Shoo in for RP!

Rated, even though you detest those things (because I learned much about myself... actually I already knew I had a problem but good to be reminded)

i dont detest rates.. i just see them for what they are. to me, they are the currency of friendship here... which is cool but a bit disappointing for me personally.

i guess when i first arrived here i made the mistake of thinking they meant a post was appreciated for its merits... silly me.

Will read article.

Thing about the web is it's a wonderful (or not-so-wonderful) place for people who have problems to begin with.

Sometimes, I think, it becomes too easy to forget the blessings of pause, reflection, silence and solitude ... time alone with ourselves ... perhaps ... time ... to simply be ...

amen anna1liese!

this morning me and J walked our dogs a good mile. Was the best time spent in the last couple days for me

I was off the Internet for 48 hrs ending last night, and I found myself even more depressed and possibly mentally ill than I was when I had access to the Web. I wonder what that says about me?

some people are not able to leave their homes... i get that. but i always find myself a little surprised by the serious lack of perspective around here and other places on the intertubes.

to my mind the best cure for a lack of perspective is always to get outside YOURSELF if not the house.
there are plenty ways to give back to a society...even from the confines of your home and yes, even from in front of a keyboard.

nanna - i am afraid to contemplate what that says about you because it might make me more depressed & possibly mentally ill to think about.

I would agree completely that the internet is isolating and can cause depression or worse.
I'd also agree that it can be an excellent linking of humanity -- I love that a fellow blogger in Norway and I put on the same music to read by each evening and I have painted my door the same color blue as her garden chairs, or that I think each night of people in Minnesota and Canada and SF and The Netherlands and Australia and New Zealand and Paris (and elsewhere!) and wish them all well before I close my eyes, all thanks to the internet.
A double-edged sword, like so many things....
*sigh*

You crack me up Loriaaaaaannnnnnne! In my defense, my 48 hrs offline involved being in the county jail...

I'm not surprised at all. R.

justthinking - i think that far too many people choose to see this place as some sort of microcosm for the rest of the world & in my mind that might not be true.

many people act differently here where they know nobody can punch them in the throat.

nanananananananana! and i bet you saw fewer fights there than we did here!

Might explain some of the recent dust up behaviors here on OS...

no.
the web is like any mighty human invention.
(printing, for example...not to mention fucking with atoms...)
it is good or bad according to how u use it.
it makes people depressed? so what?
you gotta get a good depression going
in your life if you want to amount
to anything , morally , intellectually,
and spirtually.


the dark night of the soul
has a dawn.

the internet can be the Dawn of Humanity.
the interconnected Heads, the
ideas that could be come up with
if we lay down
our weary tune
of blame
and envy
and

having to justify being human.

our web is ours. let's treat it like Mother Earth.
tend it or
ravage it.

whatever.

lorianne, I agree with that too.
It's not a microcosm to me either, as it lacks those restraints we'd have in person -- like the punch.
For me, also missing is the silent solidarity or smile of a close friend or acquaintance or stranger, even, who is there for you in action and touch, by-passing the sometimes completely inadequate realm of words.....that too often make everything worse. : )

Balance is a wonderful thing.

Rated for good sense.

I apparently missed a lot on OS while I was gone, Loriannnne, but I saw many weird things in the county lock-up and that almost makes up for it. Yesterday at dinner, I had grabbed my tray of "food" and was decanting some "koolaid" into my l'il plastic cup and just happened to glance to my left and this kid had slit his wrists and blood was spurting out everywhere, which got pretty much everyone's attention. I asked the dude in the next bunk over why the kid might have done that, and he replied "He saw those green beans and decided it just wasn't worth it anymore."

james - i respectfully disagree & cannot minimize the pain of people's depression by allowing this:

"it makes people depressed? so what?
you gotta get a good depression going
in your life if you want to amount
to anything , morally , intellectually,
and spirtually."

to stand unchallenged.

perhaps that is your experience & okey dokey to that. but as a blanket statement of 'so what?' yeah... .i have seen the ravages of mental illness and as i said, i disagree.

oh nannna, please tell me it wasnt the blue koolaid... purple would be tollerable, but never the blue stuff.

The koolaid, like the food and the general ambience, had no particular color. I was in an "evaluation module" so we were in lockdown 21 hours a day and the only noises were the air-conditioning, periodic unclassifiable metallic clanks, guards' walkie talkies, and the occasional fart or fervently mumbled "Holy fucking christ these beds suck."

so yer saying the koolaid was grey? ewwww

"Ewwwwww" sums it up perfectly. I did, however, have a lot of time to think, and one of the main things I was thinking was "I really wish they had Wi-Fi here." That and "I prolly shouldn't have been a criminal."

Don't be a sissy nanatehay. Write the story and publish it. Own it. Be non-fusun-esque

I might just do that, Trog; one thing I do know is I don't want to be Fusun-esque. Here's another weird thing about the county lock-up; when I checked in on Thursday I had 49 bucks in my wallet, and, as per usual jail procedure, they made a note of that and my cellphone and keys and etc. Then, when they released me yesterday, they had taken 24 bucks out of the wallet and had given me a check for the same amount, written out by the county sheriff's department. It seems there wasn't enough cash in their register up front where people pay their bonds and shit so they needed my 24 dollahs to get 'em by 'til Monday. Cocksucccas!

