Human Behaviour in Internet

Internet Paradox Study

2008-06-26T05:52:00.000-07:00

The Internet Paradox study (Kraut et al., 1998) found evidence of a causal link between Internet use and depression, but it may have been specific to novice Internet users.The relationship between Internet use, social support and depression was reformulated drawing on social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1997) to account for the possible influence of self-efficacy, Internet-related stress, and perceived social support.The Internet paradox study (Kraut et al., 1998), part of the HomeNet project at Carnegie Mellon University, provided important preliminary evidence of the possible harmful effects of Internet use.The results were also paradoxical in the face of competing, if inconsistent, evidence of the positive social impacts of Internet use. Wynn and Katz (1997) emphasized the inherent "situatedness" of Internet use in a broader social context that makes it impossible to completely separate the virtual world online from the real world off-line. Ethnographic research suggests that online communication supplements existing real world relationships rather than displaces them (Hamman, 1999).Wellman and Gulia (1999) concluded that online relationships can be strong and intimate and may strengthen real world relationships as much as diminish them.Surveys (Katz & Aspden, 1997; Parks & Floyd, 1996; Parks & Roberts, 1998) indicated that the Internet spawned highly developed online relationships, many of which led to real world social contacts, suggesting that social isolation might decrease with greater Internet use.In a Pew Research Center poll (Pew Research Center, 2000) most Internet users said that e-mail had improved their connections to family and friends, and those perceptions increased the longer users had been on the Internet and the more they used it. other scholars have warned about the potential harmful effects of online interpersonal communication, blaming online technology for disrupting real world networks (Heim, 1993; Stoll, 1995) and creating a "lonely crowd" in cyberspace (Kroker & Weinstein, 1994). Turkle (1995, p. 235) pointed out the absurdity of the notion that community can arise from among people sitting alone, typing messages to virtual friends. Nie and Erbring (2000) found that as Internet use increased, users were more likely to report a decrease in time spent talking to family and friends and attending social events. Online relationships may develop less interdependence, understanding, and commitment than comparable off-line ones do (Parks & Roberts, 1998).

However, all these studies make the possibly mistaken assumption that face-to-face relationships are inherently superior to online relationships (Hamman, 1999; Parks & Roberts, 1998) and neglect the possibility of hyperpersonal online interactions that may be more intimate than their offline counterparts (Walther, 1996). Aside from Turkle's ethnographic case studies (which are contradicted by Hamman's, 1999), the hypothesis that online relationships diminish real world relationships has sparse empirical support. Riphagen and Kanfer (1997) found that e-mail users had more distance relationships than non-users and that the total number of relationships was about equal, suggesting that local (presumably strong) ties suffered as a result of having e-mail.

Social cognitive theory provides a comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding human behavior, social interaction and psychological well-being (Bandura, 1986; 1989; 1997) with which we propose to reformulate the relationship between Internet use and depression.The self-efficacy mechanism (Bandura, 1977; 1982; 1997) pertains since it describes the cognitive processes that relate the acquisition to the performance of new behaviors.

Whereas Kraut et al. found that Internet use caused depression, which was also directly linked to stress, the sociocognitive view differentiates the relationships among these effects. According to Bandura (1997, p. 153), depression results from "the inability to influence events and social conditions that significantly affect one's life," while stress is an emotional state generated by threats and taxing demands (p. 262). Adversity leads to depression when people create a depressing social environment for themselves, provoking social rejection through their own alienating behavior.College students are one such lonely and depressed population (Rich & Scovel, 1987) for which social support buffers the effects of stress on depression (Cohen et al., 1986) and for which the Internet paradox might be stood on its head. Indeed, the situation of college students exposes the questionable assumption of equating distant ties with weak ones.

References

Kiesler, S. & Kraut, R. (1999). Internet use and the ties that bind. The American Psychologist, 54, 783-784.

Kraut, R., Patterson, M., Lundmark, V., Kiesler, S., Mukophadhyay, T., & Scherlis, W. (1998). Internet paradox: A social technology that reduces social involvement and psychological well-being? American Psychologist, 53, 1017-1031

Kraut, R., Mukhopadhyay, T., Szczypula, J., Kiesler, S., & Sherlis, B. (1999) Information and communication: Alternative uses of the Internet in households. Information Systems Research, 10, 287-303.

and many more not mentioned here....

Kid and Technology

2008-05-25T00:11:00.000-07:00

For those who do not know how to avoid excessive online usage or how to deal with the fastest technology today called Internet-please do not hesitate to ask any question here. I will try my best to give you best answer which can heal your sufferings.

It is not easy to say that you have been suffering from what kind of behavior and what kind of anxiety level but it would certainly give you smooth advice on how to reduce it. The pain is there already you just need to feel the pain and come here to ask how to get less effect or less pain.

It is all about us-it is about you, me and everyone related to the technology. The communication aspect is here. We want to communicate but is the communication helping us stay longer online ? How about the best solution for the problem we are currently facing such as addiction, gambling, porno, gaming and many more.

How can we come up to the exact solution ? The solution which will give us how much should we stay in Internet. How long we should spent our time or even if we have to stay longer in the internet how much time is enough ?

Staying in the pond for more than longer period of time-will it help ? How long will it take for us to stay and understand the behavior usage of the technology. It is other side of the coin. We have now at our fingertips the information but what would we do of these information ? Why are we being engaged ?

Some times I feel we are being ruled by the technology. We are going too far from where we have started. It is soon going to create a problem in our life. It will surely create lot of problem these problems will not come rapidly but they will arise slowly and as the number grows.

It will give us one optimum result and it will then stop. I have a belive that every new technology is just like a toy to a kid. The kid uses the technology for certain period of time and once he gets fed up with it, then slowly he stops the usage of it. But What if the technology is growing and becoming such that it does not want to leave a kid alone.

A kid want to leave a technology but technology does not want to leave a kid. In such a situation-Either he has to take rest from the technology or let the technology take rest. Information superhighway goes nowhere. It is there and it will be there till the time you want it to be.

Danger of Internet Dating.

2008-05-24T23:45:00.001-07:00

Internet Addiction

2008-05-24T23:42:00.001-07:00

Journey begins.

2008-05-23T09:28:00.001-07:00

One cannot say how the luck will turn on your way and you finally get your article published in a great publication. I was happy to get accepted my first research article in a reputed publication-IEEE Potential.

It was a good moment. Now I am doing the Master thesis on the same topic. Understanding the behaviour of the human is just like asking too much. One has to understand one single behaviour, there are many things to consider from addiction, learning, feeling and many more.

What would be the effect of this technology which is growing by numbers. Every now and then. Are we really getting addicted ? Are we really learning something ? What is that we are doing ?

What is the best optimum solution to our problems ? What would happen if people sleep in internet ? These are some question which needs to be answer. The solution seems to be easy, it could be as if it does not matter to most of the people how long they use the service but the thinking differs, as we are bound to take care of our health the most important issue is- how much of the use is enough ? How could one reduce the anxiety of the users ?

I am happy to find something new on the topic. I will be glad to show you that one day I will try to make the difference, it is not for me it is for us. The work I am doing on the topic is for all of us. It is for the Mankind, humandkind and all of us. I choose this topic just because I made this topic. The idea here is to join us, technology and our behaviour or attitude.

Whatever be the situation or result I would put my efforts for the same. I hope GOD will give me the support and my mind will work out for the dream that I have made to achieve something for all of us. I am not enough to do it on all my own. I may need your help, I wil surely need the help of those who have been doing lot of hard work in the same topic or similar topic related to it.

I will be thankful for their effort to. I hope to give you suggestion, in case you need them. Please feel free to ask any question regarding it. I will try my level best.

Let the journey begin !

My Internet Addiction Score

2008-03-17T03:21:00.000-07:00

I took a survey for the addiction of internet in the website which contains http://www.netaddiction.com. Here is the result of the survey :

Score=31
"You are an average on-line user. You may surf the Web a bit too long at times, but you have control over your usage."

I think I have to write a script for doing the same and put it in my website. It will be useful and I will ask the people to go through it. By doing so I will conduct the study on number of people being addicted in the Internet.

Cheers !'

Treatment

2008-03-17T03:04:00.000-07:00

The October issue of the Cyber Psychology & Behavior Journal published the first study to examine treatment outcomes with Internet addicts. The study conducted by the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery examined 114 patients over 12-weekly sessions and upon six-month follow-up after termination. Results showed that clients gained symptom management by the 3rd session and were able to maintain complete recovery after 12 sessions and at six months after treatment ended. The main and most successful treatment with Internet addicts is cognitive-behavioral therapy and the study supports that CBT is the primary therapy to use in treating Internet addiction. This is the first study to examine specific treatment variables with Internet-addicted patients and shows long-term potential in treatment recovery.

To learn more please read the full article published by Mary Anne Liebert entitled, "Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy with Internet Addicts: Treatment Outcomes and Implications" is published by Cyber Psychology & Behavior, Vol. 10, No. 5, pages 671-679 (October 2007).

(Copied from:http://netaddictionrecovery.
blogspot.com/ )

Are you addict ?

2008-03-17T03:02:00.000-07:00

I enclosed an article published in 2000 entitled, "Is Internet Addiction Real?" Some of the point is that it shows where we as a mental health field were at that point in time. We were asking the question as this concept was so new and still evolving. Today, we do have more research, more findings, and more clinical treatment settings devoted to Internet addiction recovery. I thought it would be interesting to ask the same question today to see what online users thought.

One of the true signs of addiction is that a person experiences negative consequences as a result of something, whatever it may be - alcohol, drugs, or sex. With alcohol and drugs, a few common consequences are DUIs, jail time, and the loss of a job and/or relationship. A natural consequence for sex addicts is catching STDs. What are the consequences of Internet addiction?

In August 2005, a 28-year-old South Korean man died – not by committing suicide, but after playing the game Starcraft at an Internet café for 50 hours straight. By all reports, the man had not slept properly and had eaten very little in that time. While no autopsy was performed, he was believed to have died from heart failure stemming from exhaustion. A 13-year-old Chinese boy died falling from a building. His parents are suing Blizzard Entertainment, makers of World of Warcraft. The boy was allegedly re-enacting a scene from the game. In the Nevada, a couple ignored their two toddlers to the point of neglect due to their gaming addiction.

The children of Michael and Iana Straw, a boy age 22 months and a girl age 11 months, were severely malnourished and near death last month when doctors saw them after social workers took them to a hospital, authorities said. Both children are doing well and gaining weight in foster care.

Police said hospital staff had to shave the head of the girl because her hair was matted with cat urine. The 10-pound girl also had a mouth infection, dry skin and severe dehydration. Her brother had to be treated for starvation and a genital infection. His lack of muscle development caused him difficulty in walking, investigators said. The prosecutor said, “They had food; they just chose not to give it to their kids because they were too busy playing video games.”

