I guess that I’m primed for this sort of story at the moment, having spent the last few day’s re-reading Ben Goldacre’s excellent ‘Bad Science’, but when I do read a story like this it makes, figuratively speaking, reach for my revolver.

A study by Leeds university academics of Internet users found that 1.2% of the people in the survey were Internet addicts, and that quite a few of these were depressed.  The study goes on to say that there’s no evidence to suggest that there was a causal link, and that most Internet users have no mental health problems.  So….hold on here….but….what that says to me is that a bunch of academics have spent money in determining that:

1. Some Internet users are addicted.
2. Some of those Internet users are depressed.

At the moment I could have told them that from personal experience, because this sort of bollocks really does depress me, an Internet user, thus making me an Internet user who’s also depressed….

 Why am I so peeved?  Let me count the ways, and hopefully encourage you to take this sort of research finding with as many pinches of salt as necessary.  I must say that I’m not getting at the academics involved; I know that they’re hard working folks who have to publish to survive.  Anyway…. the abstract for the paper is here.

Apparently the online questionnaire was filled in by people who’d found it via links on Social networking sites.  Now, having an online questionnaire when you’re looking for Internet users is a good idea.  Having it linked from Social Networking sites which tend to be the preserve of the Internet’s heavy users would appear to me to skew the sampling towards that type of Internet user – not Mrs Miggins from number 46 who uses the Internet to send flowers to her sister.

The group that was determined to be addicted tended to be younger rather than older, and also exhibited statistically significant more depressive attitudes and behaviours than the non-addicted group.  The abstract reports that the Internet Addicted group (IAs) were likely to use more sites that replaced real-life socialising – such as social networks, pornography and gambling.

Let’s just take a step back here.  I think that we could just as easily say, based on this, that there are people within society who’re so cut off from normal social interaction for some reason that they’re depressed and that to relieve this social exclusion they turn to the online world.  And all of a sudden this study becomes much more interesting for me because it starts suggesting that our society has become so broken that people are being excluded from normal social interactions and are relying on the Internet to self-medicate.

The BBC’s headline doesn’t help ‘Internet addiction linked to depression’ – as far as I can see, I can’t see any causal link being suggested in the abstract, or even, in reading the BBC article, on teh BBC website itself.  Sloppy reporting on top of a report that does tend to state the bleedin’ obvious.

I don’t often have much to say in favour of Phillip Pullman, but this is a fantastic article, IMO.  He encapsulates so much of how I feel about the gradual erosion of our rights in the UK.  Now…and disturbingly…this piece was ‘vanished’ from the Times’ website for a while – no explanation, no reason. It eventually re-appeared. Concerning, no?

I believe this to be one of the most important articles I’ve seen online for some time, and feel stronlgy that it should be widely read.  So, just in case it disappears again, I’ve taken the liberty of posting the full item as a Blog post here.  As an intresting aside, as I’m typing this I’m watching an episode of ‘The X Files’ in which Mulder says “…too many others know what’s happening out there. And no one, no government agency has jurisdiction over the truth. ”

PHILIP PULLMAN:

Are such things done on Albion’s shore?

The image of this nation that haunts me most powerfully is that of the sleeping giant Albion in William Blake’s prophetic books. Sleep, profound and inveterate slumber: that is the condition of Britain today.

We do not know what is happening to us. In the world outside, great events take place, great figures move and act, great matters unfold, and this nation of Albion murmurs and stirs while malevolent voices whisper in the darkness – the voices of the new laws that are silently strangling the old freedoms the nation still dreams it enjoys.

We are so fast asleep that we don’t know who we are any more. Are we English? Scottish? Welsh? British? More than one of them? One but not another? Are we a Christian nation – after all we have an Established Church – or are we something post-Christian? Are we a secular state? Are we a multifaith state? Are we anything we can all agree on and feel proud of?

The new laws whisper:

You don’t know who you are

You’re mistaken about yourself

We know better than you do what you consist of, what labels apply to you, which facts about you are important and which are worthless

We do not believe you can be trusted to know these things, so we shall know them for you

And if we take against you, we shall remove from your possession the only proof we shall allow to be recognised

The sleeping nation dreams it has the freedom to speak its mind. It fantasises about making tyrants cringe with the bluff bold vigour of its ancient right to express its opinions in the street. This is what the new laws say about that:

Expressing an opinion is a dangerous activity

Whatever your opinions are, we don’t want to hear them

So if you threaten us or our friends with your opinions we shall treat you like the rabble you are

And we do not want to hear you arguing about it

So hold your tongue and forget about protesting

What we want from you is acquiescence

The nation dreams it is a democratic state where the laws were made by freely elected representatives who were answerable to the people. It used to be such a nation once, it dreams, so it must be that nation still. It is a sweet dream.

You are not to be trusted with laws

So we shall put ourselves out of your reach

We shall put ourselves beyond your amendment or abolition

You do not need to argue about any changes we make, or to debate them, or to send your representatives to vote against them

You do not need to hold us to account

You think you will get what you want from an inquiry?

Who do you think you are?

What sort of fools do you think we are?
The nation’s dreams are troubled, sometimes; dim rumours reach our sleeping ears, rumours that all is not well in the administration of justice; but an ancient spell murmurs through our somnolence, and we remember that the courts are bound to seek the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and we turn over and sleep soundly again.

