A Take On
INTERNET ADDICTION DISORDER
"I am logged in, therefore I am."
"I am logged in, therefore I am."
Introduction
My PC has been hooked up to the net for over two years now. Have I changed since that fateful day I did a bank
transfer to Global Online? Yes, I was literally transformed. Since December 1998 I have been unable to leave my chair.
I have vines on my hair, mildew on my butt, moss on my feet. I have fossilized. But my fingers are very healthy and
well-excercised. I am in trouble.
So I searched the internet for some check-up and help, and found a checklist to diagnose how bad it was for me. I got checks in 90% of the little boxes, so I knew I was in deep sushi. Here're the results:
I knew I was addicted to the internet because--(new entries have a New! mark preceding them)
Beats me!
Help from the Experts
I don't need help! Har!
My bookmark takes 15 minutes to scroll from top to bottom.
My eyeglasses have a website (mine) burned in on them.
I find myself brainstorming for new subjects to search.
I refuse to go to a vacation spot with no electricity and no phone lines.
All my daydreaming is preoccupied with getting a faster connection to the net: 56k...ISDN...LAN...T1...T3.
And even my night dreams are in HTML.
A typical nightmare is a page of Javascript with 2 million error messages.
I find myself typing "com" after every period when using a word processor.com
I turn off my modem and get this awfuly empty feeling, like I just pulled the plug on a loved one.
I refer to grocery shopping as downloading.
I start to introduce myself as "Claire at geocities dot com slash claireworks slash index dot html".
I step out of my room and realize that my new neighbor has moved in and I don't even have a clue when the old one left.
All my friends have an @ in their names.
When looking at a pageful of someone else's links, I notice all of them are already highlighted in purple.
My dog has its own homepage, which is really alarming, because I don't even have a dog.
I've already visited all the links at Yahoo and am halfway through Lycos.
I can't call my grandmother...she doesn't have a modem.
I believe nothing is sexier than a sumo dude in kesho-mawashi (ceremonial apron) illuminated only by a 17" SVGA monitor.
I check my mail. It says "no new messages." So I check it again.
New! I've forgotten what a real stamp looks like.
New! The last time I sealed a real envelope by hand was the week
before I connected to my ISP, which was over two year ago.
I refer to my age as 2.x.
New! I ask potential boyfriends whether they are the latest version.
New! If the answer is negative, I ask them to get an upgrade before giving me a Net2Phone call.
My phone bills comes to my doorstep in a box.
I code my homework in HTML and give my instructor the URL.
I get a lousy grade and I blame it on the teacher's low-tech browser, which couldn't open the Java applets imbeded on the pages.
I don't know what gender three of my closest friends are, because they have neutral nicknames and I never bothered to ask.
I laugh at people with 28.8k modems and Cyrix processors.
I miss more than five meals a week downloading the latest free graphics software.
I wake up at 3 a.m. to go to the bathroom and stop and check my e-mail on my way back to bed.
I tell the cabdriver I live at http://world.asia.japan/nagoya/apartment.html
I actually try that world.asia.japan address.
My virtual boyfriend finds a new net sweetheart with a larger bandwidth.
I tell my friends they can't use my pc because "I got work to do" and I don't even have a job.
I plan on buying a Captain Kirk chair with a built-in keyboard and mouse.
I am so familiar with the WWW that I find search engines useless.
New! As a form of public service, I put a large poster on my door that says
"Your Browser is Obsolete! Download and Upgrade to Internet Explorer v. 5.0 NOW!"
New! I wince at the thought of upgrading my "This body best viewed with Internet Explorer 4.0" tattoo, but I call and make an appointment with the tattoo shop anyway.
I never have to deal with busy signals when calling my ISP...because I never log off.
The last guy I picked up was only a jpeg.
I ask a plumber how much it would cost to replace the chair in front of my computer with a toilet.
I forget what year it is.
I start tilting my head sideways to smile.
I ask my doctor to implant the new AMD Athlon 800 processor in my brain.
As my bicycle crashes through a ramen shop, my first instinct is to search for the "back" button.
The remote to the TV is missing...and I don't even care.
The last time I looked at the clock it was 11:30 PM, and in what seems like only a few seconds later, everybody in the apartment run to their bikes to catch their 8:30 first period class.
New! I quit the current school I am attending and enroll myself in a Virtual University.
I create a webpage with the impression to cure the afflicted...but my hidden agenda is to get 2 million hits in my invisible tracker.
My hard drive crashes. I haven't logged on in two hours. I start to twitch. I pick up the phone and manually dial my ISP's access number. I try to hum to communicate with it. I succeed.