Dysfunctional Techno-habits
New Scientist has a nice little article called “Just can’t get e-nough” about habitual problems some people get from using the Internet.
The web in particular has opened up a host of opportunities for overindulgence. Take Wikipedia. Updating the entries - something anyone can do - has become almost a way of life for some. There are more than 2400 “Wikipedians”, p 36 - you know where to look it up if you don’t know what it means - who have edited more than 4000 pages each (”see Confessions of a Wikipediholic”, below). “It’s clearly like crack for some people,” says Dan Cosley at Cornell University in New York, who has studied how websites such as Wikipedia foster a community. To committed Wikipedians, he says, the site is more than a useful information resource; it’s the embodiment of an ideology of free information for all.
Favourite terms - crackberry and cheesepodder1 . 
- someone who goes hunting for those cheesy old numbers for their iPod [back]