Attorneys said the Reno couple was too distracted by online video games, mainly the fantasy role-playing “Dungeons & Dragons” series, to give their children proper care.

Studies from China, Germany, Italy, Iran, Pakistan, and India have also documented cases of Internet addiction. Given the dramatic effects reported and studies on the consequences of compulsive use of the Internet, the question is "Do you think Internet addiction should be given the same status as other addictions?"

(Copied from: http://netaddictionrecovery.
blogspot.com/)

Marriage Suffering

2008-03-17T03:01:00.000-07:00

I received an emaiil today made me want to share this. Repeatedly, studies find that Internet use has a negative impact on marriages. In my first study on Internet addiction, over 50% of respondents said that they suffered marital problems because of their Internet use. It is how I first got involved with this study, as a friend of mine's husband became addicted to chat rooms, which led to their divorce.

In the email, Maggie has been married for 3 years and they do not have children. She writes, "We are both 28 and I thought we had a strong, open and honest relationship; other than the normal marital issues. He started playing World of Warcraft and finds playing this game takes his mind off his concerns, but it has become a problem, he plays all the time. Everything we had together seems to be slipping away."

"I mentioned to my husband that I didn't want to be replaced by a cybergame, and I think that is finally penetrating. After I mentioned that I felt intimacy between us was difficult (to put it mildly) with a computer in the way, he seemed to realize that I was seriously feeling pushed aside. For the past few weeks he hasn't been spending as much time on it. Now I hope this continues, but it is early to tell! I don't want his GRUDGING attention, so I guess I will have to be patient and persistent. I know our relationship IS first for him, so I think he will fight this "addiction." I will suggest we play together - in real time, not online! I do have a backgammon board somewhere (now why didn't I think of that myself...)"

Even if online relationships aren't sexual or involve cybersex, they can still lead to marital problems. Just the basic neglect of the marriage can impede intimacy and trust for a couple. Maggie feels confused yet hopeful that she can regain his attention in a meaningful way.

(Copied from: http://netaddictionrecovery.
blogspot.com/ )

World Wide Telescope

2008-03-01T05:34:00.000-08:00

John B. Watson

2008-02-28T13:44:00.000-08:00

One of the American Psychologist who believed that he can change the behavioral of a child.
He is known for having claimed that he could take any 12 healthy infants and, by applying behavioral techniques, create whatever kind of person he desired.

Can this be done ? Is it already done ? Is their any possibility that a child can be created to become kind of person one desires. If given the opportunity to do the experiment who will give the child to perform such experiment.

Every human being is afraid to do such an experiment why are we afraid of this ? I think one has to give an opportunity to do so. How can I take a sample of 100 rats and generalize that it will work on humans ?

I don't know weather their is any possibility to create a person one desires or not but let me go in detail of findings or more info.

(Picture taken from: www.viewimages.com)

Four types of behavior

2008-02-28T13:38:00.000-08:00

Their are four category of human behavior generally I have not gone in detail let me explain you them-

The first category may be illustrated as follows. Invoking ordinary language usage, we often say: "she behaved badly" or "he was behaving oddly." In such statements, the term has two attributes. Behavior is something we can see or hear or otherwise detect with our senses. The term is linked to sensation and the manner in which we take in information from our immediate surroundings. By contrast is the term "thinking”—also a subject for psychology—which denotes something typically invisible to an observer. Second, as used in these two examples, the term takes on a normative cast. In the first case, there is behavior that appears to contravene expectations of a moral kind. People who steal are behaving badly. So are people who lie. In the second sense of normativity, there are expectations of a social kind. You do not pick your nose in public (see, though, car drivers at stop lights for exceptions to this generally iron clad rule). You walk in a straight line down the sidewalk. Any 'contraventions' of these norms will lead to the label of odd behavior, though here it is assumed that there is nothing inherently immoral about the behavior in question. So behavior, as the term is often used in ordinary language, connotes norms or expectations, of the moral kind and of the social kind. A synonym in this case might be conduct. Someone who is behaving "badly" may also be said to be conducting himself "badly."

A second category of behavior produces a broad descriptive sweep. It takes in all behavior we might label purposive or goal-driven. In some contexts [ref to be supplied], the term “action” is preferred over behavior, and we say that humans engage in actions, meaning that what we observe about them publicly are behaviors which have an underlying purpose. Seeing someone have lunch in the college cafeteria we are observing the behavior of eating. Had we seen that person earlier in the morning, we might have observed her parking her car in the new structure. A description of her actions in both situations would link them through conversations which would reveal that she is a student at the college: she drives to class in the morning, takes two classes, has lunch, leaves for paid employment in the afternoon, etc. The point of all this is that her actions over a broad range of her day are governed by a sense of purpose, that she is a student and expects to graduate from college in four years with a degree in nursing. While at any point in time it is likely that she does not feel this sense of purpose, that is how she would analyze her actions and make sense of them to a stranger, if asked.

A third category often falls within the second as a sub-category though nevertheless is a domain in its own right. This is the category of performance or skilled behavior. Behavior that demonstrates skills of various kinds from work to sports, from behaviors involving psychomotor motions of the body, e.g. playing tennis, to those involving linguistic and extra-linguistics interactions with others, e.g. a car salesman. Again, we take examples from ordinary language usage. While watching a friend play tennis, we might say: he is playing very badly. If in the same game, he throws his racket on the ground in exasperation, we respond: Now, he’s behaving very badly. So we easily, in our everyday usage, distinguish between behavior that is under the control of or guided by learned skills and behavior that is under the control of or guided by social norms. In any game we are watching, we see players perform skillfully but behave or conduct themselves very badly and vice versa, as when we witness lack of skills on the part of someone who, at the same time, by his (normative) behavior, evokes the spirit of the game. We can dislike the first and admire the second. But again, we distinguish between a repertoire of behaviors that fall under the heading of skill and those that can be labeled socially desirable or undesirable.

Finally, there is a fourth category, which at first sight, seems to belong to the goal-driven domain, since we appear to see goals at work. If so, then the goals are mostly of a ‘low-level,’ physical kind we might term instinctual, having to do with the anatomical or physiological nature of the organism. Behavior in this category is determined by the need or desire to avoid pain and embrace pleasure. Going back to our example of the student in the dining room, part of her behavior is distantly motivated or can be explained by her goal of obtaining a degree. At the same time, that she has chosen to eat certain food but avoid other choices can be explained by what has sometimes been called the “pleasure principle.” There is food that she likes and food that she doesn’t like. Such choices and experiences are often conversation items for friends engaged in eating together. In the movie, the Matrix, the character called Cipher betrays his friends because the lofty goal of embracing reality is too distant to guide him any longer, when he can experience the complex sensuous pleasures of good wine and food, though, as he acknowledges in a scene in a restaurant with two Agents, he knows that none of it is real.

In summary then, behavior is something we ourselves do and something we experience from others. Behavior is sensuous in that what it is can be experienced through one or more of the senses. Lacking this sensational dimension, whatever the “it” is would not constitute behavior. Second, there are four basic categories. Behavior that we term conduct denotes a broad range of activity under the guidance of social-moral norms. Behavior that we term performance denotes a range of activity governed by skill repertoires. Behavior we sometimes term experience refers to actions and choices of action that maximize comfort or pleasure and minimize discomfort or pain. Finally, there is no particular other term for the very broad range of actions that fall under the heading of purposive or goal-driven, behavior that appears dictated by a sense of who we are and what we want to become.

Behavior became an important construct in early 20th century Psychology with the advent of the paradigm known subsequently as "behaviorism." Behaviorism was a reaction against so-called "faculty" psychology which purported to see into or understand the mind without the benefit of scientific testing.

My thesis work

2008-02-28T13:23:00.000-08:00

Human behavior in internet is something one cannot imagine to do without understanding oneself first. I trying to learn about a human. I don't know where i found this interest but i am really interested in knowing the behavior of a human. It is not an easy task to do so but nothing is difficult. As the saying goes "impossible means i m possible.

The thesis work is the major work carried out in the field of science and research and being myself as a student of science i am carrying out this task. I will try to update whatever content i will read or find interesting in this blog. I hope i will be able to learn what has been done before in this topic and what can i contribute of my own.

Understanding the most important communication media used today or rather most important of all the technology used today is internet. Internet is the technology I am not here to tell you weather it is good or bad but to tell you how the behavior has an impact by using this technology.

The behavior of a human can be many refers to the or reactions of an object or organism, usually in to the environment. Behavior can be conscious or unconscious, overt or covert, and voluntary or involuntary. In animals, behavior is controlled by the endocrine system and the nervous system. The complexity of the behavior of an organism is related to the complexity of its nervous system. Generally, organisms with complex nervous systems have a greater capacity to learn new responses and thus adjust their behavior. Human behavior (and that of other organisms and mechanisms) can be common, unusual, acceptable, or unacceptable. Humans evaluate the acceptability of behavior using social norms and regulate behavior by means of social control. In sociology, behavior is considered as having no meaning, being not directed at other people and thus is the most basic human action.

Wish me all the best !

Human behaviour

2007-12-03T03:38:00.001-08:00

Washington, Nov 30 (Prensa Latina) TV, movie, videogames and Internet violence increases the risk of future aggressive behavior by the audience, Michigan University research warned on Friday.

University specialists examined 50 years of data, figures and statistics referring to human behavior in relation to the media.

Psychology Prof. Rowel Huesmann explained that 45 percent of TV programs worldwide demonstrate a type of violence and subliminally encourage its imitation.

Huesmann recalled that US children spend on the average at least three hours daily in front of the TV or on their computer connected to the Internet.

The Michigan University Department of Social Research found that to be true in 83 percent of the homes polled.

They concluded that in the long term, exposure to violent media could have the same bad effect on behavior as smoking does on health

Relectuant Prophet

2007-12-03T03:36:00.000-08:00

If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead & rotten, either write things worth reading or do things worth the writing. - Benjamin Franklin

I recently searched for references to my blog entries and found many, in other blogs and even newspaper articles. Quite frankly, I did not expect to find so many references. Was I ever wrong!

Admittedly, my search required the use of web-based translation tools and a variety of search engines. I only invested a few hours of weekend time on the task so there could certainly be many other people reading what I write and passing it on to others.

Here is one of the more stunning revelations:

In China and Italy I am called a "prophet", whoa! It seems my revelations about human behavior, politics, and especially technology, are so far ahead of everyday conversation that they deserve special mention. Many writers used one or more quotations from my work to initiate long treatises on the future. One Chinese newspaper columnist declared that I must be a worker in one of the most secret U.S. military labs. An Italian blogger suggested outright that I am a prophet with access to information that is not available from any other sources.

For the record, I have never been an employee of any government. I have consulted for many of the three-letter agencies in the U.S. government. Oh, I taught some secretaries in the Haitian government how to use WordPerfect, again as a consultant only.

