Internet Addiction

1673 Words4 Pages

Internet Addiction
Introduction
While some media news and reports seem to be truthful in their effort to inform and educate the public regarding internet addiction, it is not surprising to see bad science and misinterpretation presented in others on the same issue. The media coverage of internet addiction is damaging and blowing the issue out of context. The widespread internet concern is reinforced and underpinned by media reporting about internet addiction and young people, characteristically stressing its destructive consequence on the physical and mental health of users. This creates an immediate call for public and social attention. The media are replete with anecdote of internet victims, although they fall short of dependable statistics. It is apparent that the media loves to scandalize and hype.
Media is a major source of news and information about social problems. Increasingly newspapers, television and radio news and talk shows, either for sensationalism or out of sheer ignorance depict social problems in away that lead audience into making invalid correlations. Reading or watching news about internet addiction issue may lead audience to believe is real and can be generalized. Media coverage offers that internet addiction shares negative facets of alcohol and drug addiction (Brian 110). For instance, symptoms of withdrawal, tolerance, negative life impacts, and craving are present. As Johnson (690) points out, internet addiction has resulted in consequences like failing school, relationships and family problems.
Some of the media reports on the consequences of internet addiction are constructed to make the news appealing. Media studies indicate that media reports focusing on pornography’s additive possibility claim ...

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...ion, it’s difficult to make a clear cut between normative use of internet and internet addiction.

Work Cited
Bocij, Paul. “The Dark Side of the Internet: Protecting Yourself and Your Family from Online Criminals.” Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2006.
Brian, D Ng. “Addiction to the Internet and Online Gaming.” Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 8, 2(2005): 110-113.
Johnson, Bankole A. “Addiction Medicine: Science and Practice.” New York; London: Springer Verlag, 2010.
Liu, Fengshu. “Urban Youth in China: Modernity, The Internet and the Self.” New York: Routledge, 2011.
Mick, David G., Simone Pettigrew and Cornelia Pechmann. “Transformative Consumer Research for Personal and Collective Well-Being.” New York: Taylor and Francis Group, 2012.
Yellowlees, Peter M. & Shayna. “Mark Problematic Internet use or Internet Addiction?” Computers in Human Behavior 23 (2007) 1447–1453.

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