The following two messages were sent by me to the Ireland On-Line IRC (Internet Relay Chat) mailing list. I have put them on this page largely as a result of a series of discussions that have been taking place on another Ireland On-Line mailing list (the "usergroup" list) recently, concerning Internet Addiction, and the strange relationship that some people have with their computers - a relationship that can go so far as actually giving the computer a name.
Make of them what you will :)
At the end I include a list of the Top Ten Signs of Internet Addiction.
Click here (or use the Back button on your browser) to take you back to my homepage.
so.....
i got my phone bill t'other week....
4th one since i got connected....
ah, now! dont worry gang - i aint contemplating suicide or anything.:)
coz to tell yez all the truth, i was happy when i read it.i must be
doing
something right at last. its the smallest one i got since joining the net.:)
ok... so when i compare it with my pre-net bills, its still about 80
quid
more than i used to pay. 80 quid's a lot o' money to a poor small-farmer
like me (did i mention that i'll be back on the small-farmers assistance
in a week's time - when my fás scheme finishes?).
hey! but just think about it... 80 quid for 60 days... works out around
1.35
a day. now that doesnt sound as bad...
& the things that 1.35 is getting me.....
i read the irish times, the telegraph, the uk times, the belfast times
-
even an phoblacht - every day! wonder what they would all cost me if i
were
to buy them in the newsagents? not that i would buy some of 'em [i'll leave
it to u to decide which ones i wouldn't support by actually *paying* for
them:)]
its so easy to quickly check the articles available, load those that
interest
me - a quick 'select-all/copy' - switch to msword & paste, & save
- & come back to them later when off-line to read them in detail.
....& the email! personal email from all round the world. it's amazin
how many people i am suddenly corresponding with. it'd cost me a fortune
in stamps if i were sending them by snailmail. & the speed of email!
how many times have i sent a message to canada or the us, & had a reply
back within hours? (minutes sometimes!)
....& the newsgroups! hardly seems to matter what yer interest might
be, there appears to be at least one group that will cater for u. ham radio?
computer games? a particular tv program? discussions on drugs? fine art?
there's almost a newsgroup for any taste (ok.. u might have to connect
thro'
a news-server other than iol to get some of the groups - but thats easy
enuff
to do, even when u connect to the net itself thro' iol).
....& the search-engines! a neighbour of mine (a dutch national,
who's
also a nurse) had heard that euthanasia had been legalised in australia.
could i find him the details? so i goto alta-vista, enter "australia
euthanasia"
in the text box, click "search", & five minutes later i have
a copy of
the two relevant acts of parliament & a statement of the law as it
stood
on july 1st last (after the second bill was passed) - all safely saved
in
msword! doesnt seem to matter what topic i want to check. - stick the topic
into a search-engine & i usually finish up with more info than i can
handle.
....& the mailing lists. i am subscribed to so many that i sometimes
find it hard to even *read* the mail that comes in - let alone respond
or
post new messages. chatty lists [like this one :)], humour lists, "serious"
lists, political (in the real sense) lists, u mention them - i'm subscribed
to them.
....& irc. need i say anything about that?.:)
....& the friends ive made [u know who u r! :)].
hey! my phone bill would be worth it if it was 10 times as big! [erm....:)].
see yez!
NightOwl.
--------
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well...
i suppose one never knows just how addicted one is to the internet until
it is suddenly denied.
like, ok, i knew i was starting to use it a lot. but i didn't realise
just
how much a part of my life it had become until i tried to connect to iol
tonite (i am writing this monday, 13 jan, btw), and got the error message
"no dial tone" from dialup networking. i picked the phone up
and found exactly
the same thing. everything was dead.
and, of course, this had to be around 4.30pm - so by the time i got
to a
neighbours to report the fault to telecom, it was too late for them to
do
anything this evening. they "hope" (encouraging word that) to
get me
up-and-running again tomorrow.
i feel as though part of me has been amputated. i've found myself sort
of
walking back and forth,wondering how to occupy my time. i suddenly can't
access my newsgroups and online newspapers - i can't get e-mail messages
in or out (and i have a good number queued) - i'm missing the news from
the
various mailing lists i am subscribed to (like this one) - i can't log-in
to irc to chat my friends...
as i say, i never realised i was a net-addict until this happened. i
just
pray to my own personal deity that i get back on tomorrow. too long offline
might drive me to drink - or worse.
actually, this brings to mind a mail that i nearly wrote to this list
over
the christmas period. i "deferred" it at the time, mainly as
i was worried
that some of what i was intending saying might have been taken the wrong
way, in the light of the pk2 affair which broke upon us around that time.
maybe now is a good time to try to remember what was in my mind at the time...
you see, i had been thinking about this strange relationship that i
seem
to have with my computer. several incidents, conversations, etc, had made
me consider this...
for example, gurm had been asking for advice and criticism for the essay
he was writing about the psychology of communication on the internet. one
night he was talking to me about a term that he used in the essay. that
term
was "transference". when i asked him exactly what he meant by
it, he said
(he'll probably say i took him up wrong now:)) that it was to do with the
way that we look at other people - or computers - and adapt them to our
way
of thinking. he went on to suggest that we may come to give our computers
a "personality" - and even treat them as we would perhaps treat
other people
- like our parents, for example. basically, i think that what he was suggesting
was that we start to consider the 'puter as another human being, whom we
may love or hate, depending upon circumstances.
around the same time, i had a very weird experience one night with my
'puter.
i was chatting someone on irc (actually, it would be more true to say that
this happened in the early hours of one morning, rather than late one night)
and the other person suggested that we !fserve each other. in case you
don't
know, this means that you give the other person access to your hard drive,
and they can get a list of directories and files, and read files, and even
transfer them to their 'puter (mind you, as far as i know, they are unable
to actually alter anything on your hard drive).
