Internet, tech, social media, gaming addiction?

[UnplugReconnect]

I have been seeing articles more often about people who have either internet, tech, social media, and/or online gaming addiction .... with new technology quickly being introduced to us at such a high rate i feel like so many of us are dependent on it and have become addicted - thoughts?

 

[H011yHawkJ311yBean]

I think I saw a thread in here related to your thread... And also I have spoken with a therapist in regards to gaming and Facebooking and such... In moderation, of course, everything is okay... But some people use that medium as an escape or to avoid life (or as the gamers call it "RL" - Real Life)...

Case in point: when both my husband and I were gaming online, we began to lose local friends and revolve our schedules around online friends and schedule big events with multiple online users to do some sort of fictional mission inside the game. Yes it was cool to have "that many friends" but they weren't flesh and blood to us, plus our house began to look like a tornado hit it. When you start to neglect your health by eating junkfood and neglect your housework, etc, it's a bit of a vicious circle. You want to have the feeling of friendship and adventure so you don't look after yourself, nor do you work on your local friendships and you lack energy and start to spiral downward. I know of at least one person in "RL" who was divorced because of gaming, and he was remarried and yet he was doing the same thing.

We've learned our lesson, and I have not been gaming for years.... However, I do tend to come here or Facebook... But even that has dropped off a bit... I used to be a bit crazy with Invites/Events on Facebook and using it as a tool to have parties at our house or other locations, but it lost its charm. Now I mostly use it to connect with my family (don't have any in my province aside from my husband) and occasionally follow groups that I have interests in, and in some cases with people at work you can email them (for instance, when you want to trade a shift) when there when otherwise you couldn't because you don't know their personal email address... So it gives a bit of privacy, in a sense, but still allows communication.

I do admit that I try to stay off it, but if I am really bored and low energy, I'll be sitting here on the computer instead of in front of the TV.

 

[Daniel E.]

In some ways, it's like what TV was. And there are probably millions of old articles on excessive TV viewing. But one difference is that people would often watch TV together. With the Internet, it's a more solitary activity regarding physical presence. Like in college, I remember going to friends' houses to watch TV there rather than watch it alone.