About IRC addiction

• Users and Gratifications on IRC by Mui Kei, clOudS, 3/30/99
  
  

Here is one interesting text about IRC I've found once. May be it will help you; may be you could comment that?

A D D I C T I O N

IRC IS A DRUG. What a thrill! What a rush! You're hooked up, on-line to other people in real time! You never thought a computer could be so cool!! And all the while you thought that all those people in front of their computers were mad. And then you become attached to IRC. You keep doing it and doing it and doing it....you can't stop. Hey you're bored at home. Better than turning on the TV right? You dream of it at night. You wake up odd hours just to chat. You become the world's greatest typist. You become familiar with odd lingo: dcc, aliases, url, bots, cyberlife, real life, ping timeout, wav and midi files. People finger you and you don't mind. People with weird names, names named after animals, cities, parts of the anatomy. People you have never seen, people you do not know and might never ever meet...these people become your best friends....you are an IRC addict. Ack! What happened? You used to be so normal! Now you can't live without the damn thing. You HAVE to be on-line or you'll just DIE.

In cyberspace, you can be yourself, or you can be who you want to be, and people won't care. You are a personality, not a body. IRC is where people can barge into a channel, and not one person would mind. You can chat in several channels at once, have private conversations, and carry on two or three or maybe even a dozen converations at once. Try THAT at a real life party.

Be careful though, in IRC you experience feelings just like 'real' life only far more intense! You end up feeling ignored if no one talks to you. You end up getting frustrated if you can't get your auto-greet to work. You end up in a fit of real laughter with funny jokes. You end up all huggy and happy to see someone you like log on. You end up falling in love. You end up getting jealous. You end up getting hurt. You end up getting depressed. And the friendships that we form on IRC are real life friendships. Only IRCers can understand the nature of these relationships. We look for something on IRC, and when we find it, we don't let it go. All we want to do is have fun, all we want to do is meet people...all we want to be is liked, loved even. We want what we don't have in real life. We find comfort in IRC. And that is why we get attached to it.

My advice for IRC is: KEEP YOUR PERSPECTIVE. KEEP YOUR PERSPECTIVE. KEEP YOUR PERSPECTIVE. If we can log-on to IRC, we sure as hell can take what is dished out to us. Sometimes IRC relationships become real-life relationships, ranging from e-mail to a phone call to visits; sometimes they simply remain in IRC. Whatever it may be, make sure all parties involved know what they are getting into, and like real life, be careful of the other person's feelings.

When I first started IRC I simply thought of these people as their nicks, and nothing more. And now, the people I am closest to live miles away from me, and I can call them friends. Isn't that so cool?

---- Tatiana (inity@bigfoot.com) - (i'm not the author of the above text)

• About IRC Addiction by Mui Kei, clOudS, 4/20/99