, under the general description for IA, and found it defined as an irresistible urge, compulsive web surfing or database searches, and cutting off of social relationships. The part (information overload) that would apply to me doesn't appear to have specific criteria. IA is in the section about Impulse Control Disorder (ICD) and has 3 essential features: 1) The inability to stop behavior that is harmful to ones' self or others. 2) Feeling tension and anxiety that can only be relieved through that particular behavior. 3) Experiencing a sense of pleasure or gratification during that behavior.
I like going on the net and checking the news, but I don't know how to measure any sense of pleasure or gratification I experience when doing so, so the third feature would not appear to be quantifiable. The first 2 features should be measureable. I either do or don't fit those features.
When I asked Carol about this part of it, she indicated that all 3 features did not have to be present for it to be an addiction. The book indicated that those were the 3 features, so it appeared to indicate that all 3 features did have to be present. When I asked Carol how many or which features had to be present, she became angry and refused to talk about it.
My morning routine. Each morning I check several news sites (Slashdot, the Register, Yahoo, Google News, Fark, and on sundays News Of The Weird) and read several daily comics (Penny Arcade, Baldo, Boondocks, Dilbert, Doonesbury, Luann, Non-Sequitur, Schlock Mercenary, and PvP Online). That's about it.
Somewhere I came across a link to www.netaddiction.com, which is supposed to have a bunch of info about IA. It would defeat the purpose of the test for me to go look though.
May 26, 2009: Day 1
I don't seem to be feeling anything that I would describe as withdrawal. I want to check the news, I want to play the short online game (about 10 min / day) I usually play, and I want to read the comics, but I don't feel terribly frustrated at not having them. The news is a never-ending flood of information, so while the stories 27 days from now will be different, it'll still just be entertainment to read.
The radio (in the car) is going to take a bit more preparation. There isn't anything on the radio itself for me to listen to, because (for me) it's all news and talk radio, which is what i'm supposed to be avoiding. The set of music I enjoy is fairly limited (under 3 hrs total), so I repeat it pretty quickly and get tired of the songs. Audio books or practice Japanese again...
May 27, 2009: Day 2
I played Grand Theft Auto 4 (GTA4) a bit more in the last few days. I have a lot of video games (console, computer, and portable) that I just don't have the time to play. I feel reassured that there's not another addiction there and no IA because I seem to allow myself a certain amount of leisure time that doesn't interfere with work or interacting with my family. If I can't read the news, I can play video games. If I couldn't play video games, i'd find something else to do. I suppose I could extend that process and ban video games, then do something else, then ban that something else and do another something else, repeating until I became so bored I was doing something like yard work or housecleaning. But there are obsessive compulsive (OC) people who go around cleaning all the time, so anything could be described as addictive.
I'm doing ok so far with the first ICD feature (inability to stop the behavior) and this seems to be the second ICD feature (can only be satisfied by the particular behavior) not happening. Looks good so far.
Carol and Corrine pointed out that I am a very stubborn person (I am) and that my desire to 'win the argument' may over-ride what they think is my IA. The problem is that it's one of those unmeasureable things. If I fail this test (return to internet use before the 28 days are up), then i'm wrong and I have IA. If I pass this test, then they would say my stubbornness over-rode my IA, the test is invalid, and I have IA anyway. So i'm wrong no matter what I do.
May 28, 2009: Day 3
More of the same. Been playing a bit more GTA4. Got some audio books on the DS, DS in the car yesterday. No headphones with full-sized jack and FM re-broadcaster I had for XM radio has dead batteries, so couldn't listen to audio books. DS alone not loud enough to hear over surface noise. Got portable radio and correct cords for today.
Still want to check news and comics, but not worried about it.
May 29, 2009: Day 4
Corrine wants to print coupons, but most major newspaper sites use a particular program (couponprinter.exe I think). Carol's previous computers have, over their life spans, started to behave oddly (as most computers do). I think this is partly due to Corrine being able to install plugins and add-ons whenever she wants to go to a new site. With Carol's current computer, I have the administrator password but Corrine doesn't. The idea here is to keep it clean, locked down, and free of stuff that will make more work for me or cost me more money down the road, and that won't cost Carol the loss of irreplaceable dog data. I wasn't willing to enter the admin password and install the program without knowing more about the program, but I had to go online to do that. They approved the exception to the no-internet test.