These discoveries jogged my memory of days long past. In the 1980s I travelled regularly throughout rural and urban India speaking about the coming Internet Age. Some speeches were attended by hundreds of people eager to learn about this new global network. Other talks attracted only 4 or 5 curious listeners. In every case, the Indian people that attended my talks quickly understood that new fast data connections to the West could be a real source of income for India. I strongly urged many Sikh and Jain businessmen to connect to new VSL phone lines as quickly as they could. Teleconferencing, customer support, and computer program writing could be accomplished anywhere the connection was fast enough, I insisted.

I kept in touch with many participants from India long after returning to my project in Haiti. E-mail made this easy and affordable, at least at my end of the connection. (I had my first business e-mail account in 1982. I received my first Internet e-mail in 1983 when my employer connected their network to a global business network.) My e-mail correspondents went on to form some of the largest outsourcing firms in South Asia. This remains an important accomplishment in my career despite how some people in the U.S. feel about outsourcing.

The idea of being branded a "prophet" in this day and age strikes me as both interesting and troublesome. Prophesy is a rather dubious description for a person like me that simply researches the most advanced technologies available and shares that information freely. There are too many religious connotations to the word "prophet" for me to ever be comfortable wearing such a moniker. I understand how the idea arises but I do not like the places it takes some thinkers.

I do understand a great deal about where today's technologies will take society. In some cases what I have learned disturbs me so much that I refuse to share my discoveries anywhere expect my private journals. In other cases I have dropped a revelation, oops, an insight or two here in this blog. For example, my series Will Google Become God? led readers down a strange path strewn with all kinds of future uses of massive computing power. In other cases, for example my system of integrating all forms of battlefield surveillance into a single real-time solution for military use, is deliberately being left on the cutting room floor. Nevertheless, the Pentagon is working on a program called "AngelFire" that incorporates two or three of the ten sources and concepts my OverSight system would incorporate. I remain a silent prophet in that case.

Information is a powerful tool. In the right hands it can help feed millions and permit free speech in places where dissidents are routinely executed. In other cases though, certain information can be used to empower corrupt leaders currently using torture, kidnapping, and disinformation to transform entire nations into submissive flocks of sheep. In those cases you can rest assured this "prophet" will remain silent until long after the despots go back to their lairs to lick their wounds in private.

Internet addiction

2007-11-27T12:58:00.000-08:00

Is the Internet addictive?

The Internet is big, complex and growing, but is it addictive? The media reports of Internet horror stories, and reporters have also claimed that the Internet can be addictive. Is this just another sensation story, or can the Internet be addictive? The following articles and discussions in mailing groups shows that, due to heavy Internet use, the lives of some Internet users become affected (e.g., falling out of school, splitting up relationships, receiving hospital treatment). Some of them used MUD's (Multi User Dungeon), IRC (Internet
Relay Chats); others mentioned that they were addicted to news groups, email, gopher or even the World Wide Web.A search on the WWW using different search topics revealed different WWW-pages from people who
describe themselves as addicted or dependent to the Internet, journalists who have written about Internet addiction and people who are occupied with doing research in Internet addiction.

W W W - p a g e s and discussion groups:
[1] "Addiction to the Net", New York Times, app. mid-February 1995

[2] "Online addiction" by Chris Allbriton, Democrat-Gazette Staff Writer,
Tuesday, June 27, 1995,
[3] "Computer Addicts Getting Hooked on Superhighway”, Article by Fran Abrahms in
the Melbourne Age, 26th July1995,
[4] "Too Wired, What Happens When You Become an Internet Addict”, By Reid Goldsborough,

[5] ”Is the Internet Addictive?",
[6] "IRC Addiction or Fun",
[7] "Center of Online Addiction",
[8] Mailing List: Internet Addiction Support Group (i-a-s-g)
subscribe with e-mail to listserv@netcom.com, subject leave blank, message:
subscribe i-a-s-g
[9] Mailing List: Psychology of the Internet
subscribe with e-mail to listproc@cmhc.com, subject leave blank, message:
subscribe research Your-name

P e o p l e occupied with Internet addiction:

Dr. Kimberly Young at the University of Pittsburgh founded the Center for Online Addiction [7] and is also conducting research about online addiction. She reports that Internet addiction has the same qualities as
compulsive gambling, shopping, even smoking and alcoholism.
Dr. Young has gathered around 400 case studies, as well as a number of family members and relatives living with net addicts, and will be presenting her results this summer at the American Psychological Association Conference [9].
Common warning signs (in the following abbreviated as Young) according to Young are:
1. Compulsively checking your email.
2. Always anticipating your next Internet session.
3. Others complaining that you're spending too much time online.
4. Others complaining that you're spending too much money online.
Dr. Mark Griffiths, a psychologist at the University of Plymouth in England, is studying "Internet addiction" in more depth. He says that of 100 people who responded to a question about the overuse of on-line services,
22 reported a cocaine-like "rush" and 12 said computer chat lines helped them to relax. He believes that new technology is an addiction, which has behaviour patterns like gambling or overeating [3]. Mr Ivan Goldberg, M.D. has coined a tern to describe addiction to the Internet - Internet Addiction Disorder
and created a support group for Internet addicts. Internet Addiction Disorder (in the following abbreviated as IAD) -- Diagnostic Criteria
Authors: Oliver Egger and Matthias Rauterberg page 6
© Work & Organisational Psychology Unit (IfAP) , Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, 1996 The following is a description of IAD, courtesy of Ivan Goldberg, an
M.D. from New York City and moderator of the Internet Addiction
Support Group mailing list.
A maladaptive pattern of Internet use, leading to clinically
significant impairment or distress as manifested by three (or more)
of the following, occurring at any time in the same 12-month period:
1. Tolerance, as defined by either of the following:
1.1 A need for markedly increased amounts of time on the Internet to achieve satisfaction
1.2 Markedly diminished effect with continued use of the same amount of time on the Internet
2. Withdrawal, as manifested by either of the following:
2.1 The characteristic withdrawal syndrome
2.1.1 Cessation of (or reduction) in Internet use that has been heavy and prolonged
2.1.2 Two (or more) of the following (developing within several days to a month after
Criterion 1):
(a) Psychomotor agitation
(b) Anxiety
(c) Obsessive thinking about what is happening on the Internet
(d) Fantasies or dreams about the Internet
(e) Voluntary or involuntary typing movements of the fingers
2 . 1 . 3 . The symptoms in Criterion 2 cause distress or impairment in social, occupational, or another
important area of functioning
2.2. Use of the Internet or a similar online service is engaged in to relieve or avoid withdrawal
symptoms.
3. The Internet is often accessed more often or for longer periods of time than was intended
4. There is a persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control Internet use
5. A great deal of time is spent in activities related to Internet use (e.g., buying Internet books, trying out new
WWW browsers, researching Internet vendors, organising files of downloaded materials)
6. Important social, occupational, or recreational activities are given up or reduced because of Internet use.
7. Internet use is continued despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent physical, social,
occupational, or psychological problem that is likely to have been caused or exacerbated by Internet use
(sleep deprivation, marital difficulties, lateness for early morning appointments, neglect of occupational
duties, or feelings of abandonment in significant others).
IAD, unlike alcoholism (which is a recognised medical addiction) is like pathological gambling, an out-of-control behaviour that threatens to overwhelm the addicts normal life. Internet Addiction Support Group (i-a-s-g)
In the discussion group moderated by Ivan Goldberg, people are discussing their problems with the Internet, but also journalist or researchers which are searching materials about Internet Addiction.

source:http://www.idemployee.id.tue.nl/g.w.m.rauterberg/ibq/res.htm

Internet behaviour(Introduction)

2007-11-27T12:52:00.000-08:00

My interest in this particular field of the human-computer interaction was stimulated when observing student colleagues using the Internet (Mud's, IRC, WWW, emaill). I was wondering if heavy use of the Internet could
lead to (or is) addictive behaviour. During my lectures by Dr.Erja Mustonen in this semester I got interested in the method of doing statistic evaluation with questionnaires and I wanted to evaluate, if there are people who show signs of addictive behaviour on the Internet and how it differs from general Internet
behaviour.

My information, my story, my life

2007-11-27T11:33:00.000-08:00

Posted by Amy Tiemann

The Internet has enabled the emergence of a collective consciousness that is unprecedented in human history. We are coming together as a hive, and the intelligence of the swarm is being mined and utilized like never before.

Knowledge is power, information is a cash commodity, and who decides how these resources and benefits are distributed? The latest controversy about Facebook's Beacon advertisements is one of many examples that suggests that the issue of user control over his or her own information is reaching a tipping point. We, the online masses, are developing a new sense that our own information is sacred and worth protecting, and not to be indiscriminately broadcast, or blindly exploited for someone else's commercial gain.

Beyond a "right to privacy" that might have meant "secrecy" in the past, we need to think about the right to control our information when it comes to:

What I say about myself
What others say about me, and
How that information is used

I see these issues coming up time and time again in a thread that runs through everything from Internet safety, to social networking, creative artists' rights, consumer/patient rights, all the way up to government wiretapping and surveillance.

These issues make my head spin. I am not a privacy expert, but as a citizen/writer/parent I now feel the need to become much more educated in this area. As far as life stresses go, this is unwelcome icing on the cake. I was already overwhelmed before I felt the need to bring this new area of expertise into my life.

For the past two months, I have been struggling with the seemingly simple choice of whether to join Facebook, and so far I have decided not to. I don't see why I should hand over my information to marketers in one tidy package. The thought-provoking backlash against Facebook's Beacon advertising program has reinforced my decision to stay on the sidelines until I have a better idea about what kind of bargain I would be making with the Marketing Devil by participating. I don't like the deal so far, and Facebook has done little to inspire trust. The current bargain could continue evolving in unpredictable ways in the future. In the meantime, if I hand over my personal information, it's set loose, out of my control.

My co-author Michael's recent (parent.thesis) post about Canon camera requiring photojournalists to wear vests with the Canon logos fits into this spectrum of issues. He and I have talked a lot about the slippery slope of information abuse and the meanings of various breaches of integrity. He had referenced doctors being influenced by drug company pressure to prescribe drugs, and just yesterday a piece in The New York Times Magazine delved deeply into the world of doctors who are paid to "educate" other professionals about the merits of a drug company's product.

In "Dr. Drug Rep," Dr. Daniel Carlat relates his own experience in this role, why he thought the practice was ethical to begin with, and how his perspective evolved over time, leading him to exit the role of speaking on behalf of drug companies. This long, thoughtful article is worth reading in its entirety, and one paragraph jumped out at me:

"Naïve as I was, I found myself astonished at the level of detail that drug companies were able to acquire about doctors' prescribing habits. I asked my reps about it; they told me that they received printouts tracking local doctors' prescriptions every week. The process is called 'prescription data-mining...'"

