Thursday, November 16, 2006
A Menace to Society
As many of you know, I write the Police Dispatch column in every issue. I've noticed a similar story in a handful of reports coming from the Pima County Sheriff's Department during the past few weeks: parents who are unable to get unruly teenagers off computers, resulting in their kids taking an all-expense-paid trip to the Pima County Juvenile Detention Center. You can read about one of the latest cases in the Nov. 23 Police Dispatch.
Is so-called Internet/computer addiction a "fad illness," as one expert claims in this New York Times article, or is it something far more sinister? I don't know. But perhaps it's time for our nation's leaders, who love labeling every government campaign a "war," to declare combat on excessive computer usage. Otherwise, we may have to let meth addicts out of the clink to make room for World of Warcraft junkies.
