Tools and Tricks for Information Junkies
I am an information junkie, and I suffer from information overload.
There, I've said it! And even though sometimes it seems like a momentous task to wade through the virtually endless supply of information to find and view the information that I want without wasting hours each day, there is hope. The truth is there are great tools and technologies now at our disposal, and even more exciting ones on the horizon, for tackling the information overload challenge.
First Things First
First, the reality is that many people are not aware of the advances in the "mechanics" of information capture and organization. Surprisingly, the most common tactic by far is still to simply bookmark Web pages in the browser "favorites" or "bookmark" menu. Although using the favorites menu in the browser works well for quickly storing a Web page that you might want to re-visit, in terms of organizing more than a handful of links or viewing more than one piece of information at a time, it falls far short.
For sites that have information that I want to see on an ongoing basis, I am a big fan of RSS (really simple syndication). RSS allows me to select just the information, or feeds, with which I want to stay current. Any new information that gets published in those feeds is automatically sent to me, eliminating the need for me to visit those Web sites. If you're not using RSS, go to a site you frequent and look for a link to a page where they keep all their RSS feeds. You'll find that almost every site now syndicates their content via RSS.
Browsers have features built in to subscribe to and view RSS feeds, but with a browser, I'm limited to selecting and viewing feeds one at a time. A better experience cruising RSS feeds is to use start pages like iGoogle and My Yahoo that let me organize multiple feeds in viewing panes on a page, so I can quickly scan the information for new items of interest.
Similarly, Web widgets allow me to embed a wide selection of content or functionality into my start page (or any Web page), and I can use desktop widgets to display information directly on my desktop, without needing to have my browser open. For example, you might use desktop widgets to display the local weather on your desktop and a Web widget for alerting you to discount airfares between specific cities.
But even with these technologies, some problems still exist.
As convenient as start pages and widgets are for letting me view information that I know I want to monitor on an ongoing basis, they are not meant for letting me easily collect items that I happen to come across as I'm browsing, and they don't provide visual display for Web pages (as opposed to RSS feeds and widgets). Browsers are great for letting me quickly collect Web pages, and even RSS feeds, but they are cumbersome for organizing the information. (For example, some browsers don't yet support tagging, and some don't let me select more than one item to move or delete at a time.) Browsers also only let me view one item at a time.
But there are developments happening in the industry to merge the best features of each of these product types into a single product, eliminating the need to choose and use various products based on different types of content or based on the preferred way someone likes to work. These new products work with the browsers to allow collecting any type of objects while browsing, with superior organization capabilities that make it easier to organize, and hence more easily find, objects when they're needed.
For example, sometimes I want to organize by folders and subfolders, sometimes I want to assign multiple tags to an object so that I don't have to search for it later (I can just find it by any of its tags), and sometimes I just want to flag something as important and view it later. These products also provide me with the at-a-glance viewing capabilities of start pages, so I can view large sets of content at once, without having to bring up each one sequentially. They aim to be one single place from where I manage all of my online information.
So far, however, I've only addressed the mechanics of collecting, organizing and viewing information.
The thornier symptom of information overload is finding what I want to read in the first place.
Find the Needles, Lose the Haystack
With seemingly endless sources of information at our disposal, we're still often mired down trying to find the right data amidst an overwhelming surplus of information. How do we quickly locate and parse the necessary bits of data for work productivity and personal activities? How do we separate good from bad in the nebulous online realm? Even simple tasks like shopping or making travel decisions can sometimes seem overwhelming.
We're seeing some new and interesting approaches to help sift through the online debris to more easily find the gems.
For example, social bookmarking and rating sites like Digg and Reddit have emerged to help people find articles that others have ranked highly. Searching by category lets me drill into different subject areas to see what's most popular with the crowd. The same approach is being used by YouTube for videos and Flickr for photos, and on and on.
These sites are great for me when I want a brief diversion. However, what if I want to find a needle in a haystack? These sites tell me what a huge community of millions of people think is the best content. So the latest Britney snafus and Angelina rumors filter to the top. Of course this doesn't show me the most pertinent content, just the most widely read or recommended. What I really need is a way to find the very best material, instead of merely bringing the lowest common denominator to the forefront. Ultimately, what I really want is not to find the best content for everyone, but the very best content for me.
