Here is the link of the news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8551122.stm

Actually it was two adults, who were parents of a South Korean baby!

The parents (father: 41 years old, mother: 25 years old) lost their jobs earlier and were then addicted to an online game on raising a virtual baby, while their real baby was dead by prolonged malnutrition! They fed their baby once every 12 hours and spent rest of the day playing online game. After 5 months of the death of their baby, they were arrested by local police. An autopsy showed the baby was starved to death. (Poor thing…bless him!)

We often think online game addiction is a teenage problem, or least it should not affect adults over 30…who should be very unfamiliar to the internet. However, in this case we have realised this might be the case in our country but certainly the problem is worse in other countries where internet is very accessible, like South Korea and Japan. (For reference of broadband speed of Japan and South Korea, please read South Korea And Japan Are Blitzing The World At Internet Speed - By Information Week)

To most readers of this blog, I would imagine you are very young, possibly not over 30 or so…formost of us, internet is a must of our life.

I was born in the 1990s, when internet was developing in an extreme speed that no-one would imagine. My father was a computer guy and he bought many hardware and software of computer of that time. I remembered he bought me some of these very first CD-ROMs of children computer games with basic animations in it. It costed him £80 for just one simple children game, well, it should cost less than £5 in 2000s! Then quickly everyone swifted into the Internet age, everything was online…online banking, online games, online mail etc. I am one of those who have been using IT since I was 3 so computer and the Internet seemed like a part of life to me.

Now moving on to 2010, everyone is SO into Facebook, Bebo, Twitter, Plurk…how many hours do people spend on Internet? Some of us will have mobile internet service, and how often do we use it? These are great inventions and we must make good use of them. However, as Cheryl Cole claims in her song, ‘Too much of anything can make you sick, even the good can be a curse’!

I think most people cannot achieve self-control when it comes to internet but I have some suggestions for people who would like to get a life, real life, not virtual life on Facebook…

1. Try virtual volunteering: if you’re an expert in IT, why not use your talent to help other people? Many chairties now offer an alternative option of volunteering. You can do loads of stuffs to help them e.g. translation (if you’re bilingual/ trilingual), proof-reading, copy-writing, designing posters, mentoring young kids etc. You can check out some more in here: What can a virtual volunteer do? & Virtual volunteering)
2. Discover and try new hobbies: don’t just sit with your computer on…get up to find something interesting that involves moving! You can do sports, music or art lessons in your local college or leisure centre! You will meet new friends and get proper life!
3. Take on an extra course other than what you’re doing right now: ever thought of achieving something e? Why not take on a first-aid course…or try cooking foreign cuisines?
4. Do something related to your studies right now: are you academic? Do you want to do well in your exams or essay of your degree? Well, make this as your motivation and work hard towards your goals! Say if you have spent an hour in revising, then reward yourself in 30 minutes of surfing! If you have other goals like an aspiring career in mind, why not make this your motivation?…like ‘I want to be a nurse and I must work hard towards my degree!’

What are your suggestions for people addicted to the Internet?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 12:08 pm and is filed under In The News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.