Internet Addiction Is Four Times More Dangerous Than Drugs
Today, the world is appalled at the many horrific incidents that involve internet addiction namely adolescents playing computer games to death as a result of not eating for a week. Some have even resorted to suicide, jumping off buildings, going ballistic to the extent of becoming a zombie and even a monster due to internet and gadget addiction.
Speaking at a keynote address entitled, Establishing Interaction in Interaction Design, Prof Dr Zulikha Jamaludin said this kind of addiction had shown an increase, from 4% of world population in 2014 to 9.6% (estimated at 725 million people) in 2019 and some had expressed significant fear when they had no access to gadgets - no mobile phobia.
Problems related to the Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) have led to the establishment of IAD recovery centres, such as the Daxing Internet Addiction Treatment Centre in Beijing, China.
Studies have found that internet addiction is 4 times more harmful than drugs and brings about brain damage that is equivalent to those suffered by cocaine addicts.
“I chose this topic because its impact on children and adolescents is almost unmanageable. In our case study, there was a child who was using a mobile phone very intently, when I asked for the mobile phone be returned to his mother, he became aggressive and grabbed a fist and started to hit the table while all the while staring sharply and grunting like a monster. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case.
"I was surprised to see that the little boy had become a monster, I asked why he reacted the way he did. Apparently, he started using the mobile when he was two years old and he is now 7 years old.
“We interact a lot in different forms of interaction but we do not know if our interactions have meaning. Is it simply using gadgets without a clear goal until we turn into a zombie? ” she asked.
“Interaction Design (IxD) which refers to digital product design aims to facilitate user-to-product interaction. IxD plays a huge role in all the software used today such as Facebook, WhatApps, Instagram and Twitter.
Of the 7.7 billion people in the world, 2.4 billion people use Facebook which provides a great user experience while surfing the internet because it has strong, structured, neat and attractive interface.
But there are some designers whose interests gravitate towards taking advantage for the sake of financial gain, legacy, fame and various other interests that have brought the IxD to the dark side.
“Social approval of consumers is in the hands of technology companies, we lose to social approval because people love to own, be owned, praised, and valued.
“IxD designers are great 'investigators.' They study users in terms of interest, mood, behaviour and even facial expressions. They examine every single detail that leads to consumer enthusiasm, motivation and frustration.
Armed with persuasive psychological skills, captology, HCI, UI, UX Interaction Designers seduce users to use the applications longer, detours, seizure of control, design the way of thinking and feeling, psychological seizures, obtain user information, control users’ preferences - all at the request of customers who are willing to pay large sum of money for it.
It would not be too much to say that Interaction Designers are similar to puppets played by customers (organizations) to deceive users.
"This is one of the main reasons why users are addicted to a particular application called Internet Addiction Disorders (IAD), which raises a number of major issues," she added.
According to her, during the iPad launching ceremony in January of 2010, Steve Jobs spoke about the sophistication and benefits of his product at great lengths, after which he admitted that none of his children was allowed to use the gadget.
The ceremony ended with a request for participants to reflect on the saying The power of do good is also the power to do harm.