I found that couponprinter claims to not store any uniquely identifiable information about your computer, that its only function is to insure the printing of properly scannable bar codes. This does not appear to be true. Various sites point out the following: CP is an exe, where no such thing is needed. All you're printing is an image of the coupon. You don't need an exe to do that. CP claims to be necessary to print scannable bar codes. This is not true. Any decent printer / image combination can do this. CP claims to remove itself completely from your system when you uninstall it. It does not. CP claims to not store any uniquely identifiable information about your computer. This is not true. It reads, stores, and (I think) uploads stuff like your Windows key, hardware (motherboard and so on) numbers, etc.. I'm a little fuzzy now on exactly which numbers it stores and what it does with them because i'm actually writing this a few days after Day 4. I can't go online to get citations for another 3 weeks or so, so this is all I know right now. But it's enough. Even if CP doesn't do all of these things, the likelihood that it does most or some of these things is high enough that I don't trust it. My advice is to avoid it.
...unless... We have an older laptop (thank you Pop), running XP. It doesn't have data vital to Carol or me and Corrine's the primary user these days. I went ahead and installed CP on the laptop. If the laptop dies as a result or Corrine's info is grabbed by CP, I figure it's her choice and it doesn't cause me extra work / worry / money. I'd have to revise my advice to say 'avoid CP on mission-critical systems.'
I forgot to mention...they decided they wanted me to do this at 3am. Woof.
May 30, 2009: Day 5
Nothing relevant.
May 31, 2009: Day 6
Nothing relevant. Went on a hike. Killed a rattlesnake.
June 1, 2009: Day 7
Nothing relevant.
June 2, 2009: Day 8
Nothing relevant.
June 3, 2009: Day 9
Need to go online at some point to pay bills. Today's wednesday. Probably do that on saturday.
June 8, 2009: Day 14
Half way through. Had a personal court case on tuesday, needed to know if I won the case, would it be taxable income. Called IRS, they said to get publication 525 from IRS.gov. I went on IRS.gov, got that file, then disconnected.
June 20, 2009 Day 26
Step-sister having trouble with Pidgin connecting to Yahoo. Did a google search and visited 2 web pages to find what setting to change.
June 23, 2009, Day 29
All done. I guess, since i'm the person with the possible addiction, it doesn't carry weight for me to say that the test was successful and i'm not addicted.
The 3 essential features of an Impulse Control Disorder (ICD) are: 1) The inability to stop behavior that is harmful to ones' self or others. 2) Feeling tension an anxiety that can only be relieved through that particular behavior. 3) Experiencing a sense of pleasure or gratification during that behavior.
#1 was a clear 'no,' as I did stop the behavior. I want to say #2 was a clear 'no' as well. I'm the only person that knows what I was feeling, so i'm the ultimate authority in this regard, but if #2 (yes, ha ha) was present I think Carol or Corrine would have pointed it out to me. #3's a bit trickier. Do I experience a sense of pleasure or gratification? On the one hand I like being online or I wouldn't do it, so that would lean toward 'yes.' On the other hand it's not the level of pleasure one might associate with winning the lottery, sex, or having a relative survive that big operation. I'm inclined to say #3 is a 'no' because if the presence of #3 alone, to any degree, constitutes an addiction, then anything we do that we enjoy is an addiction. I guess the biggest point against it being an addiction is that I did the 28 days without any real stress, withdrawals, or anything like that.
So, what do you all think?
Carol thinks I have an addiction to the internet (specifically regarding information, not gambling / porn / online gaming / online chatting). I told her I disagreed. I tried to address with her why I thought I was not addicted. I suggested testing the matter. She became angry and refused to talk about it any more. I decided to try a test on my own.
For 28 days (until May 53, or June 22) I will go without internet access, with the following exceptions: Work stuff will have to continue- timesheets, expense reports, work-related searches (looking up an address or directions, etc.). I will continue to check my personal email (communicating with family members, bill notifications, etc.). I asked Corrine what she would suggest for testing criteria, but she only copied information I had already read out of Carol's book. Corrine also suggested that it's an information addiction and that I might transfer my need for news to other formats- television or radio. I will also, for the next 28 days, not listen to news / talk radio or watch news television. Music or audio books in the car are still ok. Non-news television is still ok.
I'm not at all certain how valid or invalid my testing criteria are, because i'm the person who designed them. One large point of uncertainty is test length and the fact that i'm aware of the test length. I don't know if it invalidates the test if I know that, at a certain, particular point in the future, i'll be able to get back online, as opposed to an unknown test length set by someone else. I also don't know whether or not using my personal computer for other things (long term family photo scanning project, playing video games on the computer, playing video games on the PS3/Wii/DS) invalidates the test. I enjoy playing video games and I have several thousand remaining family photos to scan for Pop that I want to get scanned by the end of 2009. If I set the conditions of the test too broadly, then it might not address the particular question at hand. If the test is whether or not i've got IA, then going 28 days without, say, using electricity, would be too broad and introduce other issues (inability to communicate with family members by phone, inability to prepare food, inability to turn the bathroom light on to shave before going to work, etc.). I think i'll stick with these criteria (28 days, no non-work net use, no news television, no news radio).
