Recently I had the pleasure of joining an online forums website, my second one actually. Technically there was nothing wrong with the first, but we "net surfers tend to get bored easily. I have a friend whom I met in the first site, who now belongs to several of these sites all at once. He must be in all of them all at the same time too, as I can never keep track of where he is. My friend is all over the internet. He must have seventy things going on at once, all of which involve talking to someone, somewhere over the rainbow. I don"t know how he does it, unless he has seven computers all going at once, and six hired assistants to help him run them. However he does it, I still cannot communicate with him.
I know a lot of people like this actually. I think it's a communicable disease that I will randomly name, "Technoatitis", or in laymen's terms; Oh brother, where art thou? People with this condition cannot live without a cell phone in one ear, a land line in the other, an ipod very close by, and at least one laptop as well as a desktop PC. Oh yeah, and high speed internet. Just mention dial up and their skin will crawl. Talk about your PC crashing and they break out in hives. If they have to wait more than two seconds for something to load they break pencils in half and make weird jewelry out of paper clips. It is an extremely contagious disease, so stay at least fifty yards away from the infected individual. This will in no way guarantee you will not catch the disease but it will ensure that you do not see what that poor soul is looking at on the web. This is called preventive care.
Online chatrooms and discussion forums are extremely addictive, so be careful when you sign up for one. They are quite often free, which means that you do not have to pay money for the privilege of writing extremely stupid things for other addicts to read. This is called, "getting a fix". Instant messages and Quick messages are inventions of someone who did not believe that email was fast enough. These internet devices are basically written phone calls. Poorly written phone calls, I might add. Somehow, the phrase, "hey, th8 is so cewell, wut U got goin on?" just doesn't do it for me. I always take the time to spell out all of my words thusly: "Hey, that is soooooooooo coooooool. What's goin' on?" Much better.
Internet addicts cannot wait to get back online, if they ever get offline. Many years ago, children got into trouble with their parents merely for watching too much television. Now, the time that kids used to spend watching TV every day is spent surfing the web. Parents are still not satisfied. That won't happen until their kids grow up and have kids of their own. Then mom and dad will be happy, because for the first time in their parental lives, they will finally get to be right. Hold on to that moment, parents, as it will never happen again.
Online discussion forums often attract the type of person who cannot get a life any other way. They have no friends except for the words printed on the glowing, white screen. They will tell everyone that they have a life, and they can get offline, and they can go out and go places and have fun.....and.....then they spend three hours in the forums telling people all about what they could be doing outside in the real world. Addictions are never pretty. Sometimes trolls stop in and visit these online sites. These are the people who cannot live without their argument of the day. They pick fights with anyone, anytime, on any topic. If you are discussing the best way to plant gardenias, the troll will jump on your back about the type of fertilizer you use and the "greenhouse gases" it is known to produce. No topic is safe from these addicts, and they have twitchy trigger fingers, so beware.
Then there are the lurkers. The ones who log in to these sites, patrol around in the forums, looking at discussions, but never posting anything. This is the reason that every thread you post will have about 100 comments, and 500 visits. This is called, the silent treatment, and the only way to cure it is to draw them out somehow, perhaps by posting a thread in their honor, such as: "Hey, Weirdo556, when are you gonna talk?" This is guaranteed to bring Weirdo out into the open, but could have a negative effect on the outcome as it is likely to turn Mr. Weirdo 556 from a lurker into a troll. Once that happens, there is no cure.
Yes, these websites can be fun, and certainly they are addictive, but I can quit, really I can. I just found out that my favorite online forum discussion site has been temporarily shut down. I'm okay. I'm dealing with it. I'm in control. Nothing phases me. My fingers are a bit twitchy, but that is perfectly normal, part of the withdrawal process. I'm dying to see just one emoticon, but I'm okay, really, I am. Okay, I admit it. I need help. If there is a 12-step program for this I'm signing up right now. Oh cool, I just found a chat room for chat room addicts. Whaddya know.
