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"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
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bonaducci
Joined: 01 Aug 2006
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 Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 4:56 pm Post subject: Korea Herald Says English Teachers Are Chat Room Addicts |
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Has anyone else read this story? I guess now we have a psychological excuse to spend time online. Some truth to the words but I'l be writing a letter to the editor saying that not all English teachers are insane.
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2006/08/16/200608160023.asp
Chat room addicts find refuge in Korea's wired world
For Korea's livewire netizens, indulging an internet addiction by joining in the latest bout of cyber violence or chat room harassment is never more than a click away. This is one of the most wired nations in world - fixed-line access to the internet is available in 12 million out of 15.5 million households 24 hours per day; 22,000 internet cafes are open for business; and according to Korea Telecoms, 70 percent of the country's cell phones have a hot key allowing instantaneous access to the Net.
Given that the internet's omniscient presence looms large over all aspects of life on the peninsula, how does living in a society so closely intermeshed with the Web affect foreigners who live in Korea?
According to "Kevin," a territory manager for a medical equipment company in the United States who spent two years teaching English in Korea, the answer is simple: "disastrously."
"Before coming to Korea, I hardly used the internet that much, and never posted messages in chat rooms," he said. "But once there, I found myself spending more and more time checking different boards and writing posts. I was blowing nearly six hours a day getting high off attacking posters and bitching about Korea."
Kevin explained that his addiction to chat rooms on sites dedicated to English teaching in Korea stemmed from the belief he was nothing more to the Koreans he met than an English practice session. Disillusioned with his job and frustrated by the language barrier, he elected to escape into a world where "flaming" (writing derogatory comments designed to incite hatred or negative responses from other posters) was a major source of pleasure.
"I know it sounds out there but I wasn't alone," he said. "In my experience, most foreigners I met in Korea, especially the military guys and English teachers, suffer from the same thing. Everyone's got their little internet addiction. Gambling, gaming, blogging, porn or flaming ... it's the only way to stay sane."
Like Kevin, Rick Flaherty, a four-year Korea English-teaching veteran now in Canada preparing to commence university studies, the stress of living in Korea saw posting in English-teaching chat rooms replace sport and socializing with friends as his main form of recreation.
"Initially, I wasn't into posting like some of the teachers I worked with," he said. But after two months, I started to believe that a majority of the foreigners you meet in Korea are not the kind of people you'd want to associate with back home. I found myself living in this hermit world where sitting down in front of the computer with a bottle of soju and arguing with people I'd never met until the sun came up was the norm."
Stanton Peele, a psychologist and America's foremost critic of the addiction treatment industry, believes that people like Kevin and Rick who live without satisfying and real relationships are typical of those who find themselves addicted to the internet and chat rooms.
"Those who fall prey to these addictions are usually dependant, passive, do not value positive endeavors, are poor at relationships and not good at delay of gratification," he said. "Becoming addicted to abusing other people online, or deliberately inciting arguments with inflammatory messages, falls into the category of people who feel they are alive when in opposition - and perhaps equivalent to obnoxious drunks."
Dr. Shim Sang-kwon, executive director of the Korea Professional Psