

Researchers "Addicted" to Bogus Internet Studies - mathewi
http://gigaom.com/2010/04/24/researchers-addicted-to-bogus-internet-studies/

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lotharbot
Money quote from the study being ridiculed here:

 _Students "could live without their TVs and the newspaper, but they can’t
survive without their iPods."_ (from <http://withoutmedia.wordpress.com/>)

Are students wiring up their iPods to interface with pacemakers? Have their
survival skills atrophied so much that the only thing reminding them to eat is
the "it is time to eat" track that plays every 8 hours on their iPod? Or could
it be that the people who wrote the study carelessly or intentionally
exaggerated in their quest for headline-grabbing material?

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anigbrowl
There's grant money to be had for anything that can be defined as a
sufficiently important problem. 'Internet addiction' gets funded in Korea, and
we throw fat money at anything which even sounds drug-related.

The increasing ubiquity of digital socialization is interesting of course, but
then so is every new thing...TV, rock music, probably radio back in the day.

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johnl
They may be addicted to the convenience of the gadgets if anything. Nobody
rings the doorbell anymore, they stand in front of the door and call you from
their cell.