I wonder if writing this invalidates the test? Does generating information do the same thing for people with IA that receiving information does? I'm not sure. I want to know what's going on out there, but I don't have to know.
Carol indicates that i'm on the net whenever her friends come over. I don't know if I am on the net all of those times, but I acknowledge that I am on the net many or most of those times. Carol and the 1 friend of hers (both of whom raise the same kind of dog) that comes over most of the time usually have dog stuff to talk about, which doesn't interest me.
I told Carol that I had looked up the Wikipedia page on Internet Addiction (IA) and found that, for it (IA) to be an addiction, it has to have a negative effect on other aspects of a person's life (work, interaction with others, etc.). She said that, because anyone can edit a Wikipedia page, anything that appeared on such a page didn't matter.
Task 1: Check Wikipedia IA page citations, or corroborate via library.
Carol cited her Abnormal Psychology textbook (ISBN 978-0-07-313396-6). I looked in her book, under the general description for IA, and found it defined as an irresistible urge, compulsive web surfing or database searches, and cutting off of social relationships. The part (information overload) that would apply to me doesn't appear to have specific criteria. IA is in the section about Impulse Control Disorder (ICD) and has 3 essential features: 1) The inability to stop behavior that is harmful to ones' self or others. 2) Feeling tension and anxiety that can only be relieved through that particular behavior. 3) Experiencing a sense of pleasure or gratification during that behavior.
I like going on the net and checking the news, but I don't know how to measure any sense of pleasure or gratification I experience when doing so, so the third feature would not appear to be quantifiable. The first 2 features should be measureable. I either do or don't fit those features.
When I asked Carol about this part of it, she indicated that all 3 features did not have to be present for it to be an addiction. The book indicated that those were the 3 features, so it appeared to indicate that all 3 features did have to be present. When I asked Carol how many or which features had to be present, she became angry and refused to talk about it.
My morning routine. Each morning I check several news sites (Slashdot, the Register, Yahoo, Google News, Fark, and on sundays News Of The Weird) and read several daily comics (Penny Arcade, Baldo, Boondocks, Dilbert, Doonesbury, Luann, Non-Sequitur, Schlock Mercenary, and PvP Online). That's about it.
Somewhere I came across a link to www.netaddiction.com, which is supposed to have a bunch of info about IA. It would defeat the purpose of the test for me to go look though.
May 26, 2009: Day 1
I don't seem to be feeling anything that I would describe as withdrawal. I want to check the news, I want to play the short online game (about 10 min / day) I usually play, and I want to read the comics, but I don't feel terribly frustrated at not having them. The news is a never-ending flood of information, so while the stories 27 days from now will be different, it'll still just be entertainment to read.
The radio (in the car) is going to take a bit more preparation. There isn't anything on the radio itself for me to listen to, because (for me) it's all news and talk radio, which is what i'm supposed to be avoiding. The set of music I enjoy is fairly limited (under 3 hrs total), so I repeat it pretty quickly and get tired of the songs. Audio books or practice Japanese again...
May 27, 2009: Day 2
I played Grand Theft Auto 4 (GTA4) a bit more in the last few days. I have a lot of video games (console, computer, and portable) that I just don't have the time to play. I feel reassured that there's not another addiction there and no IA because I seem to allow myself a certain amount of leisure time that doesn't interfere with work or interacting with my family. If I can't read the news, I can play video games. If I couldn't play video games, i'd find something else to do. I suppose I could extend that process and ban video games, then do something else, then ban that something else and do another something else, repeating until I became so bored I was doing something like yard work or housecleaning. But there are obsessive compulsive (OC) people who go around cleaning all the time, so anything could be described as addictive.
I'm doing ok so far with the first ICD feature (inability to stop the behavior) and this seems to be the second ICD feature (can only be satisfied by the particular behavior) not happening. Looks good so far.
Carol and Corrine pointed out that I am a very stubborn person (I am) and that my desire to 'win the argument' may over-ride what they think is my IA. The problem is that it's one of those unmeasureable things. If I fail this test (return to internet use before the 28 days are up), then i'm wrong and I have IA. If I pass this test, then they would say my stubbornness over-rode my IA, the test is invalid, and I have IA anyway. So i'm wrong no matter what I do.