How do we evaluate this use of "hive intelligence"? Do doctors have a right to keep their prescribing behavior private? Even if doctors didn't mind this information leak, do we as patients have the right to insist that this information is kept private--after all, it is information about us as well as about the doctor? Do we have the right to demand that the American Medical Association should not make millions of dollars from this information, which is leased to drug companies in order to ultimately wield influence over our doctors' medical decisions?

If I try to pack too many more issues into one blog post my own brain may explode, but I do need to come back to Internet safety for a minute. Right now, much of the public pressure on "Internet safety" dumps the responsibility into parents and teens' laps with little support. I can hear that conventional wisdom roar, "Those irresponsible parents...stupid teens...doing dumb things online." If we look at the framework of, what I say about myself, what others say about me, and how that information is used, we can see it is more complicated than that. I want to teach my family to thoughtfully and safely engage in the online community, but in order for that to be possible, I want companies to develop safe programs and fair user agreements, and to give me control of my information and how it is used. And in our communities we need to keep talking about standards of behavior and realize that what other people are saying about you is as much a part of online safety as what we are saying about ourselves. Kids and adults can be harassed, bullied, or commercially exploited through online communication even if they aren't actively participating on the Internet themselves.

I expect it will take us years to unravel all this, and we'll be chasing a moving target all the while. Once we realize that none of us can simply choose to opt-out of this situation, maybe we'll all start to take it more seriously on a large scale. I may be just one worker bee in the hive, but I can become an educated one. I've had Larry Lessig's book Code: Version 2.0 on my nightstand table for about six months now. Looks like it's time to move it to the top of the pile, and to take a fresh look at the work being done by the Creative Commons, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and EPIC. I'll write up my findings in future blog posts.

Amy Tiemann, Ph.D., is the author of Mojo Mom: Nurturing Your Self While Raising a Family and creator of MojoMom.com. She is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET.

Attract attention !!!

2007-11-09T05:20:00.000-08:00

Well, Do not get surprised when My topic is Attract attention. The whole theme of my blog is that HUman Behabviour in Internet and now I have chose attract attention. How can a human being attract attention in internet. Fairly very easy in today's context. How ?

Post a video in internet. '

Send it to all your friends.

Put a picture in Face book

Send it to all your friends.

so on and so on...............................................

Attention is attracted. Are you satisfied ? Not yet, Well then do something very stupid and repeat the above statements.

Are you still satisfied ?

Not yet, Then Do something very stupid. and make it real.

This time you will surely attract the attention of audience.

Good Luck !!! Hope you are still alive. If alive come to see my blog. If not, sorry !!! Better luck next time.

Communication

2007-11-07T13:54:00.000-08:00

Web2.0 is essentially an increasing range of software that supports a variety of technologies for open and collaborative communication, learning and creativity. Discuss. The purpose of this article is not merely to explain what Web2.0 is rather it is to analyze, synthesize, evaluate and critique how Web2.0 can be effectively utilized to improve the learning of students. Web 2.0 is a new platform or phase that the internet has undergone and it is highly dependant on collaboration. It is all about communication, showing and sharing. It is no longer a one way access between the user and the internet but now the settings are yours and the information comes to you. A whole new world has been created through Web2.0; this is the world of wikis, blogs and social collaboration sites to name a few. Dreikurs’ Social Discipline Model stressed on the need for belonging. Dreikurs ‘believed that the central motivation of all humans is to belong and be accepted by others’ (Wolfgang, 2001, p. 115). This need for belonging, this need for students to have their own space can be fulfilled by Web2.0 if it is properly utilized. By using for example iGoogle a student is able to have their own space on the web. iGoogle can be personalized so that the student has this sense of belonging in the cyber world. The social web has the potential to make students feel they are part of a group, something bigger than themselves. (Boulos, Wheeler, 2006). Vygotsky’s social constructivism emphasizes the critical importance of culture and the importance of the social context for cognitive development. Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development argues that students can, with help from adults or children who are more advanced, master concepts and ideas that they cannot understand on their own. Into this context of collaborative learning Web2.0 can be used to further develop student’s ideas and concepts. Through a students collaborating on a wiki they can enhance each others understandings and develop each others ideas. Creating a learning environment that fosters higher order thinking and creativity. Howard Gardner in his multiple intelligences theory suggests that learners learn differently. Some of these learning categories include sequential, global, visual and verbal learners. In effect Web2.0 allows for students to learn through these various and different mediums as students are more in control of how they choose to learn. Collaborative learning allows individuals to share ideas in a learning community. Learning is able to advance into higher cognition levels as people draw on each others ideas as they increase their understanding. This enables deeper critical reflection as information is assessed and ‘remixed’. Web2.0 adds a greater dimension to this as collaboration is not only conducted between classmates rather from all over the internet. Through programs like PB Wiki collaborative learning can be done online and publicised in an effective manner. Web 2.0 is an exciting new evolving platform but how can this be utilised as a tool for education? Students are now very computer savvy and for teachers to be effective they must incorporate technology into their pedagogy. The web traditionally has been there so people can access information from it, this is changing as now the web is not just a ‘read only’ medium rather it empowers people to communicate with the world. This has major implications for the classroom as students are now able to use this software to enhance their education. Collaborative learning when done effectively has enormous advantages. However the key word is effectively. What could often result in collaborative learning is that the process of learning can be disfunctional. The key issue that often arises is that people do not contribute evenly. Other issues could be that it is easier to get distracted by doing collaborative learning and the fact that people have different styles and approaches meaning that students will be at different speeds. The fact is that often in collaborative learning some members of the group will contribute more than others. Therefore the common argument is that it is not fair that all in a group to receive the same grades as the level of effort from individuals varies. This is an issue however the advantages far out weigh this disadvantage. An observation from my own study through this education unit demonstrated how even though group work may be disfunctional the overall aims are usually achieved. In a collaborative wiki the majority of the work was done by two main people in the group of four. This however inspired me to contribute more. Their insights and passion worked as a motivational aid for me to try harder to contribute. The question of fairness remains but the clear benefits definitely outweigh any of the negative attributes that collaborative learning may have. Glasser suggests that all human behaviour is driven by six basic needs these are: survival, power, love, belonging, freedom and fun. The theory also suggests that the ultimate aim for a teacher is to help their students function at the fun level as this drives their learning. Students are empowered through Web2.0. They have a central space such as iGoogle from where all their applications can be run. From their they can access their wordpress blog, their collaborative pbwiki, their del.ici.ous account and their facebook site. They have a central place where they belong and have the power to choose how they will approach the task at hand. The teacher’s role changes greatly because of Web2.0. The teacher is no longer the source of information. The information is collaboratively given to the student through a site such as delicious. The teacher is no longer the traditional soul provider of facts rather the students access the internet in a way that suits them. The teacher needs to manage this or no work will be done. The teacher must allow for social interaction and collaboration. The autocratic style is made redundant and the teacher must be flexible. The teacher trying to teach using Web 2.0 must be a facilitator of education. A teacher must be able to open this door of Web2.0 so that the students may go in and discover this world. The use of this amazing technology must be harnessed for use in educating the students. In a typical classroom that is highly collaborative a student might be on facebook for ten minutes rather than on task. A flexible teacher will allow to some extent this sidetrack to occur as the student in effect is mastering this technology. By mastering the technology students become more familiar with the various interfaces. The teacher is not loosing control but underlying all the apparent chaos is a teacher that is inclining the student’s efforts to achieve the goal of the lesson. In Blooms taxonomy the higher order thinking skills incorporate analysis and creativity. Students in Web2.0 collaborative environments must be given every opportunity to further develop their ideas and build on each others concepts. The social constructivist theory is expanded now to include constructivism that is not based in a classroom rather it is developed at a world scale. The education of students has unlimited resources and is personalised. It is personalised in that students can share their ideas, their work, their pictures and even their videos. Students are able to personalise the information they wish to acquire. Information no longer needs to be searched but it can come to the person. An important aspect of all this is the personalisation factor. Students are able to have the freedom and the power to personalise information by editing it on a wiki or by adding a tag on delicious. Constructivist learning can be added by the various aspects of the personal and empowering Web2.0. Web2.0 offers the possibility of an e-classroom with unlimited resources. Facebook can be used to connect whole learning communities. Blogs can be used so that students can express themselves in more than just a written form. In the past homework was done on textbooks and expressive writing was the only way for a student to express themselves. Now a blog can be used for expressive writing but its use is furthered as students can upload youtube videos that they can create themselves or borrow from others to further express their ideas. The collaboration, freedom and fun aspects ultimately mean that students are more motivated to learn and are more capable of providing better quality work as they are encouraged to expand their horizons by being creative. Students are able to communicate, show and share information. Storage is no longer on a memory stick but can be done in cyber space. In effect what Web2.0 does is increase the existing technologies of the internet so that they are personalised no longer empowering organisations but the individuals such as students who are in constant contact with the internet. Web 2.0 increasingly allows for a greater sense of collaboration which in effect increases the learning capability of students as they openly build on each others understanding. In so doing this Web2.0 also enhances the capabilities and encourages students to more creative. Glasser, Dreikurs, Bloom and Vygotsky’s ideas are not redundant but on the contrary are expanded and can be applied effectively through teaching using Web2.0. Bibliography • Alexander, Brian. (2006) http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0621.pdf • Anderson, Paul,(2007). What us Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implication for education. Retrieved 25 October 2007 from, http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/techwatch/tsw0701b.pdf. • Bruns, Axel, Cobcroft, Rachel, Smith, Judith, Towers, Stephen, (2006), Towards User-Led Education via Mobile Technology • Brown, John Seely, (2000), Growing up Digital: How the Web Changes work, Education, and the Ways People Learn • Boulos, Maged Kamel, Wheeler, Steven (2006), Mashing, Burning, Mixing and the Destructive Creativity of Web 2.0: Applications for Medical Education • Hauser, Judy. (2007). Media Specialists Can Learn Web 2.0 Tools to Make Schools More Cool, Computers in Libraries, v27 n2 p6-8, 47-48 Feb 2007. • Wikipedia (2007), Web 2.0, (online) Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/web¬_2 • Wolfgang, Charles H. Solving Discipline and Classroom Management Problems: Methods and Models for Today’s Teachers. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2001.

What I Believe

2007-11-07T13:41:00.000-08:00

By David Roemer

Anthony Kenny was educated by the Roman Catholic Church. He was a priest before he became a professor of philosophy and a nonbeliever.

