Internet has great advantages but also disadvantages. In the future, the more technology develops, the more problems probably will appear. To take care of the problems, the professional care will be required, but it seems to take time to well done, and to be secured on the Internet.
Before thinking about how to solve problems from the side of information giver, or disadvantage giver, I think it is more important to think about how people should use it usefully, and know what happens when they fail to use it correctly. Using Internet is the choice and the right for any people today. However, people need to take more responsibility to fulfill the opportunity given to them. People need to learn how to use Internet appropriately to fulfill their purpose beneficially but also safely. As a receiver of information that is given with enormous amount, which is including some unneeded or useless information, people need to choose what they need for them.
They also need to evaluate the information before they utilize it. The situation is similar to facing the mass-media, such as TV. The negative influence that TV gives on people, especially on children, is well known. And for both TV and Internet, the choice is left for people to do. To be a wise user is the only way left for people to protect oneself on the Internet world with own responsibility.
In the case of TV, the information delivered from TV is possible to be altered by changing channels, programs, and cable programs. In that way, people can choose what they want and can eliminate what they do not want from TV. The quality of programs are mostly recognizable by the title of the programs, by the time that the program released on TV, and by the target audience that is assumable and visible right on TV. However, on the Internet, it is rather hard to judge the quality of information right away by vision or ear. On the Internet sites, information is almost categorized by its quality but topics. To choose what they want from the text, people need to be more careful and take more time to evaluate than choosing information from TV.
It could be dangerous for people who use Internet without knowing its functions well. People should observe how the use of the internet influences on their life styles and life qualities. It is not an appropriate or wise attitude that people immediately admire the internet as a "new technology," which often refers to focus on the only positive side of the technology.
Technology always accompanies both its advantages and weakness. When people take the technology in their lives, that means they are also taking in some disadvantages that arise because of the advantages of the technology. And the defects of the technology might lead people in serious trouble in reality of their lives. What they need is to strategy to use Internet safely, and they should know the facts about Internet with including negative side of the Internet using. How people acknowledge their degree of danger is the key to be a user of Internet, not to be used by Internet or technology.
According to by Joan C. Henry, the author of "Establishing Personal Jurisdiction for Internet Transactions," he mentions that "By the year 1999 that figure is expected to grow to 200 million Internet users." That makes assumption that over 200 million Internet users are existed at this point in this year of 2001. "The Internet is not a physical or tangible entity, but rather a giant network which interconnects innumerable smaller groups of linked computer networks. (ACLU v. Reno, 929 F. Supp. at 830)." Main two methods that connect people are using electrical-mail, and using World Wide Web. "Once information is published on the Internet, it is available to Internet users worldwide. (Id. and Johnson and Post)." Once someone put his or her name on Internet, his or her name might be immediately available through worldwide.
However, "The Internet is a cooperative venture, owned by no one, but regulated by several volunteer agencies (MTV Networks v. Curry, 867 F. Supp. 202, 204 n.1 (S.D.N.Y. 1994)." Even though there are names flowing on the Internet, they do not belong to anybody. If Internet is owned by no one, the names and numbers will be nobody’s. Nobody is really existed in the world of the Internet.
Depression, is the psychological term that depicts some mental disorders, and "is a serious medical illness.(Cowan)" "A depressive disorder is an illness that involves the body, mood, and thoughts. It affects the way a person eats and sleeps, the way one feels about oneself, and the way one thinks about things. ("Definition of Depression," Look Smart.com) What I knew as an assumption for this research was that people who spend much time using the Internet tend to show that they have depression. Although I did not know which goes first, the degree of using the Internet and feeling depressed is interacting with each other. Using the Internet makes people isolated, or people who have isolation and loneliness in their minds are easy to dip themselves into spending much of their time using the Internet.
Depression is a vague term as being diagnosed. The disorder symptoms are consisted of other bunches of disorders. For example, anxiety, sudden emotional changes, panic, phobias, mania, addiction and obsessions. "When doctors talk about depression, they usually mean major depression. Someone with major depression has five or more of depressive symptoms everyday, all day, for 2 weeks or longer. If you are depressed, you may also have head aches, other aches and pains, digestive problems, and problems with sex or lack of desire for sex. ("Depression," American Family Physician)"
Major depression is manifested by a combination of symptoms that interfere with the ability to work, sleep, eat, and enjoy once pleasurable activities. The symptoms of depression include:
Depression can be harmful and affect very strongly to all areas of a person’s everyday life, including family relationships, friendships, and the ability to work or go to school. "Many people still believe that the emotional symptoms caused by depression are "not real," Dr. Cowan explains, and "that a person should be able to shake off the symptoms if only he or she were trying hard enough." Because of these inaccurate beliefs, people with depression either may not recognize that they have a treatable disorder or may be discouraged from seeking or staying on treatment because of feelings of shame. And he adds, "Too often, untreated or inadequately treated depression leads to suicide." Depression affects nearly 10 percent of adult Americans ages 18 and over, the number is spreading out. Women tend to get in depression compare with men.
In a two-year study showed that the continuous Internet use affects some social behaviors. Randomly selected families were given computers and instruction an Internet use. After 1 to 2 years, "increased use of the Internet was associated with decreased family communication and reduced size of local social circle." "In addition, the participants experienced increased loneliness and depression."
Another study was investigated whether higher levels of Internet use are associated with depression and social isolation among adolescents. Eighty-nine high school seniors were administered a questionnaire that measured low (less than 1 hour per day), moderate (1-2 hours a day), and high (more than 2 hours per day) Internet use; relationships with mother, father, and peers; and depression. Low Internet users reported better relationships with their mothers and friends, as compared with high users.
