Gaming, porn, networking: This addiction has netted all

Gen Next and Gen NET. No they are not two distinct generations that have decided to cross swords. It is just that one has seamlessly merged with the other.
For, a new form of addiction is doing the rounds of teenagers and adolescents. That is of the internet. But this is nothing new, claim city-based psychiatrists, who have coined a new term for Gen Next – Gen NET.

Although internet is too wide a term to get addicted to, psychiatrists claim that the rise is as much as 100 per cent compared to the last five years (this including the number of people who just flirt with it — simply to check mails).

“We recently conducted a survey with 400 medical students on using internet and found that the first purpose for which they used to log on was social networking website followed by educational sites. Students were found hooked to the internet 24x7, irrespective of their situation or surroundings,” says Dr Lakshman Dutt, president of the Indian Association of Private Psychiatry, Gujarat branch.

Increasing use of internet to connect and chat through social networking websites was a common reason also cited by psychiatrists Dr Himanshu Desai (consultant) and Dr Keyur Panchal (SAL Hospital).

“There is less socialising ‘offline’ and more ‘online’ — if you talk in the language of the internet. Students with high-end phones continue to chat on the mobile phone even when seated in a group,” says Desai, adding that such addiction leads to immaturity and decrease in interpersonal communication and outer gains.

Echoing similar views, Panchal says that using the phone for surfing is just another excuse for teenagers and students alike to log on to social networking sites.

“Children, aged 12-18 years, are extensively seen using these sites on internet – be it day or night. While dealing with a few such addicts in recent times, I have realised that they have developed a false impression about the site. They falsely believe that people with whom they are connected through such sites are happier than they. This leads to a depression in quite a few of these addicts,” he states.