Internet Addiction, Newsweek article, "A World Wide Woe"

[travelover]

I've always wondered about these bike tours . Do they supply the bikes or do you somehow bring yours ?

Good question. I'm thinking that my 1966 Schwinn balloon tired bike with tank and horn would cost a fortune to ship.

 

[Nords]

I can get online and before I know it half the day is gone. Is this why I (semi) retired?
Anyway, thanks for the post. Step 1 is admitting I have a problem.

I'm not addicted; I can quit anytime I want. I know that because I've quit thousands of times.

Nobody was "addicted" to the Internet when you had to dial in at 2400 bps. How could it be an addiction now? Remember a year or two ago when we were all going to be sucked into Second Life? I wonder how the VCs who put money into that are feeling these days?

Speaking of the generational difference, it's become apparent to me that my daughter knows more about the events of aunts, uncles, & cousins than I do. I catch up via e-mail but she's doing it with Facebook & Tweets.

OTOH I'd prefer to have certain of our family-tree updates filtered through her...

Look at the other side of the phenomenon. My father (age 75) has stopped using his e-mail. That is not a good thing. I expect "the call" within a year.

 

[W2R]

Look at the other side of the phenomenon. My father (age 75) has stopped using his e-mail. That is not a good thing. I expect "the call" within a year.

Does he have severe vision problems? My mother got to a point a few years before her death (at age 98) where she stopped using her e-mail. I think that was due to problems with her vision. We got her visual aids but the problem continued.

 

[Nords]

Does he have severe vision problems? My mother got to a point a few years before her death (at age 98) where she stopped using her e-mail. I think that was due to problems with her vision. We got her visual aids but the problem continued.

Good point. He had one lens replaced a few years ago (cataract) and he's been told that the other lens is headed that way. He hasn't mentioned it lately, though. He's also been coping with blood-pressure medications in the last couple years (despite having double-digit BP for most of his life) and mentioning that they "knock him out". But last I heard he had adapted, unless his BP is getting worse.

Up until last year he used to e-mail or write every few weeks. Now it's only birthdays & holidays. Since my mother died nearly 25 years ago, he's chosen to isolate himself in a 1BR apartment in a small Rocky Mountain town. He says the only traveling he does is hiking local trails and he doesn't even drive to the big city anymore. In the last couple birthday cards (to my brother & me) he's mentioned "memory lapses" that he says are mostly humorous. He cared for his father through 14 years of senile dementia, so I'm sure he's already made his own arrangements. However his comments on subjects like that does not improve his progeny's morale.

But I never thought of his vision limiting him like that. Maybe I should offer to "drop by" with a 30" LCD monitor and tweak his computer's access settings. I know I sure appreciated upgrading from 19" to 23".

 

[Bestwifeever]

Computers and the Internet are so all purpose that it would be hard not to have them anymore. Research from recipes to "who was in that movie on tv last night?" , financial management from banking to portfolio changes, social from e-mail, looking up phone numbers, e-vites, those facebook thingies, and never mind w*rk related things--I don't think we're going back to the non-electronic non-interactive versions of these.

I think the troubles for the person in the story are much deeper than an addiction to the Internet.

 

[Notmuchlonger]

Hi Im Notmuchlonger and I have an internet addiction My father in law has really be hitting the deuces wild hard lately. I might suggest an intervention

 

[W2R]

But I never thought of his vision limiting him like that. Maybe I should offer to "drop by" with a 30" LCD monitor and tweak his computer's access settings. I know I sure appreciated upgrading from 19" to 23".

Technology may help for a little while, depending on the rate of any possible deterioration in vision. We thought it would help Mom more than it did, really. I guess it helped for about six months. She was in her nineties when her vision got so bad, though, and in her case it was due to macular degeneration due to her advanced age (plus she only had one eye due to a bout with melanoma).

He does seem like he is at an age where travel is sometimes less possible and people tend to stick close to home. As I recall, by the time my mother was around 77 or so, she was about done with her trips to the Mainland, Europe, and so on. She stopped driving a few years before that, as well (thank heavens - - with one eye she wasn't a very good driver).

Sometimes it is so difficult to accept that our parents are undergoing the changes that come with age. But it is inevitable at some point. The hard part is remembering that they are still the same parents that we love, and that aging is normal and natural for them as they grow old. As you well know! I am just rambling on and not really addressing this to you, per se. I remember that my brother and I would react by feeling terribly aggravated and we had to remind one another it wasn't her fault that she was no longer the woman we remembered from back in the 1950's. After all, we are not the same cute little children that we probably were in the 1950's, either!

 

[CuppaJoe]

Hi Im Notmuchlonger and I have an internet addiction ...

Hey, what kind of addict are you? You just had almost a month of posting abstinence from this forum.

 

[Bestwifeever]

He just got out of rehab and came straight here....

 

[CuppaJoe]

NML, PM me if you get the urge to go back into rehab. Welcome back.

 

[vicente solano]

Until I found this Forum I went online out of boredom.
But now.... Pity I don´t have the techno English or the IT skills

 

[Notmuchlonger]

NML, PM me if you get the urge to go back into rehab. Welcome back.

They had cookies what could I say... oh and thanks