June 21, 2007
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Xanga Addiction
One phrase that has been tossed around Xanga today is “Xanga Addiction.” People used it to refer to that little something that caused them to check their sites multiple times in the same way they will hit an elevator button even after it is already been hit.
I just read an article that mentioned a group of doctors want to introduce a new classification for those who play video games too much. They want to classify the behavior as a psychiatric disorder and label it an addiction. Here is the link: Link
Did the fact that Xanga was shut down for part of yesterday make you believe that something like Xanga could be an addiction?
Comments (104)
For many – YES!
darn i was going to say first.
No,but now you’re making me wonder.
it’s one of my xanga pet peeves.
and yes i’m addicted to xanga!
it’s true that it could be like an addiction…
YESSSSSSSSS.
I know that I am addicted.
lol. i already knew it ws an addiction as soon as i started one.
i had to say it because it was your site. otherwise i never would have. well… at least i’m second!
I would call myself a Xanga addict. I did check the site probably five times once I got home from work…but I was also able to do more with the time I would spend here.
yuppee
i think many of us have known for a looooong time that something like Xanga can be addicting. lol
Uh huh…
Does the fact that we keep talking about the shut down of Xanga yesterday show that we have an addiction??? things to ponder…..
From all the talk and near panic I’ve heard…I’d say yes.
yes. it’s called blogorrhea
the entire internet is an addiction for me! facebook, xanga, sdn, last.fm…. its a wonder i get any work done…. oh wait, i’m not exactly marvelously productive :-
It’s a total addiction. I have a problem, and I admit it.
lol
Just because we do something repeatedly–and feel a little withdrawal when it’s taken away–does not mean that it’s a disorder. Not all addictions are harmful. Some are even beneficial. (Look at breathing. Man, when I stop breathing, I go into such oxygen withdrawal…)
As long as your Xangaddiction isn’t controlling you, I’d say you’re fine. When you start to neglect family, friends, or yourself for the sake of Xanga, then we’ve got a problem. A repetitive checking to see if Xanga’s back? Not so much.
“Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible, but I will not be mastered by anything.” –St. Paul
I know I am addicted. You just don’t know how hard I tried to get to Xanga yesterday. I am not ashamed either.
it could definitely be an addiction. I’m an addict, I’ll admit it.
addiction means your body has developed a dependancy on it. Enjoying something to the point where you do it a lot is NOT an addiction.
Anything can become an addiction. And some people become addicted more easily than others.
I’ve known for quite a while that I’m addicted to it.
uh huh…that’s exactly what it made me realize.
i definitely missed it. writing is my way of getting some relief from the world.
Xanga addiction is a part of the phenomenon of virtual life. This site is a place of profile photos, words and nice people, for the most part.
What is the ritual of checking your xanga? Did you do it again and again? What did you want to see? The first thing you come to is your own blog. Your photo of choice, and whatever else.
An extension of you, a place where you could “vent”?
When it was gone, that one simple ritual, of going to xanga.com and hitting enter, such a simple thing yet…
You could not continue without it.
So you checked back…
One hour, two, again, 10 minutes… YOU JUST WANTED TO POST!!!
Five, ten, twenty…
Addict?
I’ve never heard it compared to “elecelleration” aka hitting the elevator button several times once it’s already been hit…..yeah, come to think of it, I do kinda do that on the internet. Yikes!
i rarely even update on xanga anymore. but i still use it on occasion. such as now.
xanga doesn’t need to go down for me to realize i’m addicted
obsession, yes. addiction? no
people don’t have physical dependence on xanga
I believe that we as a society throw around the word addiction too much.
I believe that most anyone could drop Xanga if they found something else that was more interesting to them. Addiction means that even if you have no desire to do something anymore you still do it because you physically cannot stop.
For me Xanga is a way to interact with others when I either don’t want to or for some reason can’t interact with people in the real world.
As has been said though not all addictions are bad.
lol, the whole internet is an addiction, and we’re all addicts..
I know I’m addicted to it. I like the online community of friends I have here. In all honesty, there area few people I’ve known solely online for almost 4 years, and I feel as close to them as I do people I know in real life. So yes, it is an addiction.
Do we say that a stalker is addicted to the person they are stalking? No, we say they are obsessed. That is the same thing here.
god yes !!.. i had withdrawals. see my site ..
yea, it’s an addiction, but not a serious one..lol
Any time I get comments, I instantly wet my pants. It’s like one of the only reasons I post, to get comments. So to answer your qu… HEY LOOK I GOT 2 NEW EPROPS
Might as well…I did pay for lifetime membership!