By contrast, collaborative filtering addresses this need by either explicitly (Netflix) or implicitly (Amazon) learning about my likes and dislikes and tailoring the experience based on what it has learned from other users like me. Though there are still some kinks to be worked out, collaborative filtering promises to help each one of us find just the information that is most likely to be of interest to us. StumbleUpon is one of the market leaders in this space, combining an interesting and offbeat universe of content that one might find on Digg with the personalization aspects of Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) .
Another technique that's been gaining popularity is social sharing. Although it's similar to collaborative filtering in that I can benefit from the interests of others, the way I determine whose profile I like is explicit instead of algorithmic. For example, once someone has already done the work of identifying the information they're interested in, I can subscribe to the feeds or pages they've identified (provided they first agree to make them public). A person like me has already done the work to find the content they like. I can benefit from the work they've already done. And users can give out as much or as little personal information as they want; they can still remain anonymous if they choose. The content is what holds the value.
What's on the Horizon?
Ultimately, the confluence of these different technologies offers the promise to raise the bar on how we cope with information overload.
When I manage all of my content from a single place, when I bring together the "cream of the crop" of content across different domains, from different sources and services, it opens up the possibility for an entire new level of personalization. If I have the ability to apply the explicit ratings of Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) , the implicit recommendations of Amazon, and explicit social sharing across all of my information, not just my movies or books, then I can have a system that crosses domains to deliver high-level personalization across a larger set of content, while providing the filters that deliver only the most targeted information to me.
Sound far-fetched? Not as far-fetched as you might think. This is one of the reasons that most of the social sites are busy creating application programming interface access to their applications.
Ultimately, information overload is a surmountable challenge. The trick is to distill down the overwhelming amount of information to the manageable subset that is the most targeted to our various areas of interest. Certainly we'll never be free of the vast sea of data hitting us every day, but I believe the day is near when I will be able to say, "I am still an information junkie, but I no longer suffer from information overload!"
Regenerative Medicine Seen As Means To Repair Wounded Warriors
The newly established Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, known by the acronym AFIRM, will serve as the military’s operational agency for the effort, Dr. S. Ward Casscells, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, told reporters at a Pentagon news conference.
A key component of the initiative is to harness stem cell research and technology in finding innovative ways to use a patient’s natural cellular structure to reconstruct new skin, muscles and tendons, and even ears, noses and fingers, Casscells said.
Just more than 900 U.S. servicemembers have undergone amputations of some kind due to injuries suffered in wartime service in Afghanistan or Iraq, Casscells said. Other troops have been badly burned or suffered spinal cord injuries or significant vision loss.
“Getting these people up to where they are functioning and reintegrated, employed, (and) able to help their families and be fully participating members of society” is the task at hand in which AFIRM will play a major role, Casscells said.
AFIRM will fall under the auspices of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command, based at Fort Detrick, Md., and it also will work in conjunction with U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research, in San Antonio.
The Medical Research and Material Command is the Army’s lead medical research, development and related-material acquisition agency. It comes under U.S. Army Medical Command, which is led by Lt. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker, the Army’s surgeon general. Schoomaker accompanied Casscells at the news conference.
“The cells that we’re talking about actually exist in our bodies today,” Schoomaker pointed out. “We, even as adults, possess in our bodies small quantities of cells which have the potential, under the right kind of stimulation, to become any one of a number of different kinds of cells.
For example, Schoomaker said, the human body routinely regenerates bone marrow or liver cells.
AFIRM will have an overall budget of about $250 million for the initial five-year period, of which about $80 million will be provided by the Defense Department, Schoomaker said. Other program funding will be provided by the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, Md., the Department of Veterans Affairs, and local public and private matching funding.
Rutgers University, in N.J.; Wake Forest University, in N.C.; and the University of Pittsburgh also will participate in the initiative.
Dr. Anthony Atala, a surgeon and director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest, also attended the news conference. Atala’s current research keys on growing new human cells and tissue.
“All the parts of your body, tissues and organs, have a natural repository of cells that are ready to replicate when an injury occurs,” Atala told reporters.
Medical technicians now can select cells from human donors and, through a series of scientific processes, can “regrow” new tissue, Atala said.
“Then, you can plant that (regenerated tissue) back into the same patient, thus avoiding rejection,” Atala said.
Special techniques are being developed to employ regrown tissue in the fabrication of new muscles and tendons, Atala observed, or for the repair/replacement of damaged or missing extremities such as noses, ears and fingers.
Continued advancement in regenerative medicine would greatly benefit those servicemembers and veterans who’ve been severely scarred by war, Schoomaker said.
