I AM NOT A “TWITTER ADDICT” (AND NEITHER ARE YOU)
c2009 By Rick London
I grew up what one might call fortunate. I had all “the opportunities” in that I came from a successful and well-known family. Two of my family members were two of the most well-known worldwide in their trade, one a poetess, and one a U.S. Supreme Court Judge. Being “successful” is such a misnomer in our culture. As Leo Tolstoy pointed out in his opening of Anna Karenina, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”. . Success is not “just more money”; in fact money often has very little to do with it. It is about happiness combined with a healthy lifestyle, loving family and friends.
The western world is still learning that depression, addiction, and other emotional disorders exist and pays no mind to social status. My own family had its share of alcoholism, addiction, suicides
and much trauma. I am not sure why, I survived, but I did, after many years of “acting out”. I returned to college at age forty-four. I learned new skills and a trade. I learned to love stability, nature, know how precious family, friends and other loved ones are, the necessity of communing with nature and animals, and taking care of my body/mind/and soul.
There is still way too much stigma attached to addiction, depression, and other real medical ailments, in which the one afflicted cannot help it any more than one suffering with cancer, diabetes, heart disease, or multiple (you name the disease).
These other diseases do not have stigmas. In fact the only two disease of which I am aware in which the person suffering from the disease is “identified with the disease”. For example, if a person walking down the street with congestive heart failure is seen, nobody says “There goes a heart diseased person”, if someone with cancer is observed, nobody says “There goes a cancerous person.
But if someone has an addiction, you can almost be sure, they will be described as “their disease”. “He/she is an addict” or “He she is an alcoholic”. Same is true with depression. “There goes Bill, he's
depressed you know” (as if that is the only asset Bill has...depression).
How do we stop this stigma. I believe the first step, has more to do with society (NOT afflicted with these diseases), than those with it. For instance, as innocent as it might seem (and cute/funny) to say “He/she is addicted to Twitter” or “He she is an Internet addict”; it lessens the severity of the scope of the disease. It may seem harmless, but it is not. Do I sit in judgment? Of course not. I used to say the same thing, until it came to my attention, I was furthering the stigma, therefore making it harder for struggling people to find real medical treatment.
I have worked in writing, media, and the entertainment business for almost three decades. The media has covered it so thoroughly, and how epidemic these disease are in it, that it would be redundant to
go into here with a sermon.
So who can facilitate change? I believe the media can. Major network media. They need to understand that “it's just not funny” to compare constructive, productive social networking such as Twitter or Facebook (or whatever) with a fatal disease such as an addiction. The “leader sets the tone” and in our country, the leaders, are often in the media.
I hope that one day, a brave, insightful “major media player” will read this article and help facilitate that it is “as uncool to correlate lethal diseases, and pin tags of modern day society at work, when, all it does is further the stigma, hence the depression, and finally death of the person suffering.
Please think about it. I am not for censorship, and anyone has the right to “make light of addiction, etc with the gratuitous “I'm a Twitter Addict”, but if you can see the harm it does, perhaps you'll think twice. There are millions of sufferers in our country, who need and want help, but won't get it, simply
because of “the jokes”, though done in fun. I know nobody means harm. But it is time to be conscious of this very serious stigma that we are prolonging, and deterring sufferers from receiving help.
Thank you for allowing me to share my views.
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3 comments:
If you mean to say that by using terms like net/twitter addiction, we are bringing them to the same level as alcoholism or drug addiction, thereby reducing the seriousness of the latter diseases and preventing people from seeking help, you may be right.
On the other hand, alcoholism and drug addiction are not yet problems that are openly discussed or even admitted. By making the term "addiction" loosely applicable to drugs, alcohol as well as Twitter, it might make the alcoholic or drug addict open to admitting he has such an addiction and realizing that like net and Twitter addiction, he/she can get rid of it.
Finally an addiction to the internet can and does affect the life of the sufferer and his family as seriously as alcohol and drugs.
I appreciate your desire to be sensitive to people's suffering, and to wish never to create hurdles for those who struggle with addiction.
Some hardliners would support your argument, not because more sensitivity is needed, but because they don't put internet, twitter, shopping, or porn, in the same category with substance addiction. Here's what I think. Brain imaging shows that chemical changes occur in the brains of people who indulge in porn, internet, etc. excessively. And as Rosemary points out, excessive means that the activity interferes negatively in a person's daily life.
Families of workaholics suffer similar damage to families of drug addicts. Essential to any addiction is the choice to isolate--turn away from connection to people. My crazy twitter friends joke about our husbands "demanding eye-contact"; I open Twitter with my first cup of coffee, two addictions in one sitting! We are joking, and we do turn away from twitter to our husbands, gladly! But the seeds of addiction are there, and could come to full bloom with the right conditions.
Sure, I can stop saying addicted and say hooked instead, but that means the same thing to drug addicts, and it might be the kind of silly hair-splitting that spawned the political correctness movement.
So that's my story and I'm sticking to it!
Thanks Rosemary & Jamie for your comments. As I said, not many would totally understand THERE IS a huge difference between a form of networking (even if done often); it is the way the world do business, and a lethal disease. I watched family members die all around me, from the bottle or suicide. So did Mariel (as everyone knows from history). It is "no big deal" when we do it, I've done it, until I realized
I was lessening the severity of a lethal disease. Nobody for instance would say "I have that cancer called Twitter" because it
is not even close.
Yes brain imaging DOES change with images on net or any other media. ANd thank God. Because of that I was able to go to college (one of the best) at age 46 and get an education.
Porn: Sure can be abused. I don't use it but know couples who do and it has saved many a bad marriage. I'm not here to judge if it is right or wrong.
Like milk and eggs, porn, I'm sure can be abused.
A major network respected news announcer should know this, and, he made a joke even further to one of my associates (I see the whole family are Twit Addicts (of course it is in the genes")
Her grandfather a very talented man took his own life due to depression/alcoholism, as did her sister.
I have lost just as many and and nearly lost my great great aunt, probably one of the world's most well-known poets for similar reasons. She did die at 38 of "depression" but of coure they called everything "cancer" back then.
I appreciate your comments. I just know as a human who (may be too politically correct) tho this is a first of that moniker for me, I will keep restraint from even joking since I know what it does, as far as getting people the right help.
If we did that about cancer, or even heart disease of which I suffer CHF) people would be dying daily from not seeking help also.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Rick
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