Interesting article, lorianne. Just like every other product representing human progress, the good -- and I can go on and on about the good of the internet -- always has a flip side. I believe there are people online who were already emotionally vulnerable before they found their ways to the web, and the exposure to the highs and lows of virtual social intercourse can be extremely deleterious to them. And just about everybody knows how addictive these mobile broadband devices can get. People are killing themselves in cars just because they can't wait to read or return a text.

But for me, I think it might be too simplistic to say there is a direct cause and effect from excessive connectivity alone. It's way more complicated than that, IMHO.

Lezlie

Cocksucka's!

That is wild!!

thanx,
rehab for me 'n my hillbillys.

lezlie - i couldnt agree more that this is far too simplistic. yes.

i was however intrigued enough by the article to want to post it here & open up the conversation a bit more. i sometimes thing that more than a microcosm, the internet environment might be a microscope..or magnifying glass. something that is in people in the real world just seems larger under the glare of the computer screen or something like that.

anti - perhaps rehab for us all.... save me a seat by the coffee & donuts.

All I have to say is that I can't stay on too long due to pain and because I feel there are more important things I should be doing, like reading a book...you know, the kind with paper pages.

What I think happens that we adopt new families on the internet. We share our deepest feelings, we expose ourselves, and become part of the extended family of others who are also looking for connections. I think it is addictive. And we have to be careful. I agree with lorianne.
If the internet and OS is part of our lives that is one thing..it it takes over that is another. And I also agree with jmac. Strange new world!

I'm glad I can take it or leave it. I still miss the feeling of a good newspaper or a fresh Time magazine in my hands. Cellphone, Forgetaboutit~

Yes . I get the shakes when my internet is down. I periodically go computer free and drink a lot of caffeine.

lorianne, my clan is resistant to the idea of rehab. i have more of chance to get them into the dentist smiling in anticipation of root canals and root implants...actually' i'm the one needing implants and would be smiling going to the surgeon for it, but it's not covered under my insurance policy, or at least not the last time a few years ago that i had dental insurance.

Truth is, i used to get upset about how my kids, and their mother spent/spend all their time at home in between meals ---actually we rarely have meals together anymore, so rarely it escapes me to remember the last episode of such-- engaged heart and soul with electronic devices. I've found a way to permit more peace and equanimity into our family life, albeit i am yet to be content that such relative peace of mind translates into greater love and meaningfulness for/in my existence nor at times sufficiently sure exactly how my existence means anything to them more than a name on their birth certificate or marriage license, but it works nonetheless. I am learning how to 'live' electronically 'connected' in the same manner as they do. Life waits for no one, so one must make the best of it.

I think there is definitely a connection, for me anyway. Not just the internet, but television too. One night after getting home from work, I'd turned on the tv to watch a little news, then next thing I knew, it was eleven o'clock, and I'd lost four hours of my life, just like that. Until that moment, I hadn't been aware of how that happened. You turn the glowing thing on, and say goodbye to your mind.

I don't think it is personal weakness or failing, but that our minds are wired to gobble up whatever entertains and takes us away from our thoughts. This meant making a conscious decision about how much time I let myself spend online and where, and then stick to it, like exercise or diet or anything else I value as a way to take good care of my body. Fortunately being older, I get a pass for being an eccentric, because that's how you're viewed if you avoid igadgetry and social networking, as a weirdo.

The human connection part of internet life is terrific, but there is also much poison to be taken in: bad news, political misdeeds, details of horrible deaths and crimes, people trying scam and hack and abuse, porn, every dark thing there is, a click away. There are not nearly enough cute baby animal videos on You Tube to counterbalance all that!

I think there's truth to that, I can get very lazy and not want to leave my house, it's too easy to click in. I've become lazy about calling my friends from other states I lived in and I know I'm not hearing enough from reading what they put on fb. It's not the same as being around people, or even a good substitute from hearing the tone of voice on the phone when I'm more likely to know what the person is trying to say. My situation was unusual, I'd stopped leaving my house and it was a good way to start communicating again but I used it to move myself back into being around people.

As far as internet games, I didn't have many flashbacks but was plagued with intrusive memories. PTSD, the gift that keeps on giving, sigh. I found that if I played games that had a timer it stopped them. I felt guilty and stupid playing them but I found it very soothing so I just didn't tell anyone, hahaha, I could just play until my brain stopped looping and get on with my day. I'm constantly looking for ways to heal and recently I came accross an Oxford Study that had researched exactly that with Tetris and found that it did just that. Right down to them identifying how it worked and the area of the brain that creates the "videos" that would loop in my head.

I can get depressed if I'm on too long, or if I watch too much news, or even sit too much without being active. When I worked at the dot com I rarely turned on my computer at home. Funny tag, I wish I didn't think, in my experience it gives me ideas which creates problems for me. Off to read the article and create more problems for myself.

Thank you for shedding light on this. VERY interesting - and relatable. x

thanks to all of you for the conversation. i am remiss replying to comments because frankly, the madness around here had reached proportions i was not comfortable participating in or being a spectator of... so i posted and then stayed away for a bit.

but i do thank you all for your interesting comments on the topic

You have got it right.