The three-star general cited animals like salamanders that can regrow lost tails or limbs. “Why can’t a mammal do the same thing?” he asked.
Chemotherapy's Damage To The Brain
A team of researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) and Harvard Medical School have linked the widely used chemotherapy drug 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) to a progressing collapse of populations of stem cells and their progeny in the central nervous system.
"This study is the first model of a delayed degeneration syndrome that involves a global disruption of the myelin-forming cells that are essential for normal neuronal function," said Mark Noble, Ph.D., director of the University of Rochester Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Institute and senior author of the study. "Because of our growing knowledge of stem cells and their biology, we can now begin to understand and define the molecular mechanisms behind the cognitive difficulties that linger and worsen in a significant number of cancer patients."
Cancer patients have long complained of neurological side effects such as short-term memory loss and, in extreme cases, seizures, vision loss, and even dementia. Until very recently, these cognitive side effects were often dismissed as the byproduct of fatigue, depression, and anxiety related to cancer diagnosis and treatment. Now a growing body of evidence has documented the scope of these conditions, collectively referred to as chemo brain. And while it is increasingly acknowledged by the scientific community that many chemotherapy agents may have a negative impact on brain function in a subset of cancer patients, the precise mechanisms that underlie this dysfunction have not been identified.
Virtually all cancer survivors experience short-term memory loss and difficulty concentrating during and shortly after treatment. A study two years ago by researchers with the James P. Wilmot Cancer Center at the University of Rochester showed that upwards of 82% of breast cancer patients reported that they suffer from some form of cognitive impairment.
While these effects tend to wear off over time, a subset of patients, particularly those who have been administered high doses of chemotherapy, begin to experience these cognitive side effects months or longer after treatment has ceased and the drugs have long since departed their systems. For example, a recent study estimates that somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of the nation's 2.4 million female breast cancer survivors have lingering cognitive problems years after treatment. Another study showed that 50 percent of women had not recovered their previous level of cognitive function one year after treatment.
Two years ago, Noble and his team showed that three common chemotherapy drugs used to treat a wide range of cancers were more toxic to healthy brain cells than the cancer cells they were intended to treat. While these experiments were among the first to establish a biological basis for the acute onset of chemo brain, they did not explain the lingering impact that many patients experience.
The scientists conducted a similar series of experiments in which they exposed both individual cell populations and mice to doses of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) in amounts comparable to those used in cancer patients. 5-FU is among a class of drugs called antimetabolites that block cell division and has been used in cancer treatment for more than 40 years. The drug, which is often administered in a "cocktail" with other chemotherapy drugs, is currently used to treat breast, ovarian, stomach, colon, pancreatic and other forms of cancer.
The researchers discovered that months after exposure, specific populations of cells in the central nervous -- oligodendrocytes and dividing precursor cells from which they are generated -- underwent such extensive damage that, after 6 months, these cells had all but disappeared in the mice.
Oligodendrocytes play an important role in the central nervous system and are responsible for producing myelin, the fatty substance that, like insulation on electrical wires, coats nerve cells and enables signals between cells to be transmitted rapidly and efficiently. The myelin membranes are constantly being turned over, and without a healthy population of oligodendrocytes, the membranes cannot be renewed and eventually break down, resulting in a disruption of normal impulse transmission between nerve cells.
These findings parallel observations in studies of cancer survivors with cognitive difficulties. MRI scans of these patients' brains revealed a condition similar to leukoencephalopathy. This demyelination -- or the loss of white matter -- can be associated with multiple neurological problems.
"It is clear that, in some patients, chemotherapy appears to trigger a degenerative condition in the central nervous system," said Noble. "Because these treatments will clearly remain the standard of care for many years to come, it is critical that we understand their precise impact on the central nervous system, and then use this knowledge as the basis for discovering means of preventing such side effects."
Noble points out that not all cancer patients experience these cognitive difficulties, and determining why some patients are more vulnerable may be an important step in developing new ways to prevent these side effects. Because of this study, researchers now have a model which, for the first time, allows scientists to begin to examine this condition in a systematic manner.
Feet Hurt? Stop Wearing Shoes
It took 4 million years of evolution to perfect the foot, and humans have been wrecking that perfection with every step since they first donned shoes, New York magazine's Adam Sternbergh says.
"Everyone who wears shoes walks wrong," he says, echoing the headline of his recent article, "You Walk Wrong."