There are three reasons to believe that our freedom is before God: 1) We know from logic and reason that God exists. 2) Miraculous historical events show God has communicated Himself to mankind. 3) When people explain why they don’t believe in God, they generally give bad reasons.
The third reason is also why we can tell our children to believe in God as if there was no question about it. Children should be told about irrational people, like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens, only when they need to know. These Big Bad Wolves were educated in a tradition created by the Enlightenment and have always assumed that religion is not true. They are crackpots with whom it is impossible to have a rational conversation.
Anthony Kenny, however, was educated by the Roman Catholic Church. He was a priest before he became a professor of philosophy and a nonbeliever. Is it possible to have a rational conversation with him? Does he give better reasons for not believing than the Big Bad Wolves?
The truth of the neo-Darwinian evolution of human beings is an article of faith in the Enlightenment religion, and the biggest difference between them and Professor Kenny can be found in his chapter titled “Human Beings.” The following quote from Kenny casts doubt on the absolute truth of evolution. If human beings have something animals do not have at all, humans could not have evolved from animals:
What is peculiar to our species is the capacity for thought and behavior of the complicated and symbolic kinds that constitute the linguistic, social, moral, economic, scientific, cultural and other characteristic activities of human beings in society. The mind is a capacity, not an activity: it is the capacity to acquire intellectual abilities of which the most important is the mastery of language. The will, in contrast with animal desire, is the capacity to pursue goals that only language-users can formulate. (p. 69)
I am not sure I understand the distinction between “capacity” and “activity.” Whatever he means, his comments no more shed light on the question “What is a human being?” than saying human beings are rational animals. The indefinability of the mind and mystery of a human being is why humans are embodied spirits or spirited bodies, at least to people with whom a rational conversation is possible. This does not necessarily mean human beings did not evolve from animals because it is possible that animals possess the potential of having intellects and wills. It is also possible that human beings possess spiritual souls and animals do not, making the evolution of human beings impossible. Regardless of these possibilities, people who deny that human beings are embodied spirits are obsessively and irrationally in love with the methodology of science. Kenny does not say that human beings are embodied spirits in so many words, but he comes close:
Human beings and their brains are physical objects; their minds are not, because they are capacities. This does not mean they are spirits. A round peg’s ability to fit into a round hole is not a physical object like the round peg itself, but no one will suggest that is it is a spirit. It is not any adherence to dualism, but a simple concern for conceptual clarity, that makes me insist that a mind is not a physical object and does not have a length and a breadth. (p. 71)
In this chapter, Kenny takes the trouble to refute Cartesian dualism—the idea that human beings are pure spirits and ride their bodies like CEOs ride their desks. Cartesian dualism is often criticized by materialists and atheists when they discuss religion because it is a straw man. Kenny believes in the mystery, indefinability, and spirituality of man, but downplays his views, in order, I suppose, to make the book marketable. Marketing is the delivery of goods and services to the consumer and effective marketing requires a decision about the product’s market position.
We can also learn about religion from Kenny, something that never happens when you read the writings of those who feel mankind would be better off without religion. The following quote is from the chapter titled “Religion”:
In my view, faith is not a virtue, but a vice, unless certain conditions are fulfilled. One is that the existence of God can be rationally established without appeal to faith. Accepting something as a matter of faith is taking God’s word for its truth: but one cannot take God’s word for it that He exists. (p. 59)
Kenny has concluded that the existence of God cannot be proven. The most logically rigorous proof is the cosmological argument, which is based on the metaphysical concepts of being and causality. In effect, Kenny is saying the cosmological argument is refutable. Since the Roman Catholic Church teaches that we can prove God exists, this would mean there is a non-theological and non-biblical argument against the Roman Catholic Church’s claim to infallibility.
Kenny’s uncle was the editor of the English Jerusalem Bible and a teacher at the seminary Kenny went to in Liverpool. When he graduated at the age of 18, he enrolled at his uncle’s alma mater, the Gregorian University in Rome. He rubbed shoulders with Hans Küng, and was taught by Bernard Lonergan and Frederick Copleston, to repeat some names he mentions in his autobiography (The Path From Rome, Oxford University Press, 1986). When he was ordained he took the anti-modernist oath, but declined to take it again for his doctorate. In the following quote he explains why:
In the 1950s, candidates for a doctorate in Papal universities had to swear to a document called the anti-modernist oath, which contained the statement that it was possible to prove the existence of God. Though I had submitted a dissertation and passed the examinations, I was unwilling to proceed to the degree because I did not wish to take this oath. If God’s existence could be known, I very much doubted whether it would be known by way of proof. Since then I have studied arguments for the existence of God presented by many philosophers, and I have not yet found a convincing one. (p. 31)
Maybe Kenny thinks you can’t prove God exists because you can’t prove that the universe makes sense and can be understood. This is a valid objection, notwithstanding the success we have had in science by making the assumption of the intelligibility of the universe. However, we can use this objection to refute atheists who claim they are being rational and believe the universe is not absurd.
In the chapter titled “Why I Am Not an Atheist,” Kenny discusses three cosmological changes or transformations: the development of language in human beings, the origin of life, and the big bang. Since there is no good natural explanation for these changes, he argues, you can’t exclude the possibility of a supernatural explanation. Concerning the origin of language he says:
If we reflect on the social and conventional nature of language, we find something odd in the idea that language may have evolved because of the advantages possessed by language users over non-language users. It seems as absurd as the idea that banks may have evolved because those born with an innate cheque-writing ability were better off than those born without it. (p. 25)
This is why common sense and intuition leads non-philosophers to be theists and not atheists. Since human beings are embodied spirits, the existence of humans cannot be explained by the biology of reproduction and evolution. A supernatural being must have created human beings. Kenny argues in favor of a third option known as agnosticism.
The Lonely Crowd is a landmark sociological analysis that identifies the personality types called inner-directed and outer-directed. Atheists are obviously inner-directed types because they don’t care what other people think. Agnostics are outer-directed types, and feel more comfortable saying they don’t know whether or not God exists since so many people believe in God and believe their purpose in life is to serve God. I think this is why some people are atheists and others are agnostics.
Concerning the origin of the universe Kenny says:
The most fundamental reason in favor of postulating an extra-cosmic agency of any kind is surely the need to explain the origin of the universe itself… It is not the existence of the universe that calls for explanation, but its coming into existence. (p. 28)
Kenny is referring to the big bang, which was an extremely dense fireball of elementary particles that began our universe. Kenny agrees with the following metaphysical proposition: A being which begins to exist at some point in time needs a cause. If you assume that the big bang was a change from nothingness to a being or many beings, then the existence of an “extra-cosmic” agency can be inferred. However, if the big bang was preceded by a vacuum, this inference is not necessary since a vacuum may not be nothingness. A vacuum may be a real being or beings, not a mental being or an idea. A vacuum may have as much status in being as a photon or elementary particle.
A physicists will not find the idea that a vacuum exists strange because it was once thought that a vacuum consisted of a sea of negative energy electrons and that a positron was a hole in this sea. A physicists is also aware of the reality of kinetic energy which can be transformed into as many electron-positron pairs as you want as long as E = mc2.
His third argument against atheism comes from the origin of life itself, which cannot be explained by natural selection:
This is not to say that neo-Darwinians do not offer explanations of the origin of life; of course they do, but they are explanations of a radically different kind. All such explanations try to explain life as produced by the chance interaction of non-living materials and forces subject to purely physical laws. (p. 26)
A metaphysical approach is to rank the cosmological transformations in order of the magnitude of the change in the properties of the different modes of being. The following is my personal ranking:
animals to human beings
large molecules to single-celled organisms
vacuum to big bang
single-celled organisms to animals
elementary particles to atoms
Concerning the smallest change, modern field theory enables physicists to derive the properties of atoms from the properties of elementary particles. However, the theories are only approximations and are not entirely satisfactory for a number of reasons.
In the two-part chapter titled “Why I Am Not a Theist,” Kenny reviews the proofs of God’s existence offered by various philosophers and claims to refute them. Kenny fails to mention the idea that a finite being needs a cause but an infinite being does not, which is why an infinite being must exist. This is the crux of the cosmological argument.
A refutation of the cosmological argument that does not consider the contingency of a finite being and the self-sufficiency of an infinite being is not a refutation at all. The cosmological proof, as I can now call it, can be analyzed further with the metaphysical concepts of essence and existence. I’ll begin an explanation of these ideas with a quote from Kenny:
For what is meant by “necessary being”? Surely, a being in whom essence involves existence, that is to say, a being whose existence can be established by the ontological argument. (p. 37)
To me the ontological argument—God exists because the concept of God exists?— makes no sense. However, it does make sense to say that God is a necessary or self-sufficient being. That God’s essence “involves” God’s existence is not sure or clear at all. According to Thomas Aquinas (1225 to 1274), a finite being is a metaphysical composition of two correlative metaphysical principles: essence and existence. The essence is not added on to the existence, but acts to limit the existence of the finite being.
This analysis explains why finite beings are different from one another and gives a reason why finite beings need a cause. Finite beings need a cause because they are compositions and could not have composed themselves. Finite beings need a cause, also, because they could not have limited themselves. This analysis also means that an infinite being is a being which does not have an essence. An infinite being is a pure act of existence. “I am who am” is the way God explained it to Moses in Exodus.
Continuing the above quote above from “Religion”:
Another is that the historical events that are claimed to constitute the divine revelation must be independently established as historically certain—as having the same certainty, say, as that Charles I was beheaded in London, or that Cicero was once consul in Rome. The events that are pointed to as founding charters for the world’s great religions can surely not claim this degree of certainty. (p. 60)
The historical event that is the “founding charter” of Christianity is the resurrection of Jesus. The Resurrection is an historical event that can’t be explained in terms of any other historical event because of its impact on history itself. Nonbelievers consider the Resurrection to be a religious experience that the followers of Jesus had. The faith response of Christians to the Resurrection is to believe that Jesus entered into a new life with God and that if you follow Jesus the same thing can happen to you. Believers in non-Christian religions are responding in faith to the Resurrection too because they are aware of it and hope for salvation.
Kenny acknowledges the historical accuracy of the New Testament:
I do not share the extreme scepticism of many scholars, including Christian scholars, about the historical value of the Gospels. For instance, that Jesus at his last meal took bread and wine and said something like “this is my body, this is my blood” seems to me to be as likely to be true as anything that is narrated in the records of the early Roman Empire. With regard to the Acts of the Apostles, I have long been amused to note that Catholic biblical scholars often appear less ready to accept them as broadly historical than are atheists colleagues in ancient history departments. (p. 58)
What happened to the two benchmarks of historical accuracy: the beheading of Charles I and the consulship of Cicero? What is the point of benchmarks if you don’t use them? What religious historical events does Kenny have in mind when he says they are not certain? Is he thinking of miracles performed by Moses and recorded in Exodus?
I went to a college run by Jesuits in the early 1960s. During a theology class one day, apropos of nothing while writing on the chalkboard, the theology professor turned to the class and said, “Does anyone here seriously believe Lazarus rose from the dead? It is just a story.” Did Kenny lose his faith and I didn’t lose mine because I had better theology teachers?
Why doesn’t Kenny just admit that he lost his faith? Why does he give us this hogwash about Charles I and Cicero? My guess is that the market for an honest book about religion by a nonbeliever is pretty small. There is a market for anti-religion books and pro-religion books, but who wants to buy a book by an ex-priest saying I wish I could believe?
More of David Roemer's writing may be found here: http://www.dkroemer.com/

New findings About Media-Usage and Brand-Recommendation behavior of Chinese internet users.