With asking the amount of time for using Internet, the students were asked questions about the quality of relationships with parents and friends to measure their intimacy scale. For example, "How much do you go to your mother for advice /support?" and "How much does your best friend accept you no matter what you do?" The questions are similar for best friend and both parents, yielding subscale scores for relationship with mother, relationship with father, and relationship with peers.
The low and high Internet groups were compared on the relationship and depression scales. "Low Internet users, compared with high users, had significantly better relationships with their mothers and friends. No significant differences were found between low and high Internet users in terms of relationship with father and depression." The results indicate that high Internet use is related with social ties. Students who used Internet less keep better relationships between them and their mothers and friends than students who spend much of their time on using Internet. Mothers and friends are the very close social community for people to connect themselves with the outside world. Students spent much times on the Internet uses their energy to communicate and connect with the empty world, a world that no one really exists, a world he/she had created by oneself.
Even though the results did not show the increased Internet use is related to depression, I think loosing communication or refusing contact with the closest relationships can be a beginning of social disorders, loneliness, isolation, or any kind of depressive behaviors. If they even want to continue to increase the amount of time spending on Internet, that situation itself can be a cause of depressive acts.
One of the feature, and more precise word to describe the relationship between Internet and depression, would be "Internet Addiction Disorder." Within the depressive disorders, "maniac depression"and "anxiety disorders" are the common mental illness to the people who are addicted to Internet. "An estimated 5-10 percent of people who use the Internet can be classified as having a problem," various online surveys report. According to the American Psychological association, that translates to 200,000 cyberspace addicts. "It surprised me how destructive the Internet apparently was in their lives, and how much they liked being online," said Dr. Nathan A. Shapira, and assistant professor of psychiatry at UF’s College of Medicine. "Of those we evaluated, some had very profound problems, like staying online 3 days straight at a time. A number failed out of school, and a bunch had affairs or were losing their jobs."
In his study, most of the 20 participants (11men and 9 women whose average age was 36) had experienced problems for 3 years. Their heavy Internet habits led to devastating social consequences: severe marital strife or even divorce, failure in school or on the job, substantial debt, and isolation from friends and family. "Many went without sleep, were frequently late for work, ignored family responsibilities, and suffered financial or legal consequences. (Ross, 2000) Those participants in the study spent roughly 30 hours per week online average, during their non-working hours. Most were employed, but logged only about 3 hours a week, related Internet activities. They favored being chat rooms, exchanging e-mail, surfing the Web or engaging on multi-user domains. They liked the thrill of being multiple sites simultaneously. Dr. Shapira explains that overall the people we evaluated were intelligent, very nice, and well-respected in the community, and they had good jobs and families. Participants’ problems were compounded by other multiple psychiatric problems. Most of all met the criteria for maniac depression or a psychotic disorder with similar features. Others had a history of anxiety disorder, substance abuse problems, impulse control disorders, and eating disorders.
The remarkable established diagnostic criteria for the family of psychiatric illness that every study participant’s Internet use met was impulse control disorders. That includes "kleptomania," a recurrent failure to resist impulses to shoplift, and "trichotillomania," a recurrent pulling out of one’s hair. Dr. Shapira has coined the problem "Internetomania" since the addicts’ behaviors are so closely interacted each other. "It’s interesting, because in impulse control disorders what you see is someone who has a building urge or anxiety about doing a behavior, and until they do that behavior that anxiety or push or drive won’t dissipate,"he said. "Once they’re done that behavior there is often pleasure or relief associated with it."
Also, Dr Shapira confesses, "Larger studies are needed to definitely determine whether Internet addiction is a distinct disorder, merely the symptom of an already-characterized psychiatric problem, or both." The questions are remained. Since these individuals displayed a significant amount of treatable psychiatric illness, 'Are we talking about a distinct disorder or something that is a symptom of these other psychiatric illness?"he said. More importantly, the center of the investigation is that "Does the Internet put people at risk?:" Did people have trouble have trouble regulating Internet use because they had a pre-existing psychiatric illness, or did they develop an illness because of Internet use? Is Internet itself damaging people, or people are hurting even harder themselves by using Internet? People need to know it soon.
The major treatment for these disorders is receiving psychiatric medications, "a wide variety of anti-depressant medications. (Cowan)" More effective treatment is use of combination of medications and psychotherapy. Psychotherapy involves communication between patients and qualified therapists and is aimed at helping patients to modify troubling thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. It is a way for people to learn coping strategies for dealing with the conditions that may have triggered depression in the first place.
As Dr. Cowan says depression as "the invisible disease,"the degree of the damage is very hard to see on each people. Without being appeared, people can be undermined the digestive disease, that can change them completely. Since those changes are very close connected to inside of personal situation, background, and feeling, I feel scared that any elements of inside that person can be stick together with any of elements that Internet provides us, and they create illness or disorders like a chemical reaction. Internet is also a technology that human being had created for human desire. That point can unconsciously give invisible common connections to between human being and Internet technology, even though we feel facing technology usually.
"Anonymity, convenience, and escape," Dr Young, who is the executive director of Pittsburgh’s Center for On-line Addiction, explained how cyberspace enables addictive behavior. I see a reflection between human desire and those three words that are charms of Internet. He also predicts, "There’s something about this that’s unique compared to TV, which is not interactive."