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Global Addiction to the Internet
The current explosion in popularity of social networking is not new. It started long ago in the 1996 with the launch of Hotmail webmail service in the US. Hotmail made people independent from their ISP and made email accessible anywhere in the world, as they were able to send and receive email from any connected to the Internet. The service tapped into the people's minds and we become more addicted to email, the internet.
The success of the Internet and the World Wide Web is often attributed to the concept of hyper-linking, which has many similarities to the thinking process in a human brain. Normally, thoughts in our mind are linked together. For example, when we think about an apple, our thoughts immediately connect the concept of an apple to how the apple looks, how it tastes, how much it costs, whether we like it or not, and so on. This thought process is very similar to hyper-linking. It's like having a different web page for each part of this thought process.
This is why the internet is so addictive. It's very similar to how our brain works and it "grows" on us. Social networking took this process one step further, taking advantage of the ability of our brain to become addictive to certain activities that provide us with pleasure in one way or another. If you ask anybody who is using social networking tools like Facebook or Twitter, they will confirm that it is very addictive. Like drugs. It gives people pleasure when they are followed by others on Twitter. Teenagers compete against each other on the number of friends they have on MySpace. It is addictive. It has become an additions that people are not aware of. Will it get to the point when it becomes a social problem or even illegal because of its effect on society? Something to think about.
The current generation who spends hours and hours in front of a computer or keying SMS into their mobiles - will they have skills to relate to people when they get old? Will they have "friends" "following them" when they turn 70 or 80? The current generation does not know how to wait - they want everything instantly. What is going to happen when they get old? We'll have a lot of very grumpy people. We need to prepare to deal with this now. We're worrying about Global Warming. I think we need to start worrying about Global addiction to the Internet.
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