According to recent research, using the Internet can provoke feelings of loneliness and depression, and possibly severe mental illness, reports The Daily Beast.
Journalist Tony Dokupil gives an example from life: American Jason Russell once stripped naked, went out to an intersection and, pounding his hands on the asphalt, shouted something incoherently about the devil. Russell was diagnosed with reactive psychosis.
Doctors explained this by the fact that Russell suddenly found himself in the center of attention of the whole world: his revealing film about the crimes of warlord Joseph Kony gained a record number of views on the Internet. “The same virtual instruments, which relied on Russell's noble mission, seemed to put pressure on his psyche: they brought down an endless avalanche of praise and reproaches on him,” the author writes.
At first, suspicions that the Internet could irreversibly affect thinking and emotions were considered naive speculation. But Dokupil says: "The first meticulous studies peer-reviewed by the scientific community appeared, and the picture was much darker than the triumphant fanfare of Internet utopians."
The modern Internet - mobile, high-speed, built around social networks, all-pervading - may not only dull us and not only enhance our loneliness, warns the author. There is evidence that the Internet inflames anxiety and depression in us, susceptibility to obsessive-compulsive disorders and attention deficit disorder and even form psychosis.
“Today, we are all cyborgs,” says MIT psychologist Sherri Turkle. We are constantly connected to the Internet, and today it seems normal to us. But computer technology is becoming a panacea for all problems, just like alcohol, the author warns.
Today in the US, more than a third of users go online before getting out of bed. Scientists have identified "phantom vibration alert syndrome." “More than two-thirds of these normal, ordinary cyborgs, including myself, note that they think the phone is vibrating, although in reality there is no call,” the author explains.
Scientists have concluded that the Internet creates a completely new mental environment, a kind of "virtual state of nature, where human consciousness turns into a rotating console," according to Dokupil.
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Neurologist Peter Wybrow calls computers "electronic cocaine" - they say, they cause bouts of manic fun, followed by depression. The Internet “feeds our fixes, addictions and stress responses,” “encourages - and even develops - insanity,” adds California psychologist Larry Rosen.
In China, South Korea and Taiwan, this diagnosis is already recognized by the medical profession, and internet abuse is perceived as a nationwide crisis. In these countries, tens of millions of people are considered Internet addicts. At least 10 users have died of thrombosis.
“I have observed a lot of patients who in the past did not suffer from any addictions, including chemical ones, but they become addicted on the basis of the Internet and other technologies,” says psychiatrist Elias Abujaud (Stanford University). According to him, even among white middle-aged Americans, one in eight, if not more often, shows at least one symptom of Internet addiction.
But perhaps everyone is free to decide whether to use the Internet? Nothing of the kind, the author is sure. “We are attracted to new technologies by the potential for short-term rewards. Each beep is a possible chance in social, sexual or professional life, and we get a mini-reward, a mini-dose of dopamine, for running to the call,”he writes.
Chinese scientists have found a link between Internet addiction and "structural abnormalities of gray cells": the parts of the brain responsible for speech perception, memory, motor skills, emotions, sensory sensations, etc., dry out by 10-20%. Moreover, the degradation does not stop: the more time a person spent in the network, the more the brain atrophied.
Another gloomy conclusion of scientists: the more time a person spends in the "global village" of the Internet, the worse his mood. “Using the Internet often interferes with sleep, physical activity and face-to-face communication, and this will make even the most cheerful person yearn,” explains the author. An additional factor is unpleasant incidents during virtual communication.
The aforementioned psychologist Sherri Turkle, in her book Solitude Together, paints a veritable dystopia about the depressing alliances between humans and machines. She warns that when “mothers are breastfeeding babies while filling in sms,” the child may think that the mother is unhappy with him, although in fact the negative comes from the sms.
Today's high school and college life is a hassle, Turkle found. “All life is in plain sight, in the lens of a webcam, every mistake is fixed and becomes known to everyone and is ridiculed until new fun is found,” the author explains.
Meanwhile, Abujaud is testing a hypothesis whether some of the virtual masks can not be considered true products of a split personality.
The psychiatrists brothers Gold, Joel and Ian concluded that the Internet affects the psyche in much the same way as living in a metropolis: the risk of psychosis increases.
What to do? The author gives only one piece of advice: do not take the relationship with the Internet for granted, but analyze what is happening and try to influence it. “Thoughtless complacency is no longer appropriate. While we are still able to change the Internet for ourselves. Our mental health is at stake.”