> But internet addiction is invisible; it masks itself as the person being just slower than their peers, or lazier.
Socially isolated, failure to obtain/hold jobs, failure to reach traditional milestones (marriage, own house, children, etc.).
Socially isolated, failure to obtain/hold jobs, failure to reach traditional milestones (marriage, own house, children, etc.).
I have a friend from high school, he was the smartest kid in class, was a math-genius. Somehow he lost interest in school. He has a Youtube channel, where he posts game videos, earns a bit money from there (i guess 500 dollars per month). He is "trying" to study economics, but he is still in the same semester after three years. He does lead a life, but not in the physical world. He was a handsome kid, now he doesn't eat and doesn't care about appearances. He only drinks iced tea (no water) and eats limited food he likes (like pasta or chocolate). Although his life may seem weird, I respect him. That's his choice to live in the digital world.
Thus, if the gamer in GP stops playing games, then experiences intense overwhelming craving for the game, he is addicted, and his thought processes are compromised as a result.
Ordinary choices we make are different from addictions not because we lack choice only in the narrow realm of addictions, but because addictions are harmful to normative human goals like self-sufficiency (job), relationships, and such. But relationships and self-sufficiency are both a matter of degree, and there's fuzziness about where something is harmful enough to justify psychological/pharma intervention.
(Not that that's the only characteristic of addictions; they also seem to be very strong single-inputs (will this make me happy or be pleasurable now?) that are able to drive decision-making... short-circuiting all the other more normal evaluations, from a more balanced network of inputs: economic constraints, past experience, outcome prediction, social judgment... with immediate happiness normally only one factor, and often not even a very strong one.)
There are other behaviors besides addictions that are harmful to self-sufficiency and relationships. Many of them are treated as mental health problems, especially when they're severe enough. Some aren't, though, and are considered just someone being quirky or eccentric.
We (should) want to encourage diversity, while reducing the misery of people on the fringes who are engaged in truly self-destructive behaviors. But plenty of people we all know are only functioning in modern life because of medication—whether it's opiates, amphetamines, neurotransmitter modulators, marijuana, or whatever. Trying to improve people who are self-destructive is a noble goal, but when self-destruction seems closer and closer to the norm every day, intervention may make those people happier but it begins to reek of Brave New World.
If the world is so fucked up that most people are either too addictable or too depressed (or too something) to function without assistance, what does it say about personal happiness or a functioning society if that can only exist with enough drugs to coerce people into doing "standard" things: maintain a job, a home, some relationships, etc? It seems to me that either we have to accept BNW's dystopia as more of a judgment-neutral prophecy than a cautionary tale, or we have to start politically outlawing things that are causing people to be so addicted or so distressed that they can't maintain reasonable productivity and happiness without medication. Unfortunately, the second option would involve wreaking havoc on the conservative and libertarian ideal of free markets (and maybe parts of the 1st amendment too), so we as a society seem hellbent on sleepwalking our way down the rabbit hole to the BNW "drug-everyone" scenario.
I'm free not to smoke tobacco and not to get drunk. Some people aren't. No matter how philosophical you want to get about predestination, the difference between being addicted and not is real and obvious to everyone.
Granted, the addiction is only pathological if it's harmful to the individual. The fact that internet addiction isn't physically visible as harmful was my very point.
Once that happens, you become programmed by the addiction, in the same way that opiate addicts end up having their entire lives revolve around their addiction.
Worse I'd say is a place like /r9k/. Any semblance of normality is to be instantly branded a "Normie" and howled at to leave the board immediately. Absolute detachment from the physical world is lauded as the highest achievement. Imagine a board of drug users harassing each other to inject the highest dose, every time.
These people sit around in their own filth and both hate and take pride in their filthiness.
Internet addiction is real, and it can be very, very damaging.
Instead of a drug poisoning your mind and body, it's ideas. Information. Snow Crash