Sternbergh calls the ubiquity of footwear a "conspiracy of idiocy." He points out the probability that at no point did any shoemaker say, "Let's design something that works with your foot." In the Middle Ages, for example, people began wearing shoes with higher heels to avoid stepping in other people's excrement. Today, high heels are considered sexy. Whatever their reasons for wearing the shoes they wear, people don't usually consider whether a shoe actually works with their foot, he says.
The human foot works pretty well on its own, Sternbergh says, and it doesn't need a lifetime of help from shoes. He explains the basic illogic of footwear by comparing the concept to a perpetual cast. "Imagine if someone put a cast on your arm when you were 3 years old and you never took it off," he says. "Your arm would stop working. That's kind of what's happened with our feet."
Sternbergh cites a 1940s study of barefoot rickshaw drivers in India. Scientists found that the drivers had unusually healthy feet. Sternbergh says subsequent evidence supports the conclusion that feet don't need shoes.
Why are shoes on virtually every foot, then? Sternbergh says the rationale that most urban and suburban people use is that the ground is hard and our feet need the cushioning of footwear. "But in many places in the world, the ground is quite hard," he says. "[Our ancestors] were able to absorb the shock."
Sternbergh concedes that in most settings, some form of foot covering makes sense. "I'm not going to convince anyone to walk barefoot," he says, acknowledging that he continues to wear shoes as a bulwark against glass, grime and gross things.
He may still wear shoes, but Sternbergh has switched to a model from England called the Vivo Barefoot from the Clark shoe family. Galahad Clark, son of the inventor of the Wallabee — a particularly successful, if traditional, shoe — helped develop the Vivo Barefoot. Sternbergh says the shoe is basically a slipper with a Kevlar sole, to prevent puncturing.
"They kill your heels," he says. "A traditional shoe advocate would say you need to switch back to sneakers that have a big cushiony heel." But a barefoot-walking advocate would say, "You're walking wrong," Sternbergh says. He asked Clark for advice or instruction, but Clark said walking in the shoe is instinctual.
"You'll find that your walk starts to change," Sternbergh says. "You land on your heel, but it's a much softer landing. ... A traditional shoe with a lot of cushioning is designed to allow you to walk with the bad habits that you have because you've been wearing shoes all your life."
For those who cling to their typical footwear, Sternbergh is sympathetic. "Shoes perpetuate shoes," he says, referring to the cycle of coddled feet forever needing high-tech swaddling. "It's a classic self-perpetuating system."
Court Rules ISP Subscriber Info is Private
The ruling was handed down in the case of a woman who was charged with hacking into her employer's computer system.
The court threw out the case, but said the police can investigate it again if they go through proper channels.
The Case
Here's what happened: Jersey Diesel had its IP address and mailing address listings in one of its suppliers' databases altered without permission.
Its owner, Timothy Wilson, suspected one of his employees, Sheila Reed, with whom he had argued the day the changes were made. The police were called, and they used a municipal court subpoena to get Reid's IP address and other detailed information from Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSK) , her Internet service provider.
A grand jury returned an indictment in 2005 charging Reid with second-degree computer theft for hacking into her employer's computer system from her home PC.
The initial trial court granted Reid's motion to suppress the evidence on the grounds that the subpoena was improperly issued; after a series of appeals, the case landed in front of the supreme court, which ruled unanimously that Article 1 of New Jersey's state constitution extends a reasonable expectation of privacy to Internet subscriber information, which can only be obtained from ISPs by serving them with a subpoena from a grand jury or a trial jury, or from the State Commission of Investigation.
The police can go back and get the information again from Comcast, but need a grand jury subpoena to do so.
The Other Side
The New Jersey court's ruling runs counter to that handed down by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in July 2007 in the case of the U.S. v. Forrester, in which two California men were charged with trying to set up a massive ecstasy lab in an insulated shipping container near Escondido.
In that case, the federal government installed a device at an ISP used by one of the suspects, capturing his to/from e-mail addresses, the IP addresses of Web sites he visited and the total volume of information sent from his account.
The court ruled that getting users' e-mail and IP addresses without a warrant is the same as reading information on the outside of an envelope sent by regular mail or recording every number a suspect dials, because they only deal with information and not content.