2007-10-29T23:32:00.000-07:00

The global powershift from "media" to "human media" is also happening in China. The changing media-behavior of 172,000,000 internet-users and the strong power of brand-recommendation is only a prelude of more changes to come.

How likely is it that you will recommend a brand, a company, a product to a friend, a colleague, a family member?

Shanghai, China (PRWEB) October 29, 2007 -- "How likely is it that you will recommend a brand, a company, a product to a friend, a colleague, a family member?" Since Prof. Dr. Reichheld launched the idea a few years ago that recommendations influence actual purchase (and proved it with real market data), more and more research is done in that field.

i-merge/boondoggle* - an interactive agency - promotes already the growing value of "human media" right form the start of the company in Europe in 1999. (opened an office in Shanghai only since 2006).

i-merge wanted to know whether this recommendation phenomenon also existed in China among the 172 million internet users and how weak or strong it was. No specific research has been done yet in that field.

Therefore i-merge & Sinomonitor ** recently held an online survey in China among a sample of 1200 internet users (20-24 yrs old | having a monthly income of >1000 yuan/month).

Although the research didn't measure nor matched the sales results / market share year after year for specific recommended brands, the findings of these study in mainland China underline the truth and the value of Prof. Dr. Reichheld's NPS - theory and are hopefully a prelude to research on a larger scale.

The results also confirm what was has been claimed so often already by Booz | Allen | Hamilton, McKinsey, Edelman and many others in the field like Harvard Business Review, Doubleclick, CICdata e.a.

They illustrate that also in China a historical and global shift from "media" to "human media" is going on. But the marketing practice of the first years of this century proves that it will take a while before the majority of the marketing community acts according to what "facts" (and not only their guts) tell them to do. Indeed, one of the other striking overall results is that marketers in China (like probably in the rest of the world) continue to underestimate the power of customer recommendation and overestimate the power of advertising (and)(in) old media. Brands however (also in China!) are more and more builton really positive experiences and fanatic consumers talking to each other about these brands. These evangelists, influencers, advocates seem to become the real
driving force behind big brands. In reality "human media" dwarf what is usually called "media".

Some of the findings.

1. Consumers communicate with other consumers about brands. Not permanently, not as much as marketers might wish but quite often. And they influence each other. Not all consumers however are equal. On average, a Chinese consumer communicates in one month with 8 people about brands. 17% of the consumers however talk about brands with more than 10 people monthly.

2. These consumers who communicate monthly with more than 10 people about brands not only have the highest communication index they also score the highest influence index. Women communicate more than men, but men have a higher influencing power. Also those aged in between 30 and 39 have a greater influencing power. Also, the higher the education level, the higher the communication probability and the influencing power.

3. 31% of all respondents in the study are sure their peers bought something that was recommended by them. 26% are sure they convinced their peers not to buy a certain brand or to give up. A satisfying brand experience (or a dissatisfying one) is a lot more
powerful than positive or negative brand reputation.

4. The vast majority of the communication about brands is face2face. Nearly 90% is communicated during conversations. Using instant messages and phone calls are also common ways people communicate.

5. But although they use mainly face2face to communicate with
their peers the internet is declared as being the most important
medium in their life

6. The Internet is the most important medium for consumers to learn - for the first time- about a new brand or a new product, followed by TV commercials. Comparatively, male consumers tend to choose the Internet and the newspapers. Women are a bit more TV-minded. Older people are more likely to get the information from the newspapers. The higher the education, the higher the percentage of people using the Internet.

7. For further information on these newly discovered products, the Internet again is the most important medium: for all age-groups, for all education levels, for both men and women. Women - although the internet scores here highest too - are more likely to go to the shop or ask their friends with experience. Older people prefer to get further information from the newspapers rather than from their friends.

8. Again a vast majority of the respondents also want to stay informed about a brand after they bought it. Again it's the web that is their preferred medium.

9. To discover brands. To find more information on brands. To keep oneself informed after the sales.…it's the internet which is the most important tool. But apparently it's also the most effective medium when they decide to buy a brand. The second most influential medium being their friends. Our respondents deem that for their family and friends, friends' recommendations are the most important influencing factor and the Internet is the second one. 7% of the respondents think that they themselves can influence their family and friends the most on purchasing decision.

10. Again the internet is considered having the most influencing power in all age-groups, education levels and for both men and women. Comparatively speaking, women are more likely to also be influenced by their friends, men by the Internet. Compared with the older people, the younger are influenced more by the Internet, and they are less influenced by their friends. The higher the education level, the more the people are influenced by the Internet.

Talking Nasty on the Net

2007-10-23T00:21:00.000-07:00

By John Tierney

Ten years I wrote a paean to the Internet in the Times Magazine, arguing that this technology was bringing out the nicer side of human nature by decentrallizing authority and encouraging cooperative behavior. Since I started blogging, there have been moments when I doubt this premise.

Don’t misunderstand — I still appreciate the wonders of the Web. I love the way it has produced what Glenn Reynolds Instapundit calls “An Army of Davids” in his superb book on the technological liberation and empowerment of the little guy. I still marvel at all the help people offer one another gratis here on this blog and throughout the Web.

And yet . . . there’s the vitriol. When you moderate a blog, you start to wonder if there are really so many angry people out there, or if the Web just brings out nastiness. Last week, after writing about research into people’s preferences for nasty or nice gossip, I asked for thoughts on how the Internet is affecting gossip. I promptly heard from someone who’s been studying that very topic — which you might take as more evidence of how helpful everyone is on the Web, except that this expert, Daniel J. Solove, thinks the Web is affecting gossip for the worse.

Professor Solove, who teaches at George Washington University Law School, has just published The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet (Yale University Press, Oct. 2007). Here’s an excerpt:

From the dawn of time, people have gossiped, circulated rumors, and shamed others. These social practices are now moving over to the Internet, where they are taking on new dimensions. They transform from forgettable whispers within small local groups to a widespread and permanent chronicle of people’s lives. An entire generation is growing up in a very different world, one where people will accumulate detailed records beginning with childhood that will stay with them for life wherever they go. . . .

There’s a voyeur in all of us, and we often have a gluttonous curiosity about the lives of others. Gossip isn’t inherently good or evil—it has its virtues as well as its vices. On the Internet, however, gossip is being reshaped in ways that heighten its negative effects and make its sting more painful and permanent. . . .

I asked Professor Solove why Internet gossip is more negative and malicious than regular gossip. His reply:

1. The people gossiped about are often strangers. Thus, there is often little other context for knowing them.

2. When gossip about a particular person becomes viral across the Internet, the people spreading the gossip often do not know the person involved.

3. The types of incidents that generate gossip that travel far and wide across the blogosphere are often ones that are negative, where the person gossiped about did some bad or rude things.

4. The audience for the gossip is different. Learning gossip about a friend is different than reading gossip about a stranger. With a friend, there’s a context; you know other information about the person. But gossip about a stranger lacks this greater context.

5. Some gossip is hard to classify as positive or negative. A discussion about a sexual encounter between X and Y, for example, might be positive in some circles (or at least not negative). But perhaps later on, X or Y might regret having the information out there on the Internet. It’s different when the gossip is just circulating among friends — such gossip would be quickly forgotten, and it wouldn’t be accessible to everybody. And among friends, this piece of gossip might not have any negative consequences at all. But suppose X or Y no longer want a record of their sex lives to be known by anybody who dates them, or to their families, or children, etc. The gossip can become negative later on. Gossip is good and bad depending upon the context and the use to which the information is put.

Professor Solove’s conclusions jibe with Francis McAndrew’s research showing that people prefer negative gossip about strangers and higher-ups. But, of course, people spend a lot of time on the Internet writing to and about their friends, and there’s a lot of positive gossip in those emails and friendly blog posts. I still like to think that the Net has on balance brought out our cooperative nature. But I’ll reconsider as soon as I see the next bit of cyber venom.

Fiddling With Human Behavior

2007-10-22T10:05:00.000-07:00

PALO ALTO, California -- B.J. Fogg raises his long arm and thrusts a six-pound infant doll into the air.
"This is a persuasive computer," he says. "It may not look like it, but it is."
Fogg is the director of the Persuasive Technology Laboratory at Stanford University, where academics study technology designed to persuade people to alter their thoughts or behavior.
In the case of this doll, called Baby Think It Over, teen-agers are encouraged to change their attitudes about sex and pregnancy.
The baby is a tech variation on the "carry an egg" pregnancy prevention program once used by teachers to make their young charges think twice before indulging in any hanky panky.
But instead of toting around an egg wrapped in a towel, the student carries a life-like vinyl baby programmed to have a distinct personality and cry at random intervals. The crying can only be stopped when its "parent" inserts a key into the control unit on the doll's back.
And when the experiment is over, a detailed record of the student's performance is printed out, revealing such perceived abuses as neglect and shaking.
Fogg believes this kind of persuasive technology is the wave of the future. And he thinks it can be a little bit scary.
"I believe persuasive computing has significant potentials and pitfalls," Fogg said. "There really is a dark side."
In a one-room laboratory tucked away on the edge of Stanford's expansive campus, he works with students to cook up the darkest technology they can imagine.
Graduate student David Starke, 23, and his classmates have come up with their idea of the perfect persuasive technology -– jealousy.com.
At the fictitious site (which has no relation to the actual www.jealousy.com Web site), a jealous wife is taunted with provocative phrases like, "Do you know where your husband is?"
Once convinced of a probable infidelity, the suspicious missus registers for a service that will scan her husband's email for selected keywords, like "sex," "passion," and "kill." The service uses a Trojan horse that she has sent to her husband in the form of an innocuous-looking e-greeting.
Every time her husband receives an email with one of the selected keywords, jealousy.com will intercept it and deliver it to the broken-hearted -- if vindicated -- wife. And slap her with a bill, of course.
Although the aim of the program might be considered moral -– to reduce infidelity –- its means of persuasion are highly questionable.
Starke says he and his classmates got the idea for their project from DoubleClick, the Internet ad firm that has come under fire for collecting personal information from users.
"We said, 'What can we do that's really unethical?'" he said, adding that the question is an important one to explore.
"If you understand how people are trying to manipulate you, you can be better informed and make sure you're not being taken advantage of," he said. A scenario like jealousy.com is not that far off, Starke says.
"I think that one of the things that is scary about it is it's so easy to do," he said.
His teacher agrees.
"I think the value of pushing things to the extreme is so that we can ask, what's like this but not quite so obvious?" Fogg said.
Jason Tester, a senior who works in the lab, spends hours asking this same question by combing the Internet for real-life examples of persuasive technology.
One of the best examples he's seen so far is the Hygiene Guard, a device designed to spy on workers in the bathroom.
The system works with small badges worn by workers that pick up a signal from a sensor in the bathroom. The sensor makes the badge blink, and the blinking only stops when the employee pumps the soap dispenser and runs water for 15 seconds. Ignored blinking incidents are recorded.
Like most of the persuasive technology studied here, the Hygiene Guard has a noble intent -– to increase hand-washing and reduce the spread of germs -– but its methods raise questions and objections.
Though Tester and other students spend lots of time considering the evils of persuasive tech, they are the first to admit it's not all bad.
They've come up with several ideas that would use persuasive technology for nobler aims, such the system they designed for bathrooms called the Optilex.
A small device that runs on a tricked-out Palm Pilot and a couple of AA batteries, the Optliex is a screen placed above a urinal that flashes a new vocabulary word, its definition, and an example of the word in use whenever a guy steps up.
"We're trying to pre-empt the grout-reading time," said Erik Neuenschwander, who co-designed the device.
"If we exposed a closed community of people to positive, 'happy' words on a daily basis, would their behavior change?" Neuenschwander asks.
The theory behind his experiment is based on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that says language determines thought.
But Palm Pilots are pretty expensive, so there have been no studies yet.
The study of persuasive technology, called "captology" by researchers here, is a young science. Stanford is the only university in the world known to be studying it.
But Fogg says as the Internet grows as a vehicle to change what people do, people will have to start paying attention in order to protect themselves.
"Persuasive technologies are here," he said. "More are coming."

