Two Weeks Unplugged, Could You Make It?

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I remember myself two weeks ago leaving for a 15 days vacation and wondering if I’m gonna be able to make it. The challenge was real: living without any online connection while enjoying an hiking/camping trip in the beautiful national parks of Banff and Jasper both in the Canadian Rockies.

Am I addicted to the internet?

Considering the fact that my work requires that I spend minimum 8 hrs a day logged to the net and that the first thing that I do when coming back from work is turning on my computer, I would say that it might seem that I have some kind of cyberaddiction. While addictions can be healthy, unhealthy, or a mixture of both, , the situation becomes pathological when you start neglecting important things in your life because of this behavior. The problem with this so-called addiction not yet recognized by (the bible for all symptoms and treatments of mental disorders) is that, like , individuals that exhibit problematic internet use often suffer from other psychiatric disorders. Let’s just think about what people are doing besides of working on the net: adult entertainment, online casinos, gaming, social networking; these paterns of behavior can easily be associate with problems that people might also face into the offline world.

Another point of view on the topic is the one from Kim Young, who became an authority in this field and thinks that cyberaddiction is a real disorder. Young wrote she even gives a short exercise with questions to answers that will give you a rough idea if you are considered as dependents. So is CyberAddiction real, who knows? Like many things coming from the web, I guess it’s too soon to tell.

What do you do when you are on vacation?
Back to my two weeks challenge: No I didn’t made it! After a full week without any connection, I had to go check my credit card balance and my banking services… I took also the time to go through (really quickly) some of my emails. Besides this 10 minutes rush, I felt ok for another full week. Anyway, what’s the worst from being apart from the online world? Yes I’ve feared that when I’ll be back everybody would have changed from to but it didn’t quite happen (I mean not yet). I’ve also lost but think that I’ll take the opportunity to leave plurk, BTW anybody wants ? So what did I missed really, has finally launched their API, bravo to you guys. What else? I guess I’ll see when I’ll catch up with the 1000+ stories waiting for me into my feed reader.

Further info on Cyberaddiction and Pathological Internet Use

by Kimberly S. Young (University of Pittsburgh)
by King, S. A. (1996)
by Suler, J. (2004)
by John Suler, CyberPsychology and Behavior, 2, 385-394, 1999
by Jennifer R. Ferris, Psychology, Virginia Tech
by Yair Amichai-Hamburger, Galit Wainapel, Shaul Fox. CyberPsychology & Behavior. April 1, 2002

Posted in life in montreal.

2 Responses to “Two Weeks Unplugged, Could You Make It?”

  1. Says:

    i would have brought a portable laptop plus an aircard from telus. an iPhone would be handy too…

    just joking …

  2. nicolask7 Says:

    I know you’re joking but someone had this great idea to build a convention center in the middle of these mountains, so let me tell you that I’ve seen many people looking to their devices while hiking on the highest peaks of the region (specially in Lake Louise & Banff).

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