News.com.au
Sunday, March 23, 2008

PEOPLE who send excessive texts and emails may have a mental illness, according to an article in a leading psychiatric journal.

As more people leave the office computer, only to log on as soon as they get home, the American Journal of Psychiatry has found addiction to text messaging and emailing could be another form of mental illness.

The article, by Dr Jerald Block, said there were four symptoms: suffering from feelings of withdrawal when a computer cannot be accessed; an increased need for better equipment; need for more time to use it; and experiencing the negative repercussions of their addiction.

Dr Block said that although text messaging was not directly linked to the Internet, it was a form of instant messaging and needed to be included among the criteria.

“The chief reasons I see to consider it are motor vehicle accidents that are caused by cell phone instant messaging, stalking and harassment via instant messaging, and instant messaging at social, educational, (and) work functions where it creates problems,” he said.

“It should be a pervasive and problematic pattern, though, not isolated incidents.”

Leanne Battaglia, 21, said she would not classify herself as being clinically addicted to online communication, but could see how quickly the problem could develop.

“It’s become a way of life now, but I don’t think it’s at that stage yet,” Ms Battaglia said.

Despite sitting at a computer all day, the sales consultant admits she will often log on again when she gets home.

“I use it almost every night and during the day. I’m pretty much always on Facebook, eBay, ninemsn and gossip sites.”

Ms Battaglia also sends about 20 text messages a day.

“I swear by my mobile, it’s like a security blanket. I just feel really bare without it,” she said.

Dr Robert Kaplan, a forensic psychiatrist at the Graduate School of Medicine, University of Wollongong, said he first saw a case of internet addiction in 1998.

Since that time, he has noticed a steady increase in the disorder among Australians.

According to a report titled Media And Communications In Australian Families 2007, the average child spends about one hour and 17 minutes on the internet each day, with teenagers aged 15 to 17 spending an average of 30 minutes sending text messages and another 25 minutes playing online games.

“I think in general it’s escalating,” Dr Kaplan said. “We now all live in an internet world, and it brings with it a range of problems.”

This is London Magazine
Sunday, March 23, 2008

Six young brothers and sisters face being taken from their parents and put into care because they are overweight.

Social workers have warned they will intervene if three of the youngsters – including a 12-year-old boy who weighs 16 stone – do not shed several pounds in three months.

The parents have been told they risk losing all their children if there is no improvement in the 12-year-old or two of his sisters aged 11 and three – who weigh 12 stone and four stone – by June.

The family have also been ordered to send their children to dance and football lessons to help them lose weight.

The shocking development highlights Britain’s childhood obesity crisis, which has already forced those as young as 13 to seek NHS weight-loss surgery.

Only America has more overweight children than the UK, leading health experts to warn that our current generation of youngsters may not outlive their parents.

But critics last night described the intervention of social workers as “deeply worrying” and questioned their powers to break up families.

Dr Colin Waine, of the National Obesity Forum, said: “This has to be a last resort.

“We must understand the health dangers associated with obesity, but the approach I favour is regular monitoring of children’s weight from birth to avoid drastic action like this.”

Nadine Dorries, the Tory MP for Mid- Bedfordshire and a former nurse, described the measure as “draconian”.

“A far more sensible and costeffective solution would be for the localauthority to provide round-the-clock support within the home, aimed at both assisting the children in attaining a healthier lifestyle and educating the parents,” she said.

The family, who The Mail on Sunday are not naming to protect the children, say their slimming deadline was set at a meeting with child protection officers last Thursday in which they were warned all six children would be taken away.

If the children are put into foster homes it opens up the possibility they could be adopted, which would leave them unable to make contact with their birth parents until they were adults.

Last night the children’s 39-year-old mother, who weighs 23 stone, said: “This is every family’s worst nightmare.

“I just can’t stop crying at the thought I could lose my beautiful children for ever.”

The 12-year-old has developed “anger issues” and has been bullied at school.

His 11-year-old sister has now stopped eating proper meals because of her anxiety over the threat and her parents fear she is developing an eating disorder such as anorexia.

Social workers have also raised concerns about the couple’s 21-monthold, who weighs 26lb, labelling him “overweight”.

The other two children – a ten-yearold boy and seven-year-old girl – are also heavy, although the parents insist this is “puppy fat”.

In an emotional interview, the mother said she and her 52-year-old husband – who weighs 18 stone and suffers from heart problems – were now living in fear.

She admitted: “They keep making an issue about the kids’ weight. I don’t even own a deep-fat fryer.

“All my food is home-cooked and the kids are not fed junk food at all.

“I feel we are being victimised. Children can carry a bit of puppy fat but they tend to lose it as they get older. Ours are not being given that chance.”

Ironically, the family, from Dundee, first came under scrutiny by the authorities when they called asking for help managing their children, including their three-year-old daughter, who suffers from developmental problems.

The constant questioning by social workers has left the children aware that they may be taken from their mother and father.