May 28, 2009: Day 3
More of the same. Been playing a bit more GTA4. Got some audio books on the DS, DS in the car yesterday. No headphones with full-sized jack and FM re-broadcaster I had for XM radio has dead batteries, so couldn't listen to audio books. DS alone not loud enough to hear over surface noise. Got portable radio and correct cords for today.
Still want to check news and comics, but not worried about it.
May 29, 2009: Day 4
Corrine wants to print coupons, but most major newspaper sites use a particular program (couponprinter.exe I think). Carol's previous computers have, over their life spans, started to behave oddly (as most computers do). I think this is partly due to Corrine being able to install plugins and add-ons whenever she wants to go to a new site. With Carol's current computer, I have the administrator password but Corrine doesn't. The idea here is to keep it clean, locked down, and free of stuff that will make more work for me or cost me more money down the road, and that won't cost Carol the loss of irreplaceable dog data. I wasn't willing to enter the admin password and install the program without knowing more about the program, but I had to go online to do that. They approved the exception to the no-internet test.
I found that couponprinter claims to not store any uniquely identifiable information about your computer, that its only function is to insure the printing of properly scannable bar codes. This does not appear to be true. Various sites point out the following: CP is an exe, where no such thing is needed. All you're printing is an image of the coupon. You don't need an exe to do that. CP claims to be necessary to print scannable bar codes. This is not true. Any decent printer / image combination can do this. CP claims to remove itself completely from your system when you uninstall it. It does not. CP claims to not store any uniquely identifiable information about your computer. This is not true. It reads, stores, and (I think) uploads stuff like your Windows key, hardware (motherboard and so on) numbers, etc.. I'm a little fuzzy now on exactly which numbers it stores and what it does with them because i'm actually writing this a few days after Day 4. I can't go online to get citations for another 3 weeks or so, so this is all I know right now. But it's enough. Even if CP doesn't do all of these things, the likelihood that it does most or some of these things is high enough that I don't trust it. My advice is to avoid it.
...unless... We have an older laptop (thank you Pop), running XP. It doesn't have data vital to Carol or me and Corrine's the primary user these days. I went ahead and installed CP on the laptop. If the laptop dies as a result or Corrine's info is grabbed by CP, I figure it's her choice and it doesn't cause me extra work / worry / money. I'd have to revise my advice to say 'avoid CP on mission-critical systems.'
I forgot to mention...they decided they wanted me to do this at 3am. Woof.
May 30, 2009: Day 5
Nothing relevant.
May 31, 2009: Day 6
Nothing relevant. Went on a hike. Killed a rattlesnake.
June 1, 2009: Day 7
Nothing relevant.
June 2, 2009: Day 8
Nothing relevant.
June 3, 2009: Day 9
Need to go online at some point to pay bills. Today's wednesday. Probably do that on saturday.
June 8, 2009: Day 14
Half way through. Had a personal court case on tuesday, needed to know if I won the case, would it be taxable income. Called IRS, they said to get publication 525 from IRS.gov. I went on IRS.gov, got that file, then disconnected.
June 20, 2009 Day 26
Step-sister having trouble with Pidgin connecting to Yahoo. Did a google search and visited 2 web pages to find what setting to change.
June 23, 2009, Day 29
All done. I guess, since i'm the person with the possible addiction, it doesn't carry weight for me to say that the test was successful and i'm not addicted.
The 3 essential features of an Impulse Control Disorder (ICD) are: 1) The inability to stop behavior that is harmful to ones' self or others. 2) Feeling tension an anxiety that can only be relieved through that particular behavior. 3) Experiencing a sense of pleasure or gratification during that behavior.
#1 was a clear 'no,' as I did stop the behavior. I want to say #2 was a clear 'no' as well. I'm the only person that knows what I was feeling, so i'm the ultimate authority in this regard, but if #2 (yes, ha ha) was present I think Carol or Corrine would have pointed it out to me. #3's a bit trickier. Do I experience a sense of pleasure or gratification? On the one hand I like being online or I wouldn't do it, so that would lean toward 'yes.' On the other hand it's not the level of pleasure one might associate with winning the lottery, sex, or having a relative survive that big operation. I'm inclined to say #3 is a 'no' because if the presence of #3 alone, to any degree, constitutes an addiction, then anything we do that we enjoy is an addiction. I guess the biggest point against it being an addiction is that I did the 28 days without any real stress, withdrawals, or anything like that.
So, what do you all think?
