Addiction And Struggle In The Internet Society

Medicalization and socialization of "addiction" makes it a universal constructured social problem, while Internet addiction is the most obvious performance of this construction. The constructural needs of human beings in modern society is the foundation of it.Internet addiction is a madern age addition, which is related to the development of addiction.It has caused a profound influence on individuals’lives and existence, which made people trapped in the cage constructured by consumerism.Thus, the reflection becomes necessary and social work would intervene it with a whole new concept as a treatment,in order to assist the people involved into get access to a possible "decent" living status.Different from the addiction research in the psychological model, this paper tries to analyze various phenomenons and its logic of Internet addiction in the consumer society. It reveals the isomorphism and the combination of the consumerism and the network society, and further puts forward the critical interpretation of the Internet addiction which is constructed. On the basis of this interpretation, the social workers involved in thinking and intervention models will be reflected and reconsidered.This thesis composes of six chapters. The research problem, subject, background, methods and significance will be talked about in the first chapter of this paper.The second chapter explains the definition of addiction and some theoretical research. It includes the introduction of the Internet addiction and scope of the study, the history of related theories, the analytical perspective, the characteristics and limitations of the research.The third chapter mentions the addiction history, social attitude to addiction and the strategy changes, pointing out the addiction from simplification to diversification, from personal problems (as an individual trait or habit) to social issues, and then in the process of social construction as a disciplinary subject. But the addiction of the medicalization and the socialization do not inhibit the addiction, while spread the possibility of addiction to every person. The network society in the consumer era is a poison and an antidote of social regulation, such contradicting the principles of logic happens to be its essence.The fourth chapter classifies and describes the various kinds of addiction in the network society, and its consequences and logic. It explains the consumerism behind the network society. Namely, how to attract people; how to seize people’s desire through the update information technology; how to make the entertainment and social activities transfer from real world to the virtual network; how to use the powerful and convenient web-based database to make people shallow and dependent on the knowledge network; how to use consumption and its extension to make people rely on the purchase and then get the meaning of existence and so on. Eventually, this chapter analyzes how the consumer society and its operating logics use the network to rule people’s lives, and the isomorphism and combination of the network society and the consumer society.The fifth chapter puts forward an envision of the social work which could rescue modern internet addiction based on the above critique and the perspective of the value reflection. It includes the choice of theoretical perspective and analytical framework, the definition of Internet addiction and evaluation of the discussion, practices, methods and the concept of the working mode.The last chapter includes the conclusion and discussion.