Hmm, sounds like many people are, as I will admit to as well. Yet my thought is, is not a xanga addiction but a smaller part of the overall internet addiction, which I think everyone has.
For while xanga was down, I simply went to my other usual sites I go to, and didn’t really miss it in particular.
Think about it.
~g~
It scares me to think about it…so I will deny.
Absolutly yes. Just ask my wife. She says I am addicted. But aren’t we all addicted to something in life?
I think the word you’re looking for is obsessive.
No, no, no. Xanax can be an addiction, not Xanga.
yes
and i am a proud addict
XD
“Addiction: The condition of being habitually or compulsively occupied with or involved in something.”
The internet in generall is addicting…and lighting a cigerette every time I get in my car. Kinda sad.
I think that it would be appropriate to call it an addiction. At the time, it’s a nice escape from reality. The addiction is welcome for me.
I think it could be called an addiction – some people feel lonely without xanga and feel/are dependent upon the network for companionship. Companionship is a primal human need. So, yes, it could be an addiction.
You got me worried about whether I was addicted or not… I was unhappy that it was shut down yesterday, but when I started doing something else I completely forgot the shut-down. I think I’m OK.
I may have an addiction, just not a disorder.
Maybe. o__O
But I don’t think it’s a psychiatric disorder, either.
nah…not for me…I have my freinds on here…but if’n I really want to get in touch with them there is im’ing, email, and phone…but it didn’t get that drastic…but today would have been another matter…lol…Smile
nope, but I was annoyed that the one time of day I usually check it was out. I’m a busy gal, ya know?
xanga going down made me insane =( my need my daily dose of xanga.
<3 xanga. nothing else beats xanga.
I wouldn’t say it’s an addiction….
I already knew it was.
I had no idea it was shut down. I guess I do have a life after all!
psychologically absolutely, as i said in the photoblog-anything and everything CAN be addictive, its individual.
It’s a side issue, but thank you for posting that link. My brother is a game addict- often spending upwards of 9 hours a day playing online games. It’s all he does. Nothing else matters to him- not food or showers or life or sunshine or… anything, really. It would be reassuring to have it classified as a disorder and to have someone who would actually treat him.
As for whether we are all xanga addicts, I doubt it, really. Unless there are people who xanga that same amount of time as my brother does gaming.
I already knew it was an addiction. Heh.
ryc: Consider yourself adopted, although it’s too late for this trip. You’ll have to wait for the next one.
oh, i know it is
yeah…
but sometimes when we can call things addictions we end up letting ppl take off some of the responsibility that would come with something that was just an obsession and not an addiction
A bit. :]
I just wanted to write stuff down. It’s frustrating, like having a journal taken away.
Since it cut off the link twice in the chatboard, I will put the link here in a comment. Loose Change
Well TECHNICALLY, to be an addiction, it needs withdrawal symptoms. And I don’t know if anyone really experienced uniform withdrawal symptoms aside from re-checking their site, and anxiously awaiting xanga to come back online, and refreshing the page like mad, and irritability, and depression, and using MySpace, and blacking out, and severe rashes, and headaches…
…
…
Well, what do you know.
-David
I know that Xanga can be an addiction. Fortunately I’m not addicted to Xanga. Only Facebook
I was too busy, but I have been thinking the computer is commanding way too much of my time!!!!!!!!!!
I was wondering why I couldn’t get the page to come up. It was annoying.
Sadly, I already believed that such a thing as xanga could become an addiction.
I didn’t even know Xanga was shut down yesterday. So no I’m not addicted to Xanga. Quite the contrary in fact. I can go days without logging into Xanga and I don’t miss it.
YES!!! Xanga is where I turn to when I’m being ignored by my boyfriend due to his f*cking video game addiction. It makes me happy when I’m depressed. It’s a way of expression myself so when it was taken away from me yesterday, I started going through withdrawals, especially due to the fact that I wasn’t able to read any of your daily musings!!!!
I’m not addicted. I was just pissed that I couldn’t make my update. D:
I am not addicted to xanga
yes! i didnt believe myself until ytd when xange was off.
yes. i totally missed xanga the other day. i like to be online, i am an internet junkie!
Yes, it made me realize, once again, that I am a pathetic loser with no life. At least I don’t play video games!