Last night a close family friend, who has attended social services meetings with the parents as support, said: “They are a very vulnerable family who have simply been picked on.

“If they had just struggled on in silence I firmly believe they would not be in this horrendous situation.

“The parents do both have problems with their weight but the children are spotlessly clean. They are in the bath every night and their clothes are beautifully ironed. You never see them running around with bags of sweets.”

Dundee City Council said: ‘We are not able to comment on individual child protection issues.’ Last year, an eight-year-old girl from the Cumbria area was taken into care because she weighed nine stone.

Tobias elaborates further on the UK smoking ban, before discussing how social services are paid bonuses to snatch children. Other topics discussed in this episode are the Iraq war, 9/11, potential fines for UK citizens for simply being intoxicated in public and requests by police to put children as young as five who “behave badly” onto the national DNA database.

 

 Standard Podcast [46:27m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Cory Doctorow
Boingboing
March 15, 2008

Today in my ongoing series of photos from my travels, this shot of the fingerprint reader at Walt Disney World’s turnstiles. These machines (which, I’m told, capture the shape of your fingertip instead of your fingerprint itself) are used to keep Disney World customers from sharing or re-selling their admission tickets, and are part of a general and growing police-state climate at the parks that includes routine bag-searches at each park entrance.

The readers aren’t very effective at stopping admission cheats. You can choose not to register your fingertip, and to use photo ID for admission instead (I’m thinking of having a random piece of photo identification made with the words “OFFICIAL BOGUS SECURITY IDENTIFICATION FOR HOTELS, THEME PARKS AND OTHER JUNIOR G-MEN” printed on it). So it would be very easy to share your pass: the person named on the pass enters with his ID, and the person with whom he’s sharing the card uses a fingertip — you could visit with your sister’s family and half of you could use the tickets in the morning while the other half hung around the pool and relaxed, then switch at lunch: the morning crew uses fingertip, the afternoon uses ID.

What these readers are effective at is conditioning kids to accept surveillance and routine searches and identity checks without particularized suspcion. One morning at Epcot Center, as we offered our ID to the castmember at the turnstile and began to argue (again — they’re very poorly trained on this point) that we could indeed opt to show ID instead of being printed, a small boy behind us chirped up, “No you have to be fingerprinted! Everybody has to be fingerprinted!”

To all those parents who worry that Disney will turn their kids into little princesses, it’s time to get priorities straight: the “security” at the parks is even more effective at conditioning your children to live in a police state.

Rob Purchese
Eurogamer
Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Labour MP Keith Vaz has finally been challenged in the Houses of Parliament after he claimed videogames let you “rape women”.

His comments were made during a debate on Friday that sought to make the BBFC accountable to Parliament and the public to “encourage a return to more responsible decisions”.

“Videogames are different because they are interactive,” argued Vaz, reported by GamesIndustry.biz. “People who are watching a film at the cinema cannot participate in what is happening on the screen, or if they do they are removed from the cinema.

“However, someone sitting at a computer playing a videogame, or someone with one of those small devices that young people have these days, the name of which I forget: PlayStations or PSPs, something of that kind…

“Well, whatever they are called, when people play these things, they can interact. They can shoot people; they can kill people. As the honourable Gentleman said, they can rape women,” he added.

The “honourable Gentleman” referred to was Julian Brazer, Conservative MP for Canterbury, sponsor of the Bill. Not the police telly show.

Vaz also trotted out the old Warren Leblanc Manhunt connection theory, despite police having rubbished it ages ago. Margaret Hodge, Minister for Culture, Media and Sport, was eager to promote the facts of the murder enquiry and distance the role of Manhunt as violent inspiration.

“The game was discovered not in [killer] Warren Leblanc’s possession but in the victim’s possession,” she said. “It does not feature the use of a hammer, and it was not considered by the police to be a contributory factor. No such connection was ever suggested in court.

“Indeed, the prosecution and defence barristers insisted in court that the video game had played no part in the killing. It was reported that Leblanc was motivated by fear of a gang to which he owed money.”

Conservative MP Edward Vaizey had also heard enough, and asked Brazer (Vaz had left) if he knew of “any videogame that has as its intention the carrying out of rape”, because the BBFC and he were “unaware of any such game”.

“I cannot comment on the rape in games issue, but I can tell the House what Stefan Pakeerah’s father said after Warren Leblanc had murdered his son,” responded Brazer.

“He said that Manhunt is a game using weapons like hammers and knives…The object of Manhunt is not just to go out and kill people. It’s a point-scoring game where you increase your score depending on how violent the killing is. That explains why Stefan’s murder was as horrific as it was.”

Brilliant.

The debate will continue this Friday, when Margaret Hodge will offer a complete response to the case made.

Vaz will likely complain that his arguments will be “pilloried in the press that is sponsored by the videogames industry” again.

The results of the Byron Report are also expected at the end of this month; an investigation set up by the Prime Minister to look into the effects of violence on the Internet and in videogames.