200 years ago, our second president, John Adams, wrote, “Friendship is one of the distinguishing glories of man.” Just this past month, Pope Benedict XVI said in his 43rd World Day of Communications message that friendship “is one of the noblest achievements of human culture.” If you ask me though, friendship isn’t faring too well in our so-called digital age.
In our race to become “connected”, we’ve lost sight of why we wanted to connect in the first place. Originally it was so we could better stay in touch with the people we already knew. Now it seems more of us would rather spend time with an avatar on Second Life than with the person we’re sitting across from. The Pope warned about this. He said that while the desire for friendship “is rooted in our very nature as human beings… [i]t would be sad if our desire to sustain and develop on-line friendships were to be at the cost of our availability to engage with our families, our neighbors, and those we meet in the daily reality of our places of work, education, and recreation.”
The Pope and I aren’t the only ones who are worried. Dr. Jerald Block, a psychiatrist at the Oregon Health and Science University, recently suggested in an editorial to the American Journal of Psychiatry that Internet addiction be included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) . From what he’s observed, Internet addiction consists of three main subtypes: excessive gaming, sexual preoccupations, and e-mail/text messaging. All of the variants share the same four components:
- Excessive use, often associated with a loss of time;
- Withdrawal, including feelings of anger, tension, or depression when the computer is inaccessible;
- The need for better computers, more software, or more hours of use; and
- Negative repercussions, including arguments, lying, poor achievement, social isolation, and fatigue.
I cringed when I read Dr. Block’s editorial because that used to be me. Nine years ago, I stumbled across an online forum sponsored by The Baltimore Sun . It’s quite popular and has a steady group of regulars, each with their own persona and pet cause. I never met any of them in person, but the more I frequented the site, the more emotionally attached I became to the discussions. What began as an occasional novelty morphed into a 24-hour obsession. I’d check before work to see if anyone had responded to my posts. Throughout the day, I’d check again and again to see what people were talking about. (It’s a miracle I didn’t get fired!) After work, I’d be on it until late at night, sometimes until 3 a.m. With my wife fast asleep, the only light in our condo would be the glow of the computer screen on my face as I furiously pounded out the mother of all rebuttals on my keyboard.
After numerous arguments with her over the amount of time I spent on the forums, I promised not to post anymore or even visit the site. However the rats were still in the cellar, to borrow C.S. Lewis’ phrase, and several years later I borrowed a Star Wars computer game called Jedi Outcast from my nephew. Since the last “computer” game I had played was in the 1980’s on an Atari, I was blown away by Jedi Outcast’s graphics and storyline. I quickly became a JO junkie. All of my adult life, I’ve woken up before the crack of dawn to go run and hit the gym. When I was into JO, I’d still wake up early only now it was to make a beeline for the computer and pick up the game where I left off the previous night. Thank God for my wife who once again intervened and put her foot down before I transformed into a carbon-copy of Cartman from the South Park Make Love Not Warcraft episode.
Is Internet addiction a mental disorder that deserves to be included in the DSM? I don’t know, but I’ll tell you what I do know. Years from now, you aren’t going to remember that novella of a rebuttal you posted to the online forum (and neither will anyone else for that matter). In the twilight of your life, you won’t look back and regret that you hadn’t kept your Facebook page more up to date. That’s because, unlike surfing the Net, “Life is not just a succession of events or experiences: it is a search for the true, the good, and the beautiful” (Pope Benedict XVI). So please do yourself a favor. Step back from the computer screen and look up to see that the true, the good, and the beautiful are the people right in front of your very eyes.
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