May 12, 2013, by Kiran
Are YOU an Internet Addict?!
Hi, my name is Kiran Benawra and I am an Internet addict. At the moment I have 16 tabs open and no idea how it happened (are you now counting how many tabs you have open?!) If you can’t cope a week, a day, an hour without being connected to the World Wide Web then you suffer from this addiction too. Other symptoms include constantly checking your phone, sending people pointless links, physically freezing when the internet freezes, and having a mini breakdown when a power cut strikes.
Experts have speculated that this addiction is caused by the underlying need to feel connected to the outside world and other people but the internet is not always the solution and studies show that it can actually be unhealthy. For example, yesterday night I had an online conversation with my cousin as to whether beds are so sensitive to the cold that they need duvets for life support which escalated to whether duvets are beds’ skins and when we take them off they are skinless. Not. Healthy.
Especially at this time of year, when essays are due and revision needs to be done, the internet simply enables procrastination. Here are some examples:
1. Bringing up Google with the best of intentions but proceeding to ask it pointless questions like ‘Are spices part of a food group?’, questions Google is clearly sick of answering (Sorry Google):
2. Youtube. I don’t even need to explain this one…
3. Convincing yourself that you are conducting useful procrastination by searching for jobs online. However, this is not the way to go if, to quote my little brother, ‘you want to get a good well paid job!’ Fantasising about all these potential jobs we could have is no good if we don’t actually pass our degrees. When this realisation kicks in, you stop searching for jobs and it’s on to the holiday hunt. Once again though, you can’t afford a holiday without ‘a good well paid job!’ Endless cycle…
4. Reading this blog. But…
So how do we get over this? This is the plan of action: turn your wi-fi off, find someone you trust to change your Facebook password, forget Google books and go get a book out from the library and if that fails smash up any computer in sight. That last one was a joke. Don’t do that. If you see a computer and feel the need to log on just RUN!!!
p.s. If you really want to find out if you are an internet addict take this online test http://bit.ly/TE4wA
p.p.s That was a trick and if you clicked that link then you are an internet addict and have joined the population of the procrastiNATION
Title Image: Flickr
16 tabs? Casual.