ITV’s Addicted to the Internet Current Affairs Programme

Last night I watched a TV show called “Addicted to the Internet”. There was a bloke on the show who apparently never went out of his home and just spent all of his time in front of his computers. They challenged him, as part of the show, to go for 72 hours without using his computers. It was a real ordeal for him and he made a video diary of the process. He was obviously being tortured and was in an almost docile state of mind – he was bored out of his brains.To relieve the boredom he decided to go to his local swimming pool. Despite having lived in his home for 23 years he had to look up a map in order to get there. Using the Internet to find the map, he failed to complete the challenge.Once out of the house and walking I am sorry to say that even putting one foot in front of the other didn’t seem like a natural process for him. In a social environment he looked like a fish out of water. In fact it reminds me of my university days when most of the computer geeks that I saw on a daily basis looked just like this chap. I don’t have anything against people who live most of their lives in cyberspace, but I think they should know the disadvantages of this imbalanced lifestyle.The show then went on to arrange a meeting between the “addict” and a professional addiction counsellor. The upshot of the conversation was that the councillor said that there was no doubt in his mind that he was looking at an addict. The accused defended himself by saying, “Could I stop? Yes. Would I want to? I can’t see the point.” This is an interesting viewpoint and I suppose that all addicts would say the same thing: “Could I stop smoking? Yes. Would I want to? Why stop smoking if I enjoy it?”After the show had finished I watched a football match between Liverpool and Toulouse. I started to ask myself whether the professional footballers were also addicts by this definition. If you asked them to stop playing football and then they would probably say “I could, but why stop doing something that I enjoy?” I guess the differentiating point is whether the habit is generally harming the individual.I’m only guessing, but I’d imagine that football probably has a detrimental affect on family life. With all that training and match play to be done, their family would not see them as much compared to a normal 9-to-5 job. But when you are being paid £80,000 a week, who is going to complain about an addiction like that? They put themselves at high risk, not just from injuries but also from not being good enough to make the big time. Who knows how many countless thousands of wannabe players dedicate their lives to football only to find out that they can’t make the grade? In addition, sport is such an ingrained part of our culture; popular heroes are often footballers. Perhaps that is the real reason why football it is not considered an addiction, but the Internet is.