Internet Addiction?  Cyberspace Detox?  Really?  We now live in a world where the Internet is as tempting and addictive as alcohol, narcotics, gambling and sex.  WOW.  I am sure here in the US we have issues with this and there are kids and adults whose live are dictated by the Internet.  Hello…I check my email an infinite number of times a day–especially during this who waiting for a referral business.  In South Korea this whole wired world has gotten out of control.   There is now  a boot camp where you can go to break your Internet addiction.  I find this whole idea fascinating. 

Compulsive Internet use has been identified as a mental health issue in other countries, including the United States.

I just have a hard time understanding addiction to things that aren’t alcohol or drugs as these things really screw with your physical body as much as with your mental body.  But addicted to the Internet?  Really.  I enjoy being online and I blog and I read other blogs and I use to play poker online–when I had time–but I’m no able to spend that much time on line because I have other responsibilities.  I am not saying that Compulsive Internet use or Internet addiction isn’t a real thing; I guess I am just happy that I don’t have it.  I can leave you Internet if I want for hours at a time…

The NY Times has an article on it, as do other papers.  I even saw a teaser clip on a news broadcast recently.  One of the kids at the camp–most seem to be teens and young adults who have the biggest problem–said that 17 hours a day online is fine.  I have one questions.  What the hell do you do on the Internet for that long?  I have a hard time finding stuff to do online for a couple of hours.  I read your blogs and some others but that is about it.  What the hell else is there?  I know this is a generational thing.  I am old.  I didn’t have my first email account until I was in my mid 20’s.  That should help place me generationally for all of you younger folks out there who are laughing because there really is so much to do out there in Internet land. 

I fear for my kids that the online world has become so interesting and full of things to do.  When I was a kid we played outside.  I know that there wasn’t the Internet or online gaming–hell there was barely even a video game that you could have at home.  We played sports, cops and robbers, cowboys and indians, charlie’s angels, rode our bikes, and beat each other up.  Good Old-Fashioned fun.  Now kids play fantasy football and have a Second Life.  How did we get here? 

I can say that I will not allow my children to have a computer or even a TV in their room.  I will make sure that it doesn’t get to the point where they are staying up all night filling themselves up with Red Bull so that they can play some game on line and eventually drop dead from exhaustion.  How does it get this bad?  How do we get so out of control?  Technology is great but it also is sucking the life out of us. 

I know I am rambling here.  Maybe I should spend a little more time online perfecting my posts so that they maybe make more sense. 

I spend about 2 hours a day total online (if you add all the little minutes that I check email, etc).  I blog and visit your blogs (many I get in my email).  I research for school which often requires I go online through my University to access our library.  I shop online–this week I bought Christmas Cards (Shutterfly) and I read the NY Times online in the morning. 

Now its your turn…..

How much time do you spend online?  where do you go online and what do you do?  How do you handle the Internet with your kids?  I am curious. 

Who gets to decided you can’t put peanuts in Chocolate chip cookies?  Who gets to decided a Kate Spade bag is better than a Liz Claiborne bag?  Who gets to decided  that Jimmy Choo’s are better than Nine West?  Who gets to decided  staying home is better than working or vice versa?  Who gets to decided an ivy league education is better than a state school education? 

These are the age old questions of value.  I have done a great deal of thinking about what is imporant in life and why I think it is important.  These thoughts have led me to then examine society as a whole and what we value and how arbitrary these values really are.  The values that are put upon materials items are subjective.  It is amazing to me that I can get a real all leather bag for relatively inexpensive, but if I want a vinyl or just plain non-leather bag with some letter plastered all over them I am expected to pay hundreds of dollars–only because people have decided that someone’s name is more valuable than someone else’s.  It is quite laughable actually.  How the media and popular culture have us all spending our hard earned money one something that is really insignificant.  We work hard to buy things that don’t really matter and aren’t really worth what we pay for them.  The value is completely arbitrary.  The only things that really matter and have value in our lives and are worth time and effort are our relationships.  Those are the things that we will carry with us forever.  Those are the items that have a value more than a dollar amount could possibly measure.  I have to remind myself of that as I dream of all the material and insignificant things that would so not really make my life any better but the marketers say I gotta have…

Where do you place your value?