I said "ok" and typed in the command to give the other person
access to my
hd. mirc immediately brought up a box warning me that i must absolutely
trust
the other person, and the choice of 2 buttons - one to say i did - the
other
to say i didn't (and so cancel the session). i was a wee bit worried to
begin
with. there is nothing actually on my 'puter that is "illegal"
or anything
like that - but there is a lot of "personal" stuff, if you follow.
so i hesitated for a few moments, mainly considering just whether i
really
did trust the other person. anyway, i decided that i did, so clicked on
the
"i trust this person" button...
...and for the next five minutes or so, i could see the other person
browsing
thru different directories (i had given total access to drive c:), reading
certain files, and even transferring a few files back to his 'puter. actually,
i was at all times able to see which files were being accessed, and could
have cancelled the !fserve at any time had i wanted.
what struck me at the time, however, was the strange sensation that
i had
whilst all this was taking place. i had the feeling that i was suddenly
naked
and that it was *me* that was being explored. there was almost something
sensuous about it - as though real fingers were probing different parts
of
my body. and there was this feeling that, because some of the stuff that
i have on the 'puter includes personal writings, etc, i was suddenly allowing
someone to actually access a part of me that i might usually keep hidden.
anyway, the session was ended by the other person eventually, and then
i
was allowed to access his drive c:. nothing more was ever said between
us
about the session - indeed i wonder if i would ever allow anyone that sort
of access again.
i happened to mention this !fserve session to someone else a few days
later.
that person said that she didn't think that she could allow someone that
sort of access to her computer. the expression used was "my computer
is mine!"
it was then that i realised that that isn't how i see my computer. it
isn't
something that i just possess, like a car or a fridge. it has become more
than that. because it contains so much of what is actually me, it has become
a part of me. although i may talk about "my computer", i don't
think that
i any longer mean that in the same way that i might talk about "my
car" or
even "my farm". there is so much of *me* now inside the computer
- things
i have written, things i have "learnt" and temporarily stored
on the hd,
memories and records of e-mail exchanges and irc conversations, etc - that
if i talk about "my computer" i do so almost in the same way
that i might
talk about "my left foot" or, probably more to the point, "my
brain".
no, i'm not saying that the computer has taken the place of the brain
i was
born with. i think what i am saying is that i feel that it has become an
extension of that brain. particularly since i got connected to the internet,
so that i am now able to actually communicate with other people using my
computer. what i am saying is that, whereas the person i was talking to
said
"my computer is mine!", i think that i would be more likely to
say "my computer
is me!"
so i suppose that i have to disagree with gurm's "transference"
idea - at
least in so far as how i personally interact with my computer. i no longer
see the computer as another individual, who may dominate me or whom i may
dominate. instead, i see it as a part of myself, and so i cannot dominate
it or be dominated by it.
the only trouble is that, just at the moment at least, i have lost my
connection
to the outside world. so the computer suddenly seems less powerful than
it
was. as i said above, it's almost as though a part of me has been amputated.
or it might be more correct to say that i feel as though someone has performed
a lobotomy on me.
ah well... that probably made no sense to any of you at all (assuming
i ever
get connected again and you ever actually get to read it).
don't worry gang. it'll probably be a long time before i write anything
so
boring again. i'll try and make the next one a little less serious. maybe
its getting time for another cattle mail - or a progress report on my seasonally
affected disorder - or.... something....
ok, i'm going...
hope to speak to you all again....
....sometime.
NightOwl
--------
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button on your browser) to take you back to my homepage.
Finally, here's one of my favourite "signs you are addicted" lists:
Top 10 Signs You're Addicted To The Net:
10. You wake up at 3 a.m. to go to the bathroom and stop and
check your e-mail on the way back to bed.
9. You get a tattoo that reads "This body best viewed with
Netscape Navigator 1.1 or higher."
8. You name your children Eudora, Mozilla and Dotcom.
7. You turn off your modem and get this awful empty feeling,
like you just pulled the plug on a loved one.
6. You spend half of the plane trip with your laptop on your
lap...and your child in the overhead compartment.
5. You decide to stay in college for an additional year or two,
just for the free Internet access.
4. You laugh at people with 2400-baud modems.
3. You start using smileys in your snail mail.
2. The last matel you picked up was a JPEG.
1. Your hard drive crashes. You haven't logged in for two
hours. You start to twitch. You pick up the phone and
manually dial your ISP's access number. You try to hum to
communicate with the modem.....
.....You succeed.