

Wi-Fi Is More Addictive Than Coffee for Young People - davidedicillo
http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/08/coffee-tv-or-wi-fi/

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hugh3
_Seventy-five percent of American respondents to a survey sponsored by the Wi-
Fi Alliance said that a week without Wi-Fi would leave grumpier than a week
without coffee or tea._

Uhhh-huh. And I wonder what a survey sponsored by the Coffee and Tea Alliance
would have to say.

Is there no filtering layer at the New York Times that comes in between the
press release and the story and says "Boy, this sounds like a bogus poll, we
probably shouldn't base an entire article around it"?

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jcw
Does "a week without wifi" mean "a week without internet"?

I hope people understand that you can also use a cable.

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cryptoz
You never know. There's a lot of confusion around the term "wireless". As a
teenager in the early '00s, I worked in an electronics store that sold
laptops. Many times, people would be pissed that you still needed to plug it
in to the wall: after all, they were buying a laptop "with wireless"! Of
course, there's always the extreme case that's the basis of many jokes on the
'net, where an old lady returns a laptop because it died after three hours of
use. She didn't plug it in because "it's wireless, right?"

 _sigh_

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Perceval
I just canceled my home internet precisely because I had no self-control when
exposed to it constantly. I would get up, get online, waste hours, barely get
any work done, then waste the rest of the day on it, especially when I had
tedious work to do.

It's much easier to get and up and get work done if I don't have internet in
my home, so it's not the first or last thing I do every day. I've also started
reading before bed again.

Maybe asceticism is just my natural response to things, after all, I don't
drink or have a TV or (now) have home internet. But writing a dissertation
does demand a little bit of a monk-like existence, as I imagine other major
projects do.

I can still get internet with my iPhone or library Wi-Fi, but in the former
case it's harder to waste hours surfing on the iPhone, and in the latter case
I can simply avoid going to Wi-Fi-enabled places on campus if I need to.

~~~
kiba
Maybe you just need to practice NOT eating marshmallow.

Lay out one marshmallow and try not to eat for X seconds. Once you reach that
X seconds, add another marshmallow. Keep doing it until you can't do it.

After recording the number of marshmallows you ate, you try for bigger number
of marshmallows next time.

However, I never tested this. So if you ever try this idea, let me know how it
goes.

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sbov
Just because you don't want to go without something you're addicted to it? I
thought addiction had to do with continuing use in the face of adverse
consequences.

If not, then personally, I'm addicted to oxygen. I'm not sure what I would do
without it.

~~~
techiferous
My thoughts exactly.

I'm addicted to wi-fi in the same way that I'm addicted to electricity and
running water.

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vilhelm_s
See also: <http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html>

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pmjordan
I'm guessing 3G/HSPA coverage must be pretty bad/expensive in the US? (yeah, I
know about the AT&T/iPhone complaints) For on-the-go internet use, HSPA is
easily good enough and cheap enough here, I usually don't even bother turning
on Wifi when on the go. It's not quite DSL of course, but public Wifi tends to
be much worse than office/home DSL anyway...

~~~
steveklabnik
Well, tethering also isn't free, unless you're with T-Mobile. Everyone else
charges roughly $20/month for it.

~~~
pmjordan
The price I quoted is actually for prepaid do-whatever-you-want-with-it SIM
card: €20 per 1.5GB bundle, lasts up to 12 months. You can go cheaper
(€4/GB/month) if you're a heavier user or go for a flat rate (no idea how much
they are these days). So yeah, sounds like you guys get screwed over for
wireless data.

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code_duck
There's no question, the internet is way more stimulating! And that's good,
that an experience of any sort is more entertaining than a drug. Of course,
put the two together, and this may explain why I've been to a coffee shop 4
days out of 7 for the past 3 years.

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Groxx
Question: how many responders equated "Wi-Fi" with "internet access"? And how
many capitalize and hyphenate "Wi-Fi"?

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dbrannan
It's just not young people! I'm 42 and would probably go crazy without my
Internet connection.

~~~
daniel-cussen
I got to live without wifi for a while after the earthquake (I live in
Santiago). It was some serious withdrawal.

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finnomenon
I don't care much for coffee at all, so.. yeah, I'd be "grumpier"

