#2 ICT

Internet Addiction Disorder

Nowadays almost everyone has an access to the Internet. Along with its development came many opportunities but menaces as well. Today I'll tell you something about dangers that may result from using the Internet improperly. My first association was addiction...

Currently many psychologists talk about Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD), defining this phenomenon as a mental disorder being a consequence of overusing the Internet. The addicted have similar symptoms to those who suffer from alcoholism or drug addiction.

Here you can find more specific explanation of this phenomenon:

Dr Kimberly Young, who is said to be the main researcher of the Internet Addiction Disorder, has distinguished several types of it:

• cybersexual addiction
• cyber-relation addiction
• net compulsions
• information overload
• computer additction

According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: It can be divided into subtypes by activity, such as excessive and / or inappropriate pornography use, gaming, online social networking, bloggig, email or internet shopping. Here I found a quite interesting article concerned with internet addiction, which may help you how to avoid it. Another problem connected with it is cheating. There has been created a term "catfish" to describe a person who creates fake personal profiles on social media services (e.g. on Facebook) usually with the intention of pursuing deceptive romances online.

Such an instance:

(https://www.pinterest.com/pin/95560823316544282/)

Let's go back to the internet addiction, as the main idea of this post. Here you can read what are symptoms and signs of it. As far as consequences are concerned, they can be both social: lack of interaction with the world, neglect relationships, no development of social skills, problems with making friends; and physical: migraines, backaches, sleep disturbances, eating irregularities, carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS -  arm paresthesia, pain, numbness etc.).

The point is to realize that we have a problem:

(www.baroneenglish.blogspot.com)

And find a sensible solution to it:

(author: Randy Glasbergen, www.gasbergen.com)

Changes and development after guidance

First of all, I'm glad I started to write a blog, because it gave me many new opportunities I wasn't even aware of before. And even though I was a bit afraid at the beginning, it turned out that I can find myself in this new virtual reality. As far as changes and development after guidance are concerned, I become more aware about the issues I wrote about. The posts became to me just an introduction to further reflection about people's relation to the Internet and the virtual society. I use the Internet everyday, but but I didn't even think about many issues before (like for instance addiction, its causes and results). After the guidance, when I received a feedback, I learned what was good in my work, and to what I should pay more attendtion. I added missing elements like links to further reading etc. I also think that now my knowlegde is more complete, because now I know what exactly a good post should consist of.  I have to admit that Twitter is something completely new for me and I wasn't sure how to use it properly. As far as development on Twitter is concerned, I've been sharing links connected to the topics I wrote about. It's nice when you not only read a post, but also have a piece of information from an article to support your opinion. It makes your arguments stronger and also helps the reader to understand some background and basis of certain issues. I think now I'm more conscious of how the Internet works, what are its good and bad sides, and how to divide your real life from the virtual one. And what I like most - thanks to this course I become a blogger! I think that if I wouldn't have to, I won't be determined enough to start ;)

Regards,

Margaret

International Coffee Hour

An International Coffee Hour took place today at our University. We were divided into several teams, each concerned with different country. Agata and I represented Poland, and rest of Poles agreed to help other teams with preparations. There was also Austrian, Russian, Czech and Norwegian group. It turned out that even our teacher - Maria, who is from Spain, decided to prepare a traditional dish.

Here is the poster:

Do you recognize these pictures, huh? ;)

 Olga brought the matryoshka dolls, one of the most recognizable things from Russia, I think.

I baked a gingerbread cake and Agata fried faworki. Actually, many people were asking about it, as if they saw it for the first time. Faworki derive from Poland, but Norwegians have something very similar called 'fattigmann' (= poor man). As one man explained - it was made with alcohol, that was really expensive. So if someone managed to prepare this dish, automatically became a poor man, because of spending a lot of money for the ingredients. Interesting! During the whole meeting Agata was explaining how she did that. When someone asked me, I just said that it's fattingman or angel wings, because I didn't even remember. Nevertheless, I have baked the first cake in my life! In Norway ;) Otherwise, I probably wouldn't even try. (Shh!) 

Delights of Czech Republic.

Russian and Austrian delicacies.

We brought some music from our countries, but songs from Czech Republic were unbeatable, because Tereza sang and played them herself. I have to admit that she is a really gifted musician ;)

Happy students with baloons :)

PS. Almost all food disappeared very quickly, which is very nice - I hope people liked our amateur & traditional bakings. :]

Coming Back

First of all, a short introduction, as I haven't been here for a while. I've spent three weeks in Poland, just because we got such an opportunity - quite a long break between the gatherings. I've spent some time with my family and friends, left most of unnecessary winter clothes at home and really enjoyed beautiful Polish spring. At first, I didn't want to go for so long, but the time passed quite quickly and at the beginning of April I was back in Nesna. As it turned out, spring also came there - the ice has melted, first flowers bloomed and days become much longer than in Poland. I was really happy, when one night I saw some northern lights - I was afraid that they will be gone when I came back. Fortunately, everything was in its place ;)