An addiction? No! Not possible! Whew now that I posted this comment I feel so much better! Now quit bugging me!! Where it that link for the next blog? lol
I think it’s kinda silly to try to label these “addictions” to the internet or video games as a psychiatric disorder. That normally only happens once the behavior becomes so severe that it affects a person’s work or social life in some negative way. So unless playing video games and checking xanga is keeping you from going to work or hanging out with real people, it’s not a “disorder” nor a “true addiction.”
That woman looks like Judy Dench.
I trust her.
If a user feels a loss due to the downtime, then that is addiction.
I check a few times a day but with the OPERA BROWSER on SPEED DIAL and on nickname, loading the site is only seconds. So is checking it. Any addiction is simply due to ease of access
For people with addictive personalties, Yes the computer in general can be an addiction…
Who has brought it to our attention about the Japanese or was it the Chinese, who are electric shocking those addicted to the internet?
One can be addicted to any thing , in the right circumstances, if warranted..
well I always believed that xanga was addiction after I heard about you
There is no doubt that I am addicted. I totally freaked when Xanga was down! Man, that sucks. hahaha
I’m not addicted. Xanga is somewhat theraputic for me. I can’t write diaries because I stop writing after awhile. Since I’m always on the computer, I write it out here. Writing is my output from life’s stresses and gifts.
No, I am not addicted.
Can Xanga be addicting? Yes. Is it addicting to take things for granted simply because they are part of our daily routine (i.e. car to drive to work, listening to music to create a mood, etc.)? No.
No. Im not that attached to xanga that I cant wait a day or two for it to come back up. But when my internet gets reset and I cant figure out how to fix it, or when myspace is down for a bit I will keep trying, again and again and get ever so frustrated…
No. I was on Xanga when the site went offline completely. Since it had been sluggish all day, I at first thought that it was just another error. After a couple of pages yielded the same message, I went and found other things to do. No time frame or reason for the shutdown was given at that time, so I checked the site once a few hours later. I have no idea what time it finally came back online; I logged in the next morning to discover it working as usual.
well, it was annoying – but if one day i got up and di not have my car i would kinda freak out too.. i dont “need” it but its something i am use to having, without it I am confused on what to do or how to fill that whole. does that make since?
Daniel (doubledb)
All “addictions” are mental, so in technical terms, you could call it that.
However, once you label something or give it a name (like “addiction” or “disorder”) we immediately become “okay” with something that was once taboo. Being so accepting makes it harder to want to change, it’s just easier to ride on the excuse you have an addiction.
It’s funny how anti-smoking people can be, say no to drugs, don’t drink and drive… but if you play video games too much that’s a disorder, and you can’t say anything bad about it because it might offend someone.
Anything can be.
It’s an interesting thought.
Thank you for the welcome home! How’s everything been going for you?
Oh, and RYC: the shirt in that pic is my “SuperGuard” shirt from when I was a lifeguard at the YMCA although many people automatically think, of “SuperGirl”… either way, it was fun!
Yup, I’m addicted
Overwhelming feeling of sweatiness and impending doom yesterday…hmmmm, i am sick.
I’m addicted to the computer!
It is..
Yes, actually I made a similar comment earlier concern about this. How weird is that?
No. If you think you’re addicted to something so stupid as a website, then don’t come here.
I check my xanga daily but I’m not obsessed with it. So it went down, big whoop.
As far as video games go, UNPLUG THE FRIGGEN CONSOLE!
let’s just say that I noticed there was an issue and checked back several times…more than I usually do.
I’m not addicted to Xanga. I’m addicted to myspace and have recently also became addicted to youtube. I’m still working on facebook.
I’m addicted, but It’ll be a sad, SAD day when I get perscribed something for it.
Doctors are just sad.
GAH! I was so annoyed when xanga was shut down for matinence! I checked it like, 6 times in 3 hours! lol
But, I *was* just off of it for about 10 days, since I had no time to check xanga at all when we were on vacation!
I never answered your quesiton…yes, i’m addicted.
I didn’t even notice Xanga was shut down. Oh well. Spending way too much time playing the Sims!!!! LOL!!
Yes. I checked Xanga a couple more times after I got the message that it was down.
I am addicted – pray for me
Why was it shut down?
I love xanga, but I can be without it…just because I check it MANY times a day, does not mean I have an addiction. However, after my vacation, I am aware of the fact that I don’t necessarily NEED it even though I WANT it.