IAD Fatalities

South Korea was reminded of the tragic consequences of gaming addiction earlier this year when a couple were found guilty of starving their baby to death while they raised a virtual child in an internet cafe. The father, Kim Jae-beom 41, was sentenced to two years in prison in May after admitting neglect of their three-month-old daughter Sa-rang – "love" in Korean – while they spent up to 12 hours a time at a PC bang playing a 3D fantasy game called Prius Online.

"I think of our baby in heaven," he said. "I'll be guilty until the day I die."

His wife, Kim Yun-jeong, 25, expecting their second child next month, was given a suspended two-year sentence. While the couple fed and lavished gifts on their virtual child, Anima, allowing her to acquire magical powers as she grew, their real daughter starved in their single-room apartment. She was fed nothing but powdered milk two or three times a day, before and after her parents' marathon gaming excursions. The court heard how the couple, who met through an online chatroom, arrived home one morning last September after spending another night at a PC bang to find Sa-rang dead. The infant, born prematurely, weighed just 5.5lbs when she died.

Internet Addiction Disorder: The new dichotomy

Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) was originally proposed as a disorder by Ivan Goldberg, M.D., in 1995. He took pathological gambling as diagnosed by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) as his model for the description of IAD. It is not however included in the current DSM as of 2009, but will be reviewed for the next edition in 2013. Supporters of disorder classification often divide IAD into subtypes by activity, such as excessive, overwhelming, inappropriate pornography use, gaming, online social networking, blogging, email, or Internet shopping.

As the leader in Internet use globally, South Korea has also congruously had the most suspected cases of IAD, with a third of internet users now thought to be 'at risk' of addiction. In response to the perceived gravity of the problem, the first government funded organisation - the Centre for Internet Addiction Prevention and Counselling - began operation in 2002. With no formal definition with which to diagnose, the country has set up research units in several universities, and currently treats internet addiction as a compulsive disorder like pathological gambling or eating disorder.

Symptoms and effects include:

• The inability to perform normal tasks in everyday life;
• Losing control over emotional responses;
• Feeling nervous and anxious when not online;
• Excessive use, often associated with a loss of sense of time or a neglect of basic drives;
• Withdrawal, including feelings of anger, tension and/or depression when the computer is inaccessible;
• Negative repercussions, including arguments, lying, poor achievement;
• Social isolation;
• Extreme Fatigue;
• Impaired vision.

The newly dominating Gaming industry is strongly linked with cases of IAD

“41% of self-selected online gamers play video games ‘to escape’.”  -Source: Hussain et al., 2009

The government estimates that around 210,000 South Korean children are affected and in need of treatment, of whom 80 per cent might need drugs targeting the brain and nearly a quarter could need to go to hospital. Since the average high school pupil there spends about 23 hours per week gaming, Block notes, another 1.2 million are believed to be at risk of addiction and require basic counselling. There has been alarm over a rising number of addicts dropping out of school or quitting their jobs to spend more time on computers.

Centres specialising in Internet Addiction treatment have begun to emerge all over the world, with clinics opening in the USA and UK in 2008 and 2009 respectively. Despite still not being formally recognised as a disorder, both countries Governments have also published literature on the subject.

“You substitute the real world for this world... For two years I’ve played 12 hours a day. It was fun while I was playing but when you think of the derogatory effect it has on your life it’s not good... I would never inflect this game on anyone. It’s like a disease.”

-Liam. Suspected gaming addict. Featured on Panorama:  ‘Addicted to Games?’

South Korea: Leaders of the New Virtual

Over the past two decades, the South Korean government has strongly promoted the establishment of a nationwide Internet network. As a result, by 1999 some 22.4% of South Koreans used the Internet and by 2005, Internet use had more than tripled to 71.9% (National Internet Development Agency of Korea, 2006). As a result, South Korea has been ranked first in the ITIF Broadband rankings- the international standard- since its founding in 1999.

PC Baang hall, South Korea

In South Korea more adolescents use the Internet than do any other age group. For these youths, the Internet is not only the most common activity of daily life but also a major recreational activity. By 2005, some 97.3% of South Korean adolescents between the ages of 6 and 19 years used the Internet (National Internet Development Agency of Korea, 2006).

Generally, the concept of addiction has been applied to excessive use of the Internet. Young (1999) claimed, “Internet addiction” is a broad term that covers a wide variety of behaviors and impulse control problems. The term adopted in describing this behavior in which some people’s involvement can become so intense as to be pathological has varied, including Internet addiction, problematic Internet use, and pathological Internet use (Charlton & Danforth, 2007).

As elsewhere, problems related to Internet overuse in South Korea include addiction, circulation of undesirable content, dissemination of private information, extreme entertainment-oriented use, grammar problems, diminished vision, and lack of sleep (Song, 1999). The addictive aspect of the Internet is of special interest because it can lead to more serious problems such as mental illness, lying, kleptomania, lessened concentration, lower school grades, poor school attendance, dropping out of school, running away from home, and other family crises (Kim & Kim, 2003).’

-Source. ‘Prevalence of internet addiction and correlations with family factors among South Korean adolescents’, Park et al, 2008

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Internet Infographics

A good animated display of internet growth and organisation from the BBC here.

Internet as Religion: The New Virtual

“If only we could, we would wander the earth and never leave home, we would enjoy triumphs without risks, we would eat from the Tree and not be punished, consort with angels, enter Heaven now and not die.”

Michael Benedikt- Cyberspace: First Steps

'Congregations of the Virtual':  Left, Giotto's 'Last Judgement'. Right, contestants at a Games tournament.

Where early Christians conceived of Heaven as a realm in which their souls would be freed from the failings of the flesh, so today’s champions of cyberspace promote their realm as a place where we would be liberated from what cybernetic pioneer Marvin Minsky has derisively called “the bloody mess of organic matter.” …Like Heaven, cyberspace is a disembodied paradise for souls. 

"Today’s proselytisers of cyberspace proffer their domain as an idealised realm 'above' and 'beyond' the problems of a troubled material world."

-Margaret Wertheim, The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace

Virtual Reality pioneers have consistently hailed the ability of the internet to ossify the binary distinction of Virtual/Real, much like the Heaven/Earth paradigm of Western religion, in order to 'escape the ballast of materiality':

• Hans Moravec's 'Mind Children' hailed the promise of “downloading minds into computers so that we might transcend the flesh and live forever in the digital domain”; As the Book of Revelations promised Eternity for virtuous Christians.

• William Gibson’s 'Neuromancer' (which saw the first use of the term, Cyberspace) heralded "the bodiless exaltation of cyberspace".

• "This technology holds the promise of transcending the body." -Jaron Lanier, VR pioneer

• "We will finally find ourselves freed from the bondage to a material body." -Moravec

Growth of Internet 1995 - 2010

The 'canny invention' of Christianity was its promise of salvation to all. Cyberspace is not the product of any formal theological system, yet for many of its champions its appeal is decidedly religious. Not being an overtly religious construct is in fact a crucial point in its favour; for in this scientific age, overt expressions of traditional forms of religion make many people uncomfortable. The religious appeal, and thus the success, of Cyberspace lies then in a paradox: here we have a repackaging of 'an old idea of heaven, but in a secular, and technologically sanctioned format'.