#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