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Should Internet addiction be treated as mental illness?

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internet-addiction.gifAdmittedly, there is a growing number of people who are hooked on the Internet because of social networking sites, chats and emails, illegal downloading, online games and of course the never-ending saga of pornographic video clips and images.

I can only imagine the frustration, withdrawal symptoms and incessant craving of many people to connect online when that mysterious cut of 5 undersea cables in the Middle East took place.

That’s why it comes as no surprise that some medical experts are pushing to make Internet addiction as an official mental disorder. The Ottawa Citizen reports that Dr. Jerald Block, a psychiatrist at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, pushes to include this in the upcoming Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. [Read more…]

Originally posted on March 17, 2008 @ 10:31 am

China now the world’s largest Internet market

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china-internet.gifIt’s inevitable. Reuters reported that Beijing-based research firm BDA claims China has outpaced US as the world’s biggest Internet market in terms of its users.

However, these are all based on projections and not on actual count. Based on data from China Internet Network Information Center, Internet users in the Great Firewall of China reached 210 million in 2007. Nielsen/NetRatings, on the other hand, records that US Internet population totaled 216 million in the same period.

Analyst Bin Liu said that if you simply assume the growth rates of both markets will remain the same as in 2007, you can easily conclude China is now ahead of US. Though China will certainly outpace US, this projection fails to factor in market trends shaping this industry in both countries and simply assumes all things to be equal.

Originally posted on March 13, 2008 @ 11:14 am

China blocks YouTube and Google News access

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free-tibet.gifChina is doing what it does best in times of crisis – block Internet access to control the flow of information. News and blogs report China has blocked Google News and YouTube to curb the distribution of video footages covering the violence happening in Tibet these days.

This trick is patterned after Myanmar’s signature move of cutting off Internet access to control information gathered during the last protest against military activities staged by Burmese monks.

Several videos were uploaded at YouTube showing peaceful demonstrations and marching. But there is also a restricted video showing the actual riots and injured bodies during the demonstration in Tibet. Even though this brutal clip is restricted to 18 years old and above, it is the most viewed video with more than 80,000 hits to date.

Originally posted on March 17, 2008 @ 1:33 pm

Sayonara illegal downloaders in Japan

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geisha.gifThe war against illegal downloaders will soon come in Japanese homes due to growing grumbling from music, movie and video game industries. It seems a tougher stance is needed since early measures to curb this problem were futile.

A news article reports that Internet service providers in Japan will issue a warning via email to all users notorious for illegally downloading files. Failure to stop this addiction would result to termination of connection.

Currently, there are about 1.75 million Japanese who are using file-sharing services and most are sharing pirated copies. If mininova, TorrentSpy and The Pirate Bay are the top sites in the US, Winny is the most popular in Japan.

Next month, Japanese ISPs will meet with different groups concerned with copyright infringement to flesh out the details and implementation of this plan.

Photo via The Age

Originally posted on March 17, 2008 @ 6:20 am

Syria expands censorship, includes Internet cafes

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Reuters reports that Syrian authorities have ordered Internet cafe users to reveal their identity by getting their names and identification cards of their clients as wella s the time they come and leave. A Syrian monitoring group, Syrian Media Centre, said that this is another censorship measure from the government.

The records are to be presented regularly to the authorities, who targeted bloggers and Internet writers in recent months as part of a renewed campaign against dissent.

Originally posted on March 14, 2008 @ 6:12 am