By Lynn Burke

Internet function and Internet addictive behavior

2007-10-22T10:04:00.000-07:00

Abstract
Ju [Research on personal characteristics, the behavior of using Internet and Internet addiction for Taiwanese college study. Master thesis. Taiwan, 2000] found the Internet function was related to the severity of Internet addiction, and this study explored the relationship between the Internet function and the Internet addictive behavior. Seventy-six college students were included in this study and had completed the Internet use function questionnaire (social function, informational function, leisure function and the virtual emotional function) and the Chinese Internet Addiction Scale (compulsive use, withdrawal, tolerance, time management problem and interpersonal and health problems). The study revealed not only the relationship between the social function and the index of the Internet dependence (compulsive use, withdrawal, tolerance and the problems in the interpersonal relationship and health), but also the correlation between the information function and the index of the Internet abuse (the problems in the interpersonal relationship and health). We found the social function played the core role in the Internet addictive behavior and the mechanism needs further discussion.

Reference
[1]Shih-Ming Li , and Teng-Ming Chung Department of Psychology, National Chung-Cheng University, Chia-Yi, Taiwan, ROC

Problematic Internet use or Internet addiction?

2007-10-22T09:56:00.000-07:00

Abstract
The aim of this paper is to review the gradually evolving body of the literature on Internet addiction. Two schools of thought have emerged: those authors who believe that Internet addiction merits classification as a new or emerging psychiatric disorder in its own right, and those who define certain individuals as having problematic Internet use in relation to specific online activities, such as gambling, email or pornography. Despite a total lack of methodologically sound research, the evidence appears to support the second perspective. It appears that individuals who are premorbidly vulnerable, especially with a history of impulse control and addictive disorders, are especially at risk of using the Internet in a problematic way. Aside from the personal and social implications of this finding, this behavior has important implications for the workplace and may be resulting in substantial loss of productivity in companies who are not implementing Internet governance policies.

Reference
[1]Peter M. Yellowlees , a, and Shayna Marks1, a, aUniversity of California, Davis Center for Health and Technology, 2300 Stockton Boulevard, Third Floor, Sacramento, CA 95817, United States Available online 11 July 2005.

Google super-brain to harvest human behaviour

2007-10-22T09:47:00.001-07:00

Alec Simpsonfunctionpix Monday May 28, 2007

Internet search giant Google is planning to build the world’s most powerful human database computer that will one day not only be able to log but also it will predict our every move.
The worlds most powerful search database has announced plans to build the database with full backing from the US government. It is the biggest Orwellian style threat to civil liberty and a threat to human privacy ever conceived and many are saying that this sort of system should not be allowed.
Google argue that it is purely a marketing and general life assistant type of application that will be able to predict what it is we might need without us actually realising it. It says that by organising the world’s information and collating every piece of data that it can hold about it’s users it can guess what people will look for.
Ultimately, it plans to make Google so personal that it will be able to target specific people who it knows are interested in certain genres an subjects. It says it will collate this data from all of it’s search engine information and that it already knows a great deal about what we look for, when we look for it and why.
Google say that it will be so advanced that it will be able to predict market trends, fashions and fluctuating moods and human behaviour. It is almost digitizing the human psyche. Others say that it will use the information to direct and influence our trends and instead of forecasting what we will need, it will be suggesting what we need according to their own influences.
The internet search giant argue that in theory there should be no problem. In fact, the new database could make life easier - perhaps even better. For example if you want to buy a particular book from a certain site, Google could locate other sites selling the same book at a cheaper price or it could recommend other books by the same author.
The same could also work if you want to buy a television or a holiday and the search engine could bring up the best buy on the net.
In setting up this database Google says it is giving customers what they want and that any information collated will be volunteered. Users will only be identified by name if they sign up to one of the log-on services such as G-mail or Froogle.
However, critics fear the database is the next step towards an Orwellian Big Brother state and that once Google has been allowed or even endorsed to ‘harvest’ all our most intimate daily habits, then we are dangerously close to the next step of total computer dependency.
While we already are living in a closely monitored society, we are almost becoming too used to seeing powerful cameras on every street corner and using store cards that log our every move and we are even willing to use websites such as Bebo, Myspace or friends reunited where even more personal data is stored, farmed and in some cases sold.
Protestors see the declaration for such a system as an infringement of civil liberties by stealth by a company that wants to turn the personal database into a lucrative marketing tool.
Like all businesses Google is driven to make money which it does through multi-million pound advertising sponsorship.This means consumers have no idea whether or not the information being given is impartial or whether something is being recommended of a big money deal.
In truth, people would not tolerate being followed around the shops day by day by some stranger taking notes of everything they buy, writing about the reasons behind their purchase and trying to steer them towards certain shops. So why should we put up with it in the virtual world?
Privacy protection campaigners fear that in certain circumstances law enforcement agents could force internet search engines to surrender personal information and already in it’s short existence, Google hold the largest compilation of personal information ever stored.
Google has bought the targeted advertising company Doubleclick which further monitors users on a wide range of websites, and deploys "cookies" - small software programs that embed themselves into people's computers to keep track of what they are looking at.
And it has also invested £2m in genetics company 23andMe - a move which sceptics of the database are calling ‘very worrying’.
Surely the best advice is, as in real life, if you are concerned about privacy, don't give out and personal information unless you know exactly who will be reading it. But in most cases, it proves impossible to use the internet without disclosing such information – as most sites insist that they have such data before you can access the site.
Also under the Data Protection Act information must only be used for the purposes it was given and Google has said it plans to impose a limit on the period it keeps personal information.
Google has been around for many years now and is a very much respected resource. It has proved itself to be the best of its kind. Although it has in the past resisted US government court applications to hand over personal information it holds on some users – it could also resist future demands to part with other information. But in this age of the super information technology, knowledge is super-power.

