The amount of time people are spending online has increased 117% in the past five years. Much of this increase is due to the rising popularity of social networks such as Facebook, according to the annual Forrester online survey conducted this past January and February. (http://news.cnet.com )
EMU student Steve Kuroewicki, who currently spends about an hour of leisure time on the internet, says addiction occurs at,
“3 or 4 hours where you have no life except the internet”,
Kuroewicki expects the current trend of more time spent on the internet to continue. When asked if people will spend more or less leisure time on the internet in the future, Kuroewicki said,
“Probably more time because there’s so many things you can do on the internet now that you couldn’t do.”
Since coming to college, Kuroewicki has had more time on leisure internet than ever before in his life.
“I’ve never had that much time to spend on the internet until now.”
In August of 2005, BBC news reported, a 28 year South Korrean man known as Lee died of heat failure due to exhaustion after playing online games for more than two days straight stopping only to use the bathroom or to sleep briefly. As tragic as it was, Lee's experince is not the only one of it's kind.
On Oct 29, 2009, China Daily, an on-line Chinese news service, reported that a 36 year old mother swallowed 50 sleeping pills in an attempt to take her life. The mothers drastic actions resulted from her son who refused to break his habit of computer games. Ignoring his mother, the boy headed to an Internet café after which the mother attempted to kill herself.