The New Jersey court's ruling will open the door for a flood of legal actions over the right to sue in a bid to get a final ruling on the issue of online privacy . "That's a tried and true methodology," Owen Seitel, founding partner of San Francisco legal firm Idell & Seitel, which has an Internet law practice, told the E-Commerce Times.
However, that may not amount to anything.
For one thing, it may not affect rulings in other jurisdictions because "courts are not beholden to rulings in other states," Seitel said.
And, if the Patriot Act or national security is invoked, state court rulings will have even less clout because in those cases "the feds will basically say, 'That's nice, New Jersey, that you afford this to your citizens, but in this situation federal law will hold primacy, and we're going to do what we're going to do,'" Seitel said.
That will also hold true if business interests are affected. "Now, everything is couched in terms of interstate commerce, there's no such thing as intrastate commerce any more, so any time a state tries to pass laws that even touch on interstate commerce, the feds will come in," Seitel said.
No Home Yet for PS3 Fans
Sony's virtual world for PlayStation 3 users, Home, has suffered its second delay since the initiative was announced a year ago. The environment, which doubles as an interface for online content, simply isn't ready, said Kazuo Hirai, president of the Sony Computer Entertainment division.
Sony Computer Entertainment pushed back its open beta test for the launch of Playstation's Home, a 3-D virtual world, from the summer to the fall, marking the second time the company has delayed the launch of the product.
Unlike traditional games, Home is a sandbox world designed to allow players the flexibility to build, create and interact with other players without directed goals. However, Home is more than just a virtual world, it's Sony's answer to the Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT). Xbox Live online service, which is why the company is reticent to roll out its product before the kinks have been worked out. A disastrous launch could set back the already reeling Playstation 3 console, which has lagged behind Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's Xbox360.
"We understand that we are asking PS3 and prospective PS3 users to wait a bit longer, but we have come to the conclusion that we need more time to refine the service to ensure a more focused gaming entertainment experience than what it is today," said Kazuo Hirai, president of the Sony Computer Entertainment division.
Big Launch
The successful Home launch would not only place Sony ahead of Microsoft in the online space but also create new revenue streams for the console, which traditionally has been sold as a loss leader.
Third-party game developers now create games that play, by and large, cross-platform, which means console developers need to find new ways to leverage their existing intellectual property. For Sony, that means virtual worlds, said Christopher Sherman, executive director for Virtual Worlds Management.
"Consumer entertainment companies like Sony are looking at virtual worlds as new revenue streams," Sherman told LinuxInsider. "Virtual worlds are a new media format that companies with existing IP are looking to leverage. Leverage your current IP and customer base in virtual worlds. Revenue opportunities include advertising , subscriptions and micro-transactions."
Enterprise Interest
Sony's dip into the virtual world creation business could pay dividends for other divisions under the corporate umbrella.
IBM (NYSE: IBM) , Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) and Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) have been working on virtual world applications that can be used in corporate settings. Tools such as virtual work space and teleconferencing are already being tested in Second Life, a popular virtual world run by Linden Lab.
For Sony, the launch of Home would give the company's other divisions easy access to emerging software tools.
"It's a whole new ball game for the Fortune 1,000 IT department, most of which haven't likely seen the technology come their way just yet," Sherman said. "Just as e-mail and instant messaging came before it, IT departments are going to have to get their arms around virtual worlds."
Hooked on Tech: How Much Is Too Much?
What's the difference between being a tech fan and a tech junkie? Should psychiatrists look at Internet addiction on the same level as addiction to drugs or alcohol? And if one's classified as an "Internet addict," are they truly addicted to being online, or is the Web just the medium though which they pursue their real vices like gambling and compulsive shopping?
Having an interest in computers and the Internet is one thing, but can going overboard with it qualify you for a deviant behavior diagnosis from a clinical therapists? That may depend on how much time you sit at the keyboard and how much that impacts your job, your family and your other important interests.
Jennifer Hall Goodwin, president of business services firm Internet Girl Friday, has given it her own layman's term: "Screen Addiction." She sees it from time to time in her career, and it's even brought about the end of budding romance.
She stopped dating one guy after two months because he wouldn't or couldn't turn off the computer screen. He would wake up and then sit down at his computer to play some online game for 12 to 14 hours, she said. When he got up from that, he would turn on the TV. When he actually left his house, he would head straight to work and then to his favorite Las Vegas hangout to sit at the video poker screens.
