AE2
December 5, 2006
Yoshi

Internet’s character and
our stress


According to New Scientist Tech's news service on 18 October 2006 in "US internet addicts 'as ill as alcoholics', " researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine in California in US interviewed 2513 adults in a national survey and found that more than 1 in 8 US residents reveal signs of internet addiction, which is known in the US like a sickness of alcoholics. Some people hide their internet behavior like alcoholics' activity and that disturbed the researchers, said Elias Aboujaoude, who is a psychiatry professor at Stanford's Impulse Control Disorders Clinic, and also he said that people are using the internet to self-medicate in a sense. In the survey, some part of the population faced serious problems, which are that they can't stay away from the internet, that they can escape instantly from the real world and that excessive internet use destroys some relationships and so on, and a large part of the population has the potential for internet problems too. He said that the number of people who are thinking of getting a doctor's help is increasing and a lot of non-essential internet use which is called Internet addiction replaces work. In addition, recently, Internet addiction is starting to be considered as a lawful disease like an economic problem. However, the problem can't be seen as coused by a particular type of use of internet. Furthermore, that the majority of internet addicts are single, college-educated, white males in their 30s and they spend about 30 hours on unnecessary internet use, is found by previous research. From this article and investigation, I guess and try to reveal and solve the factors of this internet addiction problem as internet's character and person's problem.

First, internet has much fresh information which we can like, so we are attracted by its information and their world without losing interest. This survey showed that internet addiction wasn't to special kinds of sites, so we can find that it’s by internet's common character which can affect all of us. Internet has much and fresh information and we can see every time and every situation only by sitting in front of our computer. Its amount of fresh information keeps us sitting with computer easily and for a long time. We can never see all information and information has possibility of being renewed every moment. This is one reason that we continue to be with computer for a long time and we can’t go away.

The second factor is that we can actively choose only information we like. We can only click the fresh news or something which we like to see with comfort. In internet, the right of choosing information is always by our sides and we shouldn't choose things we dislike. This is why people use internet as self-medicine, because they can do only what they like to do. If we are with television or radio we actually see or hear the information which we don't expect. On the other hand, internet can give us only what we want every time, so internet attracts people to be with them more than anything else.

Third, stress or some problem which is from ourselves draws internet addicts toward internet’s character. The majority of internet addicts are single, college-educated, white males in their 30s, said this article. In my opinion, college-educated means they can use computer with work, and single and 30s males have much time to do something and also are in the most powerful and active age for work. Therefore, they have some stress for job, relationship, and event with wives, so they can use the internet's character to escape and heal their personal problems. It also lists jobless people's stress. 30-year-olds have many worries about job, marriage, work relationships and financial steadiness, and if you are single you feel more pressure compared to other people because you don't have peaceful stability with your family. People who need to escape from the real world come to take a temporary rest from their trouble of life but they become more dependent in time because of internet’s features.

In conclusion, I suggested that internet’s character, which attructs us without losing interest and gives us only what we want to have, and people’s stress are the factors of internet addiction. Both of them work as a good cycle. People’s need can be satisfied by internet’s features with a needed rest of life, but if we are attracted too much we can’t escape from their world because they always encourage us to be with them with their special character. We must care about internet’s features and our own stress and we should not try to heal our problem by using the internet. Internet has the power to make us dependent, like alcohol, so we have to care about its evil ability. In addition, we must know our own physical and mental condition, so that we can limit use of internet to help us to keep away from internet addiction.



Reference:
New Scientist Tech staff and AFP. (2006, October, 18). US internet addicts 'as ill as alcoholics'. NewScientist.com news service.
http://www.newscientisttech.com/channel/tech/dn10322-us-internet-addicts-as-ill-as-alcoholics.html Retrieved 11-29-06.

Weblog assignment♯5

This time I visited Center for Internet addiction's 'Internet Addiction Test(IAT)' and also I assessed my level of Internet addiction. In IAT, twenty questions messure your level of addiction. You can chose one check from 1 thorugh 5 each questions; 1 = Rarely, 2 = Occasionally, 3 = Frequently, 4 = Often, 5 = Always. After checking all questions, you can know your leve of addiction from 3 types like mild, moderate or severe and you can get some coments also. My score was 12...which level am I in? Anyway, you can check your Internet addiction level in this site!

We have to care about our behavior with internet because we can also be addictor. If we have less care about using internet, we will easily have problems of time and behavior. Internet has much entertainment and information which we like, and has their special world which is separated our real world. Therefore they never make us lose interest in their world and make us forget a time and jobs which are conected our real world. Actually people use these their characters to take rest from their real hard world. Although these are good characters for us with limite, we have to know their characters well and care about it and our using time and custom of internet. It is easy for us to go to easy and comfortable way too much.

Weblog assignment♯4


I Visted the site e-bay. e-bay is a auction site which people buy and sell anything. There are many kind of used things we can buy with low price compared with new one. For example, I can buy our CESL's textbook 'Academic Encounters' with about 23 dollers. I think new one is over 30 dollars. Is this cheap for you or not? You can find and buy anything that you want to have with cheaper price thorugh this auction site.(care; all things are used.)

