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News & ArtsSaturday, September 5, 2009
Teh Internets $14,000!
Posted by Charles Mudede on Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 1:05 PM
By way HuffPo, a story in the Guardian:
If you have to take a quick break from reading this article to check your Blackberry, send a text or reboot your Xbox 360 before you reach the end of this paragraph, then the good news is that help is at hand.$14,000? Rain-soaked and near Seattle? 45 days in the middle of the deepest recession since when? A month and a half with no internet? $14,000?reSTART has been opened outside Seattle, the rain-soaked north-western town where high-tech companies are as common as cattle are in Texas. It claims to be America's first residential detox centre for internet addicts.
For a little over $14,000, up to six people at a time can spend 45 days sweating out their insatiable urge to be umbilically connected to cyberspace. Think cold turkey as experienced by heroin junkies, and you get the general idea.
1
Americans are big believers in the idea of ubiquitous addiction -- any problem or overindulgence can be characterized as an "addiction" and treated as such, for a reasonable fee.
3
Charles, in case you haven't noticed, Seattle is rain-soaked compared to most other places. We've had a whopping 15 inches of precipitation so far this year, and it's been wetter than average.
4
For half of that I'll let you crash at my place, I'll make you food and provide you entertainment. We can talk and hug it out.
6
I spent two summers working at a lodge/lounge in remote Alaska. We had access to dial up in the family room of the people who I worked for; where you could have been bombarded with two bored bulldogs, 2 bored cats, and a bored 11 year old autistic girl. That was basically the same thing as internet/tv/radio detox, but I got paid, and instead of living in a residence it was a bar.
7
This is a real addiction with large financial consequences. For many $14,000 is a drop in the bucket compared to the loss of productivity and headache the Internet has brought to their life.
Unfortunately, the same does not exist for texting addicts since there are so many out there who send hundreds of text messages a month.
Unfortunately, the same does not exist for texting addicts since there are so many out there who send hundreds of text messages a month.
8
For half that price I'll strap you to a chair in the closet and smack you around if you ask to check your email. It'll probably be just as effective.
9
Won't work, I think it was Finland that tried the Internet Addiction Rehab, and it turned out it's not that people are addicted to the internet itself, but rather that for some people, online communications tend to be their primary social circle for one reason or another from having disorders that make face-to-face communication awkward to just simply not having anyone local who shares the same interests/politics/etc.
13
Chaz... are you soliciting donations to get yerself there? I might be in for $20 if that's the case.
14
Is this more 12 step crap thet tells people the lie that they are powerless?
http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-not_…
http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-not_…
15
http://www.netaddictionrecovery.com/prog…
Actually closer to $19k after you add in the BS like the $200 "application fee" and the $800 "screening interview" fee. I can't believe KUOW actually put these scam artists on the air in an interview.
Actually closer to $19k after you add in the BS like the $200 "application fee" and the $800 "screening interview" fee. I can't believe KUOW actually put these scam artists on the air in an interview.
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