Caught in the Net

[Young, Kimberly S. Caught in the net: How to recognize the signs of internet addiction–and a winning strategy for recovery. 1998. New York: J. Wiley.]

“I don’t even help [my children] with their homework in the evening because I’m in the chat rooms, and I don’t help put them to bed because I don’t realize how late it is. I also don’t help them get ready for school in the morning like I used to do because I’m checking my e-mail. And I just can’t stop myself.”-Raymond, an Internet addict.

This book give several examples and points of views about Internet addiction. The symptom of Internet addiction is real, just like alcoholism, drug addiction, or compulsive gambling, it has devastating effects on the lives of addicts and their families: divorce, job loss, falling productivity at work, failure in school, and, in extreme cases, criminal behavior. I find this book and use it as a resource because smartphone addiction is quite similar to Internet addiction as well. Some of symptoms and negative effects are appropriate for these two addiction types. High-tech addiction shows dark aspects of tech goods, which also leads to faceless communities and more distant relationships.

In Caught in the Net, Kimberly Young shares the results of her three-year study of Internet abuse. She presents the stories of dozens of lives that were shattered by an overwhelming compulsion to surf on the Internet, play games, or chat with distant and invisible neighbors in the timeless limbo of cyberspace.

#Theory