17/04/2013 00:00
TW
0

THE news that an organisation similar to Alcoholics Anonymous has been set up to help internet addicts is not surprising.
Although the world wide web is a wonderful thing there can be no doubting its addictive potential.
The problem is similar, but magnified many times over by the web's speed and range, to the distracting nature of a dictionary.
One starts looking for one word, notices another nearby, which leads to....and so on, until the original inquiry is forgotten.
A survey of 2'400 internet users in Britain has led to the coining of a new word, Wilfing: What Was I Looking For? The inclination to wilf is likely to be as strong at home as at work; the survey's research showed that seven in ten Britons frequently find themselves wilfing and one in four spends nearly a third of internet time doing it.

Employers, who have long suspected that their workforce's close attention to their computer screens was not necessarily entirely related to work, will not be surprised by these results; but neither will they be able to think of a remedy for the working hours lost on checking ball-by-ball information on Test matches or following the action on eBay.

The similarity of Wilfing to other addictions is worrying.
A third of the men questioned in the survey said that the habit damaged their relationship with their partners but, apparently, the appeal of Wilfing declines after the age of 55.