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Computer Addiction
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It is 3 A.M..
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Everything on the university campus seems ghostlike in the quiet,
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misty darkness —
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everything except the computer center.
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Here, twenty students sit transfixed at their consoles,
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tapping away on the terminal keys.
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With eyes glued to the video screen,
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they tap on for hours.
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For the rest of the world,
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it might be the middle of the night,
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but here time does not exist.
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This is a world unto itself.
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These young computer “hackers” are pursuing a kind of compulsion,
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a drive so consuming it overshadows nearly every other part of their lives
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and forms the focal point of their existence.
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They are compulsive computer programmers.
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Some of these students have been at the console for thirty hours or more
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without a break for meals or sleep.
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Some have fallen asleep on sofas and lounge chairs in the computer center,
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trying to catch a few winks
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but loathe to get too far away from their beloved machines.
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Most of these students don’t have to be at the computer center
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in the middle of the night.
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They aren’t working on assignments.
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They are there because they want to be —
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they are irresistibly drawn there.
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And they are not alone.
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There are hackers at computer centers all across the country.
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In their extreme form, they focus on nothing else.
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They flunk out of school and lose contact with friends;
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they might have difficulty finding jobs,
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choosing instead to wander from one computer center to another.
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They may even forgo personal hygiene.
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“I remember one hacker.
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We literally had to carry him off his chair to feed him and put him to sleep.
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We really feared for his health,”
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says a computer science professor at MIT.
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Computer science teachers are now more aware of the implications
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of this hacker phenomenon
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and are on the lookout for potential hackers
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and cases of computer addiction that are already severe.
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They know that the case of the hackers
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is not just the story of one person’s relationship with a machine.
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It is the story of a society’s relationship
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to the so-called thinking machines.