"He rotated between these three screens. I kept pointing out that he was wasting his life away on screens. When he told me to 'hold that thought; I just found another treasure chest,' I dumped him," Goodwin told TechNewsWorld. "I have met more than one person that doesn't even realize they are addicted. I'm talking about smart, educated 30-somethings."
Addiction Symptoms
Beyond personal anecdotes, is it possible that people can really develop a clinical addiction to computer technology, and especially the Internet? It's a serious contention among psychologists and those who treat addiction professionally.
People can become overloaded by technology and suffer consequences in their relationships, according to John O'Neill, director of Addiction Services for The Menninger Clinic. Treatment includes developing normal/healthy use, cognitive behavioral therapy, appropriate screening and boundary development, he said.
"This topic is still very controversial. We are seeing more people having this type of addiction. It is not officially classified as a real problem. Internet addiction disorders have numerous similarities with more traditional addictions," O'Neill told TechNewsWorld.
For instance, the symptoms are very pronounced in people who have trouble limiting their time on the Internet. Their use of chatting, e-shopping and porn sites starts to impact on their work and family lives, he said.
Risk Takers
Those who spend excessive amounts of time glued to a computer share a trait common with those addicted to substance abuse. For instance, they start taking risks at work by being on the Internet instead of working, O'Neill explained.
They could lose their job and risk losing their families. People suffering from this affliction often feel they cannot stop doing it.
"When they are not online, they become irritable and frustrated. These people are not swayed by the threat of consequences. They still do it," said O'Neill. These are the same traits observed when researching people with chemical dependencies of some kind, he added.
Internet Addiction?
The March 2008 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry carried an article by a psychiatrist who treats addictions, Jerald J. Block, M.D. He argued in his editorial, "Issues for DSM-V: Internet Addiction," that a disorder he called "Internet addiction" appears to be a common disorder that merits inclusion in the therapists' handbook.
The DSM, or The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, is an American handbook for mental health professionals that lists different categories of mental disorders and the criteria for diagnosing them, according to the American Psychiatric Association.
"I'm starting to see some disturbing signs related to this disorder. Actually, I view this as more of a syndrome and not a true disease. In psychiatry there are categories of illness. The DSM lists all possible categories," Block told TechNewsWorld.
Internet addiction is a serious problem, according to Block. He believes the clinical profession needs to do a better job in dealing with it because the term "Internet addiction" is somewhat of a misnomer.
It is more accurately described as pathological computer use because the affliction does not always involve the Internet. It may manifest itself with excessive game playing as well. It can be a single-user game that consumers the player's time excessively, according to Block. Excessive cell phone 
use might also be included in the description.
Dissenting View
Not all clinicians share Block's view, however. Including a nomenclature for pathological computer use in the DSM is controversial, and therapists are split on the issue of inclusion, according to Linda R. Young, Ph.D., a counseling psychologist. However, she said, she is unaware of any statistics measuring what proportion of psychologists supports the inclusion in the DSM to be published in 2012.
"The DSM-IV-TR already includes 'compulsive gambling disorder' as a specific problem within the diagnosis of 'impulse control disorders', and some psychologists who work with Internet-based impulsive and compulsive use problems, including me, share the view that Internet use problems could also be listed there," Young told TechNewsWorld.
Just as the casino or poker Web site is not the problem per se, the Internet is not the problem, per se, she said. Rather, the Internet is the medium through which dysfunctional coping may be sought. Further, treatment may vary depending on whether shopping, gaming, gambling or sex is the activity that is sought.
"Anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive and relationship disorders already have their own diagnostic codes in the DSM-IV-TR. And in the vast majority of cases of compulsive Internet use, there are also underlying problems related to inability to regulate mood, feel competent or maintain healthy relationships. Therefore, 'Internet addiction' may not be the most appropriate term, but is certainly one that the public can most easily relate to," said Young.
Use or Abuse?
What may matter most in determining a computer user's diagnosis is the degree of the behavior. People have to develop healthier ways to use the Internet, according to O'Neill.
This is a growing problem in our cyber-centric world, he suggested. How do you set limits where everywhere you go there are hot spots?
"Sufing the Web doesn't make you an Internet addict any more than drinking wine makes you an alcoholic. I'm not saying that. You have to look at the person and what the Internet activity is doing to that person and his or her family," O'Neill explained.
The problem gets out of hand because the person's family or friends are not a part of that activity. To qualify as an addiction, the Internet use has to have a real significant impact, he noted. It happens when the person is not able to look at his or her involvement with the Internet activity and set limits.