In my opinion, I feel some negative points, even though this kind of auction site is good for us because we can buy something less than real price which we see in a store. One reason is that you can't see the real things until you finish all things. You get the article in your home after all your proxedures, so you can't actually check that is good or bad for you. Next is someone used that things before you use. Some checks or some traces or some smells? or something, you can feel sometimes. Therefore I suggest that you need to think about these risks before you buy something.

Writing assignment♯３

AE2
November 28, 2006
Yoshi
Summary of 'Beckham casts doubts over future'

According to BBC sport, in football 'Beckham casts doubts over future', Beckham, who is the 29-year-old England captain, is wondering about his future in Real Madrid because his children were targeted by paparazzi. His eldest son, Brooklyn, who is six years old, was chased by paparazzi into a football school and was harassed by them. He and his wife Victoria have always allowed pictures to be taken of them but in this time when their son was targeted, he said "...for me it's crossing the line," and also he said "I'm at the point where I don't know what to do because it's my children now… ". Therefore he has been conected with Arsenal and Tottenham and is wondering whether he should move to Arsenal and Tottenham or not, though Madrid is great and very big club where soccer players want to play. The worse thing is that if he is transferred, Madrid has to agree a price which Arsenal says. He told that he doesn’t worry about that because he has an agent for that. However, he is actually in the struggle now because of children and paparazzi.



Reference:
BBC sport. (2005, March, 24). Beckham casts doubts over future. BBC sport. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/europe/4377793.stm. Accessed 11-14-06

Weblog assignment♯3

This time I visited "Symbolism of Color:Using color for meaning". This site's main topic is about color's meaning and symbol that color make in society. This site is almostly talking about different culture's different meanings of colors, especialy, in native Americans. But some others are about Asian color symbolism, Astrological color assosiations and color therapy and so on. If you want to know different meanig of colors compared with your country, you can just click!

In this site, I could find the article of Asian color symbolism but I couldn't agree some of them.
They wrote like this.↓(for Asia)

Red: Happiness, marriage, prosperity
Pink: Marriage
Yellow: Against evil, for the dead, geomantic blessings
Green: Eternity, family, harmony, health, peace, posterity
Blue: Self-cultivation, wealth
Purple: Wealth
White: Children, helpful people, marriage,mourning, peace, purity, travel
Gold: Strength, wealth
Gray: Helpful people, travel
Black: Career, evil influences, knowledge, mourning, penance, self-cultivation

Does Yellow means "Against evil" and "for the death" in our country? Does Green expresses "Eternity" and "family" in japan? I don't think so. 　And also I think that Blue doesn't represents "wealth". White and Gray also have problems. I think some data are not correct or there are difference between Asian countries. Therefore, is this site's data trustworthy?

Weblog assignment♯2

I visited this web site "Napster". This site is music sounds site which supplies 2,000,000 songs. You can listen to every track up to 3 times for FREE. After the 3rd free play, you need to pay for songs. If you become Napster subscriber, you can download full-length songs. Even if you don't do that you can check latest CDs because they pick up new released CDs at intervals of one week, every Tuesday. Just you visit this site and you can check most fresh CDs.

This site have good idea for advertisment. But sometimes someone will misunderstnad this adevertisment. I think this is exaggeration for advertisement. Napster says "Napster.com is Free - Register to listen to full-length music now! Fill out the information below to listen to over 2 million tracks for free." But it 's just three times for FREE. Some information are lucked deliberately. It is dishonest and overdo, just I think.

Writing assignment♯２

AE2
November 9 2006
Yoshi

Political cartoons are good or bad?


What do you think about political cartoons? Are these good things or bad things for you? I think these include both good and bad. One face is good, but the other face isn’t good. We should train ourselves to find out the truth with our own eyes because they have good and bad faces in their pictures.

First, I want to tell you about political cartoons’ goodness. These are pictures that lead us to see the political world with ease and comfort. The funny pictures attract us even if we aren’t interested in politics. Interesting illustrations make us think about government and the world’s events. Great funny teachers that are cartoons have strong skills which make us have interest in politics. And they also have sharp eyes, but it has a problem.

Second, we’ll think about political illustrations’ badness. These have sharp suggestions about something that was in the world. I know these writers have sharp minds but their expressions are always negative expressions. They always focus on the bad factors which politicians did. Sometimes I can see George W. Bush’s strange faces through the pictures. Their illustrations never praise something. These are usually in the negative side. I agree that their illustrator’s thoughts are sharp and almost right but we should hate negative criticism.

Therefore we briefly looked at the two faces of political cartoons. Knowing their character is important. If we don’t know the different type of characters, we’ll be easily influenced by cartoons’ suggestions that are negative. Be careful; these are always in negative criticism. You shouldn’t think about only the negative opinions that you see in the pictures. You should think about all factors that aren’t in cartoons. If we know this cartoons’ character, we can find that there are many good factors in other places. Open your mind and eyes with a wide sight.

In conclusion, we should train ourselves to identify the truth with our own eyes. We should not believe what just we saw in the cartoons because of their negative minds. We should extend our mind and think with wide view through the world. After that we can find the truth that isn’t just the author’s mind.