Greg Beato Internet Addiction

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In his article “internet addiction”, published in 2010 by Reason Magazine, Greg Beato tries to show how internet addiction, an excessive behavior brought up by the psychiatrist Ivan Gilbert, is an important issue for the society and why it should be considered as a behavior disorder. He supports his thesis by using a lot of evidence such as graphics, statistics, and researches. Although, Beato’s arguments about the causes of internet addiction and the reasons why it should add to the DSM are mostly true, some of his observations on the future are pessimistic. “But who among us doesn’t already check his email more often than necessary” Greg Beato writes in paragraph 9, and his statements are extremely accurate. Over the years, we have become …show more content…

Beato stresses out the idea that “American psychiatric Association (APA) should add internet addiction to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)” by bringing up its consequences, he is extremely right. In its first conception, internet addiction disorder may appear as a negligible issue in our society since some of its effects are the promotion of the stupidity and the increase of the unconsciousness. An example of how ignorant and insensate we have become, Greg writes an anecdote about “the 18-year-old who choose homelessness over gamelessness” (para. 7). However, when in paragraph 8 he presents the tragic brief history of the young man who killed his mother and injured his father because they wanted to take his Xbox one, this leads us to question ourselves on how the internet can seriously affect our behavior like drugs. In addition, internet addiction has a negative impact on our mind. In other words, it may conduct to a depression. In his article Beato backs up this evidence with an example of students who qualify themselves “jittery”, “anxious”, “miserable”, and “crazy” (para.3) when they were deprived of their connections to the Internet. Finally, many young people have prefer their virtual life at the expense of their social life. They do not know what it means to communicate with other methods like a letter or a face to face communication. Greg support this idea by using a statistic graph. According to that graph, “more than 1 …show more content…

Beato asserts that although adding internet addiction disorder to the DSM may have some positives impacts such as the obtention of a health insurance which may cover partial fees for detox, he puts too much prominence on the bad aspects (para. 11). So we shouldn’t try to solve the problem of Internet addiction disorder? Next, Greg Beato claims “Is it too late to revert to our older, healthier, more balanced ways of living and just spend all our leisure hours watching Love Boat reruns?” (para. 12). It looks like he always resigned about our future with internet addiction. He could have end the article by using a motivation statement that will encourage people to recognize their addiction. Furthermore, through all his article he presents internet addiction, its consequences, and the solutions to treat it, but he could have given some preventive methods to avoid internet addiction. Do we not say that is better to prevent than cure? For instance, to prevent internet addiction one should try to reduce the time he or she spends on computer. Or one can find hobby or interests that will helps to keep him

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