[Paleopsych] Reuters: Web Addiction Gets Conscripts Out of Army
Premise Checker
checker at panix.com
Wed Aug 4 23:08:05 UTC 2004
Web Addiction Gets Conscripts Out of Army
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&u=/nm/20040803/od_nm/odd_finland_internet_dc&printer=1
4.8.3, 10:20 AM ET
[I certainly understand what this addiction is like! Sometimes, I just
get hooked on moving files around in my computer, even as I realize that
were my hard disk to crash (as happened twice), there's very little I
would miss. And as it happened, that very little was backed up to half a
dozen floppies. Nowadays, I have an external hard drive.]
HELSINKI (Reuters) - A number of Finnish conscripts have been excused
their full term of military service because they are addicted to the
Internet, the Finnish Defense Forces said Tuesday.
Doctors have found the young men miss their computers too much to cope
with their compulsory six months in the forces.
"For people who play (Internet) games all night and don't have any
friends, don't have any hobbies, to come into the army is a very big
shock," said Commander-Captain Jyrki Kivela at the military
conscription unit.
"Some of (the conscripts) go to the doctor and say they can't stay.
Sometimes, the doctors have said they have an Internet addiction,"
Kivela said.
There are no official figures for the Internet addict dropout rate.
"They get sent home for three years and after that they have to come
back and we ask if they are OK ... they will have had time to grow
up," Kivela said.
Finland called up 26,500 men in 2003, nine percent of whom were
relieved of duty for medical reasons.
However, the Internet drop-outs have not dented national pride in
"sisu," a Finnish quality of being tough and resilient.
"We are very proud of our Finnish men. Eight-two percent of all
Finnish men manage their whole military service," Kivela said.
More information about the paleopsych
mailing list