And the new laws whisper:

We do not want to hear you talking about truth

Truth is a friend of yours, not a friend of ours

We have a better friend called hearsay, who is a witness we can always rely on

We do not want to hear you talking about innocence

Innocent means guilty of things not yet done

We do not want to hear you talking about the right to silence

You need to be told what silence means: it means guilt

We do not want to hear you talking about justice

Justice is whatever we want to do to you

And nothing else

Are we conscious of being watched, as we sleep? Are we aware of an ever-open eye at the corner of every street, of a watching presence in the very keyboards we type our messages on? The new laws don’t mind if we are. They don’t think we care about it.

We want to watch you day and night

We think you are abject enough to feel safe when we watch you

We can see you have lost all sense of what is proper to a free people

We can see you have abandoned modesty

Some of our friends have seen to that

They have arranged for you to find modesty contemptible

In a thousand ways they have led you to think that whoever does not want to be watched must have something shameful to hide

We want you to feel that solitude is frightening and unnatural

We want you to feel that being watched is the natural state of things

One of the pleasant fantasies that consoles us in our sleep is that we are a sovereign nation, and safe within our borders. This is what the new laws say about that:

We know who our friends are

And when our friends want to have words with one of you

We shall make it easy for them to take you away to a country where you will learn that you have more fingernails than you need

It will be no use bleating that you know of no offence you have committed under British law

It is for us to know what your offence is

Angering our friends is an offence

It is inconceivable to me that a waking nation in the full consciousness of its freedom would have allowed its government to pass such laws as the Protection from Harassment Act (1997), the Crime and Disorder Act (1998), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000), the Terrorism Act (2000), the Criminal Justice and Police Act (2001), the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Extension Act (2002), the Criminal Justice Act (2003), the Extradition Act (2003), the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (2003), the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004), the Civil Contingencies Act (2004), the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005), the Inquiries Act (2005), the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005), not to mention a host of pending legislation such as the Identity Cards Bill, the Coroners and Justice Bill, and the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill.

Inconceivable.

And those laws say:

Sleep, you stinking cowards

Sweating as you dream of rights and freedoms

Freedom is too hard for you

We shall decide what freedom is

Sleep, you vermin

Sleep, you scum.

Philip Pullman will deliver a keynote speech at the Convention on Modern Liberty at the Institute of Education in London tomorrow

http://www.modernliberty.net

People who know me will be aware of my occasional – and increasingly regular – rants about the lack of joined up thinking that surrounds us in every aspect of life in the UK.  I’m currently attempting to reduce my carbon footprint and general consumption, but every now and again succumb to a desire for take away pizza.

I know I shouldn’t, but just occasionally noting hits the spot better than watching TV whilst eating something that is baaaaad for you. 

Tonight, however, ended up with me almost beating my head in frustration against the telephone receiver.  The order was simple – big pizza, two portions of garlic bread and a pot of ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream.  The problem started when the assistant tried to be helpful by creating a ‘deal’.  However….ice cream wasn’t included – fine.  And you can have a third side dish.  Not fine.  I didn’t want a third side dish.  Mrs P. and I couldn’t EAT a third side dish.

I explained this to the assistant and then sat back to listen to her try and get the 1 pizza, 2 sides and ice cream through the computer.  I worked really hard to explain that I didn’t want to waste food by taking a third side order that wouldn’t be eaten…

And failed.  Said order arrived…with three garlic breads.  Ack…..

It’s funny in a way but let’s take a serious look at this; Wee Gordon tells us to stop wasting food.  His Government are also concerned about obesity.  Yet major fast food chains in the UK are basically promoting food waste and obesity by attempting to talk people in to taking food they don’t want.  Utterley, utterley bizarre.

The Government and the Corporates need to get their act together on this sort of issue…if they are genuinely concerned, that is.  Or, as I suspect, are they just mouthing platitudes because they genuinely feel powerless in the path of world events?

Wikinomics is something of a phenomena – it has a website as well as being a book.  The book is about the concept of ‘peer production’ – think of the way in which Open Source sofwtare and Wikipedia is put together.  Lots of people collaboratingfor the greater good to produce something that is valuable to all – and then making it free.

The phenomena reminded me of two similar ‘paradigm busting’ management theories of recent decades; ‘Excellence‘ and ‘Re-engineering’.  Both of these approaches were sold to the world like the second coming of the Messiah, and both ultimately had what can best, in my opinion, be described as less than paradigm-breaking impact.  I have a little admission to make here; in my youth I was a fan of the Excellence management theories of Tom Peters.  Two things kicked me off the wagon; the first was that TP was getting WAY too far out there, even for me, and the second was that it was just oversold.

Now, before I embark in what will sound like heresy to some, I’ll say it clearly:

“I’m a great believer in Wikipedia, Open Source, Creative Commons and any other collaborative project you care to mention.  Heck, when it starts to move my own CommunityNet project will be using wikis, forums and other Web 2.0 tools.  This is an excellent way for things to happen, and long may it survive and flourish.”

But I found parts of this book a nightmare.  Why? 

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