I decided to do a Prezi for my final paper. I became interested in the subject of digital addiction while I was researching my blog topic. While I was watching the documentary Digital Nation, digital addiction was addressed. I found myself fascinated and disturbed by the amount of Internet usage in South Korea. In a country that is smaller than the state of Virginia, and has a population of over 46 million people, over 70% have high speed Internet access. This ready access to the Internet has caused almost a social crisis in South Korea. Internet addiction is a hot topic, and in April a young couple was charged with negligent homicide in the death of their infant daughter. Their young daughter died due to not being fed or cared for while her parents played an online game. The truly horrific part was that the purpose of the game they were playing was to raise a child. With people dying in Internet cafes and teenagers exhibiting withdrawal symptoms when they can not access the Internet, South Korea has started to institute Internet curfews for school age children.
I also found some interesting clips on digital addiction and teenagers. Studies are showing that computer mediated communication (CMC) is now the primary form of communication for today's youth. Digital addiction is also linked to childhood obesity, narcissism, and isolation.
In addition I have a clip from the Frontline documentary "Digital Nation" that peaked my interest in digital addiction in the first place. The clip is of Dr Nass discussing the results from his study on multi tasking.
Overall what I realized through my own research is that digital addiction in not only for "World of Warcraft" players and on-line poker players. Digital addiction is like any other addiction and requires the same traditional therapies other addictions use to overcome it.
http://prezi.com/l5l_tupucp_l/digital-addiction/
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