Free Essay: Eric's Internet Addiction- Online Without End

Internet addiction is not any different from other forms of addiction. For the case of Eric, he was always online day and night for a record 20 hours without a break. It was normal for him to start browsing the internet in the morning and continue throughout the night. Eric came to a point where he could not get help for his addiction, and when he thought of visiting therapists to seek for help, he found seats occupied.

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Daniel Miller (2011) noted that as much as he tried creating distracters, whenever he came back home, the PC was there. Eric quit school because of the addiction, and that saw him play computer games. The major challenge here was even when he visited friends, there was still internet at his disposal, and he still went ahead to check emails.

Additionally, there were games on his accounts, around 40 of them, that he could install from any computer he could gain access to at any point. More so, the addiction made him waste his time doing other stuff that would see him develop. However, Eric used to spend between 200 to 300 Euros on those gaming accounts. It was more than just an addiction since it also proved to be expensive and a clear waste of finances. Eric spent more than 100 Euros on computer games, wasted hoi precious time on social networks, and had the temptation of visiting internet cafes to click on videos to accomplish and satisfy hi urge for internet browsing. This tendency to online gaming did not fade away even after he busied himself with drawing and hanging out.

Consequently, therapy was one of the options that Eric thought would heal him from this internet slavery and addiction. He aptly wanted to withdraw from the addiction through either group or individual therapy, but whenever he set distracters, Eric still felt funny and somehow naked to the extent of crying since the addiction had fully overwhelmed him.

Finally, Eric decides to go to a Buddhist monastery for a while, then plans on finishing vocational school. Moreover, his drawing talent is what he believes might help him overcome the addiction.

Facebook Scandal anthropological opinion

The privacy of user data on Facebook is an important aspect that the company must address at all times. The scandal that saw the unlawful access of user information by Cambridge Analytica was uncalled for and mundane. After the Guardian, on 16th March 2014 reported the breach, the CEO of Facebook would have considered shutting out the moles that breached its regulations to save users from sharing information unknowingly.

Trump's campaign violated the privacy of Facebook users intending to access information that was substantial in enhancing its campaign by persuading the voters to make choices that would favor the political bandwagon. Trump and his team should have had a day in court to answer to the charges of breach of user privacy. This is an act that must be condemned, and the company still failed to protect its users by failing to follow up on the issue. Mark Zuckerberg saw it as a challenge and was obliged to ensure that the team deleted the data. The unlawful data mining gave the Trump team an unfair advantage in the campaigns and did not delete the data even after it was made public. Their selfish interests did not augur well with the entity's policies on privacy.

Moreover, running newsfeeds on the platform without considering the violation was unprecedented. Conversely, they targeted understanding the opinions and stands of the voters and were convinced to persuade them to change sides and support their campaign. In this technological era, Facebook could have stood its ground and seen to it that such a form of data mining does not take place. The scandal was weird since the basic details that Cambridge Analytica accessed, for more than two years, were not properly utilized to the benefit of the victims.

The entire saga began in 2014 when Cambridge Analytica created an app that 20,000 people downloaded and gave their information that was unlawfully accessed. Their idea was the Facebook likes would know personalities and persuade voters through adverts.

Cambridge Analytica, as opposed to Obama's, did not inform users of the use of the data and failed to seek their consent on the same.

Nonetheless, it never deleted the data, and Facebook never made follow-ups to check whether it was deleted. Facebook entirely failed to protect its users from these corrupt and lopsided individuals. The aftermath of the election saw fake stories spread faster. They waged highly publicized misinformation campaigns. Public reception of Facebook was put to the test. In 2014 Facebook stopped the access of user information.

In conclusion, this is a technological era that calls for data privacy and news-feeding issues to be an item of debate and critical discussion by Facebook. In January Zuckerberg saw fixing the predicament as a problem he had to work on. However, fixing the platform was not an easy task.