Online Flow Experiences, Problematic Internet Use and Internet Procrastination

Summary

For my third source, I decided to research the overuse or addiction of the internet. Using academic search premier, I found this article for Science Direct. This talks about the distinction between online flow, problematic internet use, and internet procrastination. People get so addicted to the internet that it can result in withdrawal symptoms. Its a huge distraction in the workplace and companies have to monitor their employees to make sure they are doing work-related activities.

Related to Carr's

This article relates clearly to Nicholas Carr's "Is google making us stupid?"because it shares how all this technology that is supposed to be helpful and advancing society is actually slowing us down. We spend hours on the internet trying to do one task, then become distracted because something else come up and we multitask. In the workplace, this is extremely common to do because internet flow occurs and hours will go by without even realizing it. Also, instead of researching for a work presentation, the group could easily just look up something on Google and be done in minutes. We also have a tough time concentrating on long pieces of information. This is bad for reading long papers at work and then being easily distracted to result in the work not being done. The real issue is that no one can do anything about this addiction. People continue to use the internet and read small pieces of writing so they are not able to change back to old ways. The New York Times has shortened their articles so this can appeal to more readers due to that fact that people will not read multiple pages of an article. This is a popular epidemic.

Reaction

I agree with these articles and I have been affected by these new forms of reading. I cannot sit for long periods of time reading one article on the internet. I also am not a big reader of any books and cannot remember the last time that I have read a book. I hate that I cannot complete a simple task such as writing a paper for a class or writing an email without being somewhat tempted to go on facebook or some other distracting site. Years ago this was not the issue for me but no everything is a difficult task. I also cannot function without my phone for a day and hate when people have a tough time having face to face interaction without checking their phone. I think that all these social networks are a big issue and going to be worst in the future. I do not think I have an addiction but it is definitely a distraction issue. As a student, it only affects how fast I get my schoolwork done but when I go to get a job in the business world, it will be a challenge to stay focus on task. We need to stop this before it is too late.