How we are curing our news addiction
News Item: Hooked on the Web: Help Is on the Way (New York Times)
Dr.Grohol is mad again. And again about addiction. (World of Psychology)
Only last month he was complaining about the recent discovery that computer games are addicting. Now he is complaining about a recent discovery by the New York Times that the web itself is addicting. The Times has discovered that people “…spend hours online each day, surfing the Web, trading stocks, instant messaging or blogging, and a fast-rising number are becoming addicted to Internet video games.” (That’s instead of reading the New York Times, I might add.)
The Times is always careful to cite its sources: ‘”mental health professionals who support the diagnosis of internet addiction.” One of the things I admire about the mental health profession is that they rarely find a new disorder without finding a treatment that they are ready to provide. At a few hundred dollars an hour. One of the things I admire about reporters is the care they take to match their (unnamed) sources to the content of the report. You check the article and you will find that the “mental health professionals who support the diagnosis of internet addiction” said just what you would expect them to say.
Before the Internet Addiction, we had the Television Addiction. I Googled the phrase “television addiction” and found nearly 25,000 pages. But there is hope. The Internet Addiction promises to cure the Television Addiction, according to internet experts. A Google on “internet addiction” produced more than 450,000 returns. (Google hype factor 450000/25000=18.) Thus, Internet Addiction is 18 times more important than Television Addiction according to research by internet experts.
But wait! There’s more! Internet Addiction is also curing News Addiction according to internet experts. People who get their news via the internet generally get it from a source like Yahoo, where they can see the headlines and the first few lines. Usually that tells them that they can ignore the rest of the story.
Soon someone (probably Google or Digg) will automate the ignore process, according to internet experts. You will set up a personalized ignore list. News stories with key words on your ignore list will be excluded from your news pages. (A few of my picks: addiction, face transplant, avian flu, New York Times). Later someone will offer stats on the items in the ignore lists. That will give the opposite of the Hype Factor. The Bore Factor. The Hype Factor and the Bore Factor, taken together at mealtimes will cure News addiction according to internet experts.
Who are these internet experts I keep talking about? Nobody. I just made them up. Since I didn’t cite the source, no one can do fact-checking on me. It makes writing a story much easier. And my invented sources always say what fits my story. Of course, reporters would never use imaginary, unidentified sources. Would they?
But I am not one to complain about these empty news stories. Why, it seems like only last week I was writing about how ignoring irrelevant information aids memory. Come to think of it, that was last week. I can remember that because I ignored the irrelevant information around it.
I believe people can learn to filter out and ignore irrelevant information, to the benefit of their memories. But it takes practice. So I am grateful to news media like the New York Times for offering the people so much information to ignore.
Dr.Grohol is mad again. And again about addiction. (World of Psychology)
Only last month he was complaining about the recent discovery that computer games are addicting. Now he is complaining about a recent discovery by the New York Times that the web itself is addicting. The Times has discovered that people “…spend hours online each day, surfing the Web, trading stocks, instant messaging or blogging, and a fast-rising number are becoming addicted to Internet video games.” (That’s instead of reading the New York Times, I might add.)
The Times is always careful to cite its sources: ‘”mental health professionals who support the diagnosis of internet addiction.” One of the things I admire about the mental health profession is that they rarely find a new disorder without finding a treatment that they are ready to provide. At a few hundred dollars an hour. One of the things I admire about reporters is the care they take to match their (unnamed) sources to the content of the report. You check the article and you will find that the “mental health professionals who support the diagnosis of internet addiction” said just what you would expect them to say.
Before the Internet Addiction, we had the Television Addiction. I Googled the phrase “television addiction” and found nearly 25,000 pages. But there is hope. The Internet Addiction promises to cure the Television Addiction, according to internet experts. A Google on “internet addiction” produced more than 450,000 returns. (Google hype factor 450000/25000=18.) Thus, Internet Addiction is 18 times more important than Television Addiction according to research by internet experts.
But wait! There’s more! Internet Addiction is also curing News Addiction according to internet experts. People who get their news via the internet generally get it from a source like Yahoo, where they can see the headlines and the first few lines. Usually that tells them that they can ignore the rest of the story.
Soon someone (probably Google or Digg) will automate the ignore process, according to internet experts. You will set up a personalized ignore list. News stories with key words on your ignore list will be excluded from your news pages. (A few of my picks: addiction, face transplant, avian flu, New York Times). Later someone will offer stats on the items in the ignore lists. That will give the opposite of the Hype Factor. The Bore Factor. The Hype Factor and the Bore Factor, taken together at mealtimes will cure News addiction according to internet experts.
Who are these internet experts I keep talking about? Nobody. I just made them up. Since I didn’t cite the source, no one can do fact-checking on me. It makes writing a story much easier. And my invented sources always say what fits my story. Of course, reporters would never use imaginary, unidentified sources. Would they?
But I am not one to complain about these empty news stories. Why, it seems like only last week I was writing about how ignoring irrelevant information aids memory. Come to think of it, that was last week. I can remember that because I ignored the irrelevant information around it.
I believe people can learn to filter out and ignore irrelevant information, to the benefit of their memories. But it takes practice. So I am grateful to news media like the New York Times for offering the people so much information to ignore.
posted by Selby Evans at 8:59 AM
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