Saturday, September 14, 2013

It works for labradors, I'm sure it'll work for you too...

Spending too much time on the internet?  Frittering away all of  your spare time commenting on people's Facebook walls and trying to get to the next level of Candy Crush?  Wish you could reclaim all those dead hours spent staring at a screen with nothing to show for it?

Well now there's a solution!

The Pavlov Poke [link], invented by two MIT PHD candidates, is a revolutionary new method for treating online addiction ... and by revolutionary, I mean archaic and just begging for a lawsuit.  Because the poke they mention in the name of the product?  Yeah, that'd be an electrical shock that is given to the "client" when they've spent too much time at a particular site.

The inventors decided to create the device when they realised that they were spending 50 plus hours a week on Facebook.  That's a huge amount of time!  I don't think I have 50 hours I could find spare to spend on something like that, and I know about wasting time on online sites.  I was a World of Warcraft player for gods sake, and I didn't play on there for 50 hours a week.

Is this what we've come to?  Being connected to the human equivalent of a dog shock collar to try and stop us from spending too much time online?  Electrocuted to stop us from wasting our days away "liking" pictures of cute cats and "poking" our friends?

Oh well, I suppose if there's a market, and people are going to pay, why the hell not.

I did have to laugh at their original attempt to quit though.  Before they came up with the device, they experimented with having a friend regularly call them and yell at them over the phone if they'd spent too much time on the site.  Hmm, humiliation, pain, I'm starting to see a pattern here.

Guys, you might just want to bite the bullet and hire a Dominatrix.  No need to make up these excuses about "internet addiction".  I hear that Harvard has a really good club [link], just incase you were interested.

24 comments:

  1. I don't spend 50 hrs. a week on the computer, and I'm retired! Shock therapy won't work, they need to get out of their parent's basement and meet a woman.

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  2. 50 hours!?! What can you even do on Facebook for 50 minutes, let alone hours? There are only so many "inspirational" and self congratulatory posts that one can endure.

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  3. Maybe they should just turn off their router? Purchase an older model of cell phone perhaps? You know, things like that? Just a thought mind you.

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    1. If they don't have the self control not to go on facebook, I doubt they have the self control to leave their router turned off.

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  4. As difficult as it is to get accepted to MIT, and they invent this?????? Sad, very sad!!!!!!

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    1. It makes you wonder if they managed to graduate, given how many hours we're talking about.

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  5. Wow! I like to spend time online, but that punishment does NOT fit the crime. Lol. I'd rather have one of those painless facebook pokes!

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    1. LOL! Even the whole phone scolding thing sounds better than electroshock therapy.

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  6. I think I may be guilty of social media addiction...but certainly not 50 hours per week :)

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    1. Is blogging social media? If it is then I'm probably addicted too.

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  7. I spend 50 hours a week thinking about chocolate, but I don't spend nearly as much time on the computer.

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    1. Well we all spend 50 hours a week thinking about chocolate ... right?

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  8. "The equivalent of a shock collar"...what a perfect analogy. Maybe they should of just used a old fashioned timer that shuts off the power at a certain time. OR they could try a little self-discipline.

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    1. LOL! I'd imagine it's a lack of self control that caused the problem in the first place.

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  9. Okay, I have nothing to do all day but crawling along the interwebz and don't spend that many hours a week at it!

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    1. I don't even spend that much time sleeping, and I spend a third of my time doing that!

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  10. thanks for sharing such a nice post............

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  11. I probably spend about 14 hrs a week on FB -- and I don't think that's a "poke-able" offense! lol

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  12. hahaha to be fair this is quite a good idea for anyone with teenagers x

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