Teachers misbehave on Internet

2007-10-22T09:45:00.000-07:00

Review of state records finds educators losing licenses in sex cases
By Andrew Welsh-Huggins Associated Press
Published on Sunday, Oct 21, 2007
COLUMBUS: They started with phone calls, then moved to instant messages. They corresponded about astrology. The 28-year-old teacher told the 17-year-old student he was intrigued by her and found her levelheaded.
After a week or so of online chatting, teacher and coach Jason Ream suggested that he and the girl meet one evening. They drove to a Northeast Ohio park and made out. Soon they were having sex at a park, at Ream's apartment, at the student's house.
Ream ended up in prison, convicted of sexual battery, and lost his state teaching license.
Calling it ''obviously a big mistake,'' Ream, now 33, said he's moved on. ''The only thing that still makes it tough is I've got this shadow over my head,'' he said.
One in every five teachers in Ohio disciplined for inappropriate sexual behavior misbehaved with computers or the Internet, according to a review by the Associated Press of state teacher discipline reports from 2001 through 2005.
Reports from around the country show teachers sending raunchy or suggestive e-mail or instant messages, soliciting minors for sex over the Internet and visiting pornographic Web sites on school computers.
School-related cases in the Akron-Canton area include:
Scott Foster, who pleaded guilty in 2004 to three felony counts of sexual importuning involving three 13-year-old girls while he was a science teacher at Medina's A.I. Root Middle School. Foster, who was 30 when he entered his guilty pleas, was charged after three girls complained to their parents that an online chat with the teacher had turned sexual.
Foster was sentenced to six months in jail and six months of house arrest.
Jeffrey S. Doland, 45, a former computer technology consultant in the Green school district, faces felony charges, accused of arranging over the Internet to dunk two young girls underwater until they nearly drowned to satisfy a bizarre sexual craving.
Doland is accused of agreeing to pay the mother of two girls $500 for the experience. The ''mother'' was in reality an undercover U.S. Secret Service agent, and Doland was arrested in July at Miami International Airport. He has pleaded not guilty and his case is pending.
A former GlenOak High School band director, Michael Honnold, pleaded guilty in federal court last year to child pornography charges. More than 100 images of children were found on a personal computer in Honnold's Plain Township home, according to the FBI. Honnold, who was 33 when charged, was sentenced to five years in prison.
The AP's findings were part of a seven-month investigation in which AP reporters sought records on teacher discipline in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Nationwide problem
Across the country, sexual misconduct allegations led states to act against the licenses of 2,570 educators from 2001 through 2005. In Ohio, the number was 134 educators, and of those, 32 involved online misconduct. The figures include licenses that were revoked, denied and surrendered.
There are about 155,000 licensed educators in Ohio, including teachers and administrators, and about 3 million public schoolteachers in the United States.
Young people were victims in at least 63 percent of the Ohio cases, and the majority of those were students. Nine out of 10 of the abusive educators were male.
As e-mail and instant messages are traded, boundaries get stretched, said Keith Durkin, a professor at Ohio Northern University, where he studies child molesting and the Internet.
''The teacher just doesn't go over and fondle the 10-year-old there's a process that goes on,'' he said. ''They develop a relationship, a friendship, a trust.''
Criminologists call it grooming predators using e-mail or instant messages to lower their victims' inhibitions. But researchers debate how big a role the Internet plays in sexual misconduct.
Does it start the abuse or just facilitate it?
''In the case of educator abuse, these are people who already know each other from another context,'' said David Finkelhor, director of the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center.
At best, e-mail ''does create a little bit more of a secure, private back channel in which to communicate in,'' Finkelhor said. ''It may facilitate it but it's not a quantum jump. It's a little bit of shading.''
The state says it takes all allegations of misconduct seriously. But it also says bad teachers are a tiny fraction of Ohio's licensed educators subject to discipline.
''There are teachers who unfortunately engage in sexual misconduct,'' said Adrian Allison, the Ohio Education Department's urban affairs director and until recently head of the agency's professional conduct office. ''When the state of Ohio finds out about it, we are the first and hopefully the last hammer to make sure they are no longer in the teaching profession.''
Students tell adults
Typically, districts become aware of inappropriate relationships when a student or a friend tells an adult. Complicating the issue is that, in the Internet age, students and teachers often send e-mail back and forth about homework or sports schedules.
Cincinnati schools, one of many districts with policies governing e-mail, don't specifically address what a teacher should or shouldn't say to a student electronically. The district's policy prohibits obscene language in employee e-mail, along with using the messages for personal gain or profit, ''including overuse of e-mail to communicate with family or friends.''
In Delaware, north of Columbus, teacher Daniel Girard regularly sent e-mail to students in an exchange with one, he was ''Stud'' and she was ''Hottie.'' After another, with a 13-year-old girl, Girard went to her house and they sat on her couch and kissed.
Girard pleaded no contest to a charge of sexual imposition in 2002 and lost his teaching license.
From 2001 through 2005, the Ohio school board revoked or suspended the licenses of 285 other Ohio educators for nonsexual misconduct, ranging from stealing booster club money to lying about past convictions to relatively minor problems, such as resigning in violation of a contract.
Some teachers return
The Columbus Dispatch, in a 10-month investigation, found that two-thirds of the 1,722 educators disciplined for misconduct since 2000 were sent back to their classrooms or allowed to take teaching jobs.
Ream's case began in March 2002 as he taught fourth- and fifth-graders at a school for emotionally troubled children in Elyria. He also was the high school soccer coach and managed a pool.
He met the girl through a trivia contest he worked on with several grades. After flirting with her one day in a classroom, he asked for her e-mail address, then used school records to look up her phone number.
He called her at home that night to help her set up an instant message account, making sure he got her password so he could delete the messages, according to police reports compiled as part of the state school board's record of the case.
Ream told police the girl started the relationship; she said he asked for her e-mail address first and made the initial calls.
After about four months, Ream had second thoughts and stopped contacting the girl. She told a county social worker about the relationship and a complaint was filed with the police department. ''She advised that she now understands that he was taking advantage of her,'' police said in a report.
Ream served 10 months in prison and was released in 2004.
Still in Ohio, now working in sales, Ream said he was reluctant to have the case dredged up again. He said the instant messages were inconsequential to the relationship, which began as an extension of his job.
He said he learned that things happen in people's lives that they need to learn from and then move on. He called the affair a black mark on ''an otherwise impeccably lived life.''
''I'm not commenting on my case in particular,'' he said, ''but in today's society, there's a lot more of the kid making the initial move at the teacher or educator than there is the other way around.''
Elyria schools say the case was clear-cut: a teacher taking advantage of an underaged student with special needs.
''From the district's standpoint, he obviously violated a trust,'' said Gary Taylor, district human resources director. ''The fact is, it was wrong.''
COLUMBUS: They started with phone calls, then moved to instant messages. They corresponded about astrology. The 28-year-old teacher told the 17-year-old student he was intrigued by her and found her levelheaded.
After a week or so of online chatting, teacher and coach Jason Ream suggested that he and the girl meet one evening. They drove to a Northeast Ohio park and made out. Soon they were having sex at a park, at Ream's apartment, at the student's house.
Ream ended up in prison, convicted of sexual battery, and lost his state teaching license.
Calling it ''obviously a big mistake,'' Ream, now 33, said he's moved on. ''The only thing that still makes it tough is I've got this shadow over my head,'' he said.
One in every five teachers in Ohio disciplined for inappropriate sexual behavior misbehaved with computers or the Internet, according to a review by the Associated Press of state teacher discipline reports from 2001 through 2005.
Reports from around the country show teachers sending raunchy or suggestive e-mail or instant messages, soliciting minors for sex over the Internet and visiting pornographic Web sites on school computers.
School-related cases in the Akron-Canton area include:
Scott Foster, who pleaded guilty in 2004 to three felony counts of sexual importuning involving three 13-year-old girls while he was a science teacher at Medina's A.I. Root Middle School. Foster, who was 30 when he entered his guilty pleas, was charged after three girls complained to their parents that an online chat with the teacher had turned sexual.
Foster was sentenced to six months in jail and six months of house arrest.
Jeffrey S. Doland, 45, a former computer technology consultant in the Green school district, faces felony charges, accused of arranging over the Internet to dunk two young girls underwater until they nearly drowned to satisfy a bizarre sexual craving.
Doland is accused of agreeing to pay the mother of two girls $500 for the experience. The ''mother'' was in reality an undercover U.S. Secret Service agent, and Doland was arrested in July at Miami International Airport. He has pleaded not guilty and his case is pending.
A former GlenOak High School band director, Michael Honnold, pleaded guilty in federal court last year to child pornography charges. More than 100 images of children were found on a personal computer in Honnold's Plain Township home, according to the FBI. Honnold, who was 33 when charged, was sentenced to five years in prison.
The AP's findings were part of a seven-month investigation in which AP reporters sought records on teacher discipline in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Nationwide problem
Across the country, sexual misconduct allegations led states to act against the licenses of 2,570 educators from 2001 through 2005. In Ohio, the number was 134 educators, and of those, 32 involved online misconduct. The figures include licenses that were revoked, denied and surrendered.
There are about 155,000 licensed educators in Ohio, including teachers and administrators, and about 3 million public schoolteachers in the United States.
Young people were victims in at least 63 percent of the Ohio cases, and the majority of those were students. Nine out of 10 of the abusive educators were male.
As e-mail and instant messages are traded, boundaries get stretched, said Keith Durkin, a professor at Ohio Northern University, where he studies child molesting and the Internet.
''The teacher just doesn't go over and fondle the 10-year-old there's a process that goes on,'' he said. ''They develop a relationship, a friendship, a trust.''
Criminologists call it grooming predators using e-mail or instant messages to lower their victims' inhibitions. But researchers debate how big a role the Internet plays in sexual misconduct.
Does it start the abuse or just facilitate it?
''In the case of educator abuse, these are people who already know each other from another context,'' said David Finkelhor, director of the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center.
At best, e-mail ''does create a little bit more of a secure, private back channel in which to communicate in,'' Finkelhor said. ''It may facilitate it but it's not a quantum jump. It's a little bit of shading.''
The state says it takes all allegations of misconduct seriously. But it also says bad teachers are a tiny fraction of Ohio's licensed educators subject to discipline.
''There are teachers who unfortunately engage in sexual misconduct,'' said Adrian Allison, the Ohio Education Department's urban affairs director and until recently head of the agency's professional conduct office. ''When the state of Ohio finds out about it, we are the first and hopefully the last hammer to make sure they are no longer in the teaching profession.''
Students tell adults
Typically, districts become aware of inappropriate relationships when a student or a friend tells an adult. Complicating the issue is that, in the Internet age, students and teachers often send e-mail back and forth about homework or sports schedules.
Cincinnati schools, one of many districts with policies governing e-mail, don't specifically address what a teacher should or shouldn't say to a student electronically. The district's policy prohibits obscene language in employee e-mail, along with using the messages for personal gain or profit, ''including overuse of e-mail to communicate with family or friends.''
In Delaware, north of Columbus, teacher Daniel Girard regularly sent e-mail to students in an exchange with one, he was ''Stud'' and she was ''Hottie.'' After another, with a 13-year-old girl, Girard went to her house and they sat on her couch and kissed.
Girard pleaded no contest to a charge of sexual imposition in 2002 and lost his teaching license.
From 2001 through 2005, the Ohio school board revoked or suspended the licenses of 285 other Ohio educators for nonsexual misconduct, ranging from stealing booster club money to lying about past convictions to relatively minor problems, such as resigning in violation of a contract.
Some teachers return
The Columbus Dispatch, in a 10-month investigation, found that two-thirds of the 1,722 educators disciplined for misconduct since 2000 were sent back to their classrooms or allowed to take teaching jobs.
Ream's case began in March 2002 as he taught fourth- and fifth-graders at a school for emotionally troubled children in Elyria. He also was the high school soccer coach and managed a pool.
He met the girl through a trivia contest he worked on with several grades. After flirting with her one day in a classroom, he asked for her e-mail address, then used school records to look up her phone number.
He called her at home that night to help her set up an instant message account, making sure he got her password so he could delete the messages, according to police reports compiled as part of the state school board's record of the case.
Ream told police the girl started the relationship; she said he asked for her e-mail address first and made the initial calls.
After about four months, Ream had second thoughts and stopped contacting the girl. She told a county social worker about the relationship and a complaint was filed with the police department. ''She advised that she now understands that he was taking advantage of her,'' police said in a report.
Ream served 10 months in prison and was released in 2004.
Still in Ohio, now working in sales, Ream said he was reluctant to have the case dredged up again. He said the instant messages were inconsequential to the relationship, which began as an extension of his job.
He said he learned that things happen in people's lives that they need to learn from and then move on. He called the affair a black mark on ''an otherwise impeccably lived life.''
''I'm not commenting on my case in particular,'' he said, ''but in today's society, there's a lot more of the kid making the initial move at the teacher or educator than there is the other way around.''
Elyria schools say the case was clear-cut: a teacher taking advantage of an underaged student with special needs.
''From the district's standpoint, he obviously violated a trust,'' said Gary Taylor, district human resources director. ''The fact is, it was wrong.''

HUman

2007-10-17T11:38:00.000-07:00

how can you define a human ? A body., Some one who has brain. Who can make the decisions. What kind of decision a human can make depends on that human. There are always two kind of decision in his mind, the first one is right decision and the second one is wrong decision. Why a human always have to make two decision ? why can not a human make only one decision. There are a lot of definition about this creature called human. No body knows how first human came in this planet. All are research and the research still continues. but the I think there is no full truth about this speicies. Even if there is people hardly believe them. Why there are two different form of human ? One is called male and another is called female. Why not only male or only female. Why was the difference between two types of speicies of human. Who created it ? Why he created these two types of specieis of human ? What was the reson for that creation ? Why there is mating between these two species ? But now, There is mating between the Same species also, why is this happening? There are always the question in our mind? Who do we think can answers these question ? I am trying to find the existence of the human in this planet ? Am i trying to find the solution to these answers one day. What do you think ? What do the other human think about this human thinking ? I do not know ? Is this the best answer that i can give you, if you think yes then think again,,,,, One day I am going to find out the answers and the answers will be here. I do not know how long i will be alive but if i will be alive i will show you that how these answers are connected and what can be the right solution? I will give you the every minute details here. One day ....