[inkblot]

Internet Addiction. Can people be addicted to the Internet? Or, is the Internet addicted to people?

Think about it. People are drawn to technology. We have to have every gadget that comes out with a microchip. It doesn’t have to be essential to life; it just needs to make life more fun and interesting. It helps even more if our neighbor doesn’t have one. You are even more cool if you are the first person to even know that it exists.

Marketing today would go nowhere if not for the networks of servers holding every gigabyte of information that we just absolutely, positively have got to know. Every business, organization, school or individual has a message to sell you. They set the bait.com and reel you in completely hooked and throw you in the.net. Add some new flavorful content and you come back for more.

Remember that thing Alexander Graham Bell invented? You know, the telephone? It’s rarely used anymore. You see a friend, but you don’t stop and talk. You say, “Shoot me an email.” When you email, you tell your friend about the hot website that you just visited. Your friend goes to that site, gets hooked, and the whole process circles.

People don’t even go out to meet other people nowadays—they stay in and sit on their booties at the computer at an online dating service. To give oneself the impression of reality, we can chat with a potential partner via instant messaging or emails, all the while sitting home at our desks eating chips and drinking. Not to mention how some will also do this in their underwear. Most males will also enjoy being able to freely scratch themselves or make obscene noises, which they cannot do in front of a woman.

Online dating is extremely popular. Enuff said, sex sells. The Internet allows us to be romantic with our computers right in the privacy of our own homes. Here we can find a new friend to have warm conversation with, or anything up to an explosion of your hard drive in the fantasies of your own mind.

Finding these sexy new friends isn’t free either. Again, sex sells. People will try almost anything once, and web designers know it—a first impression counts. If Mikey likes it, he’ll come back for more, and tell his friends—by email, of course. There is a huge market for the gender, and the e-business society uses whatever tactic necessary to promote its product.

Yes, the Internet thrives on people like us. We are needed for its very existence. The World Wide Web is addicted to people. New websites open every day, each new site demanding more and more people to come Online. And every day we hear, “You’ve got mail!”

Luv, ink

[Peanut61]

Hi Ink: Are you a professional writer? This 'write-up' could be an article in a magazine. Very good.

Warmest regards, Peanut

<font color=blue>HI FROM PEANUT</font color=blue>

[gloria]

I think I am IAA (internet addict anonimus) ha ha ha.
Mostly because it is part of my support system.
Shame on me, but that is true!

gab

[inkblot]

Hey, thanks! I was thinking about this subject last night and wrote it then. I was getting pretty tired after midnight and had to take a break and run out to the store for something to drink to do the last paragraph. I'm happy with it. I always wrote well in school and English was my best subject but I don't often show it. Sometimes I can write pretty well, and have thought about submitting little bits like this to magazines, but never have yet. I can be creative once in a while. I have one little piece about candy that, um, leaves Good-n-Plenty to the imagination! Anybody wants it, PM me and I'll send that to you. It's at least PG rated if someone uses their imagination the right way, LOL.

[inkblot]

Me, too, I love the Internet! DocJohn was kind enough to make a site for all of us people who are crazy enough to spend all of our free time at his site and socialize. Hmmm, reminds me of the coffee house on the show Friends. Personally, I tend to have this site in one window, and then open another to do email and surf other places. It's hard to leave these forums. Doc has psych patients (or other psych interests) as his target audience, and draws us in with our psychological needs of support and socialization. Works quite well, don'tcha think?

excellent piece of writing!

[inkblot]

Thank you, I really appreciate hearing your comments!

I will let you in on a secret, there are some of us who still use the phone and actually write real letters. I do. I am on my computer every day for the news, here and e.mail. But this can't take the place of a good live conversation. I've even shared phone numbers with the people that I've met at Psychotic Acres and we now chat on the phone instead of e.mailing. I do send and receive e.mail and I belong to Match.com.( I had a lovely exchange with a poet today that lives in Texas. But that's all it will be. I still like my men in person.) I did find your article to be excellent both in writing and creativity.

Ain't no money in poetry
&gt;That's what sets the poet free
&gt;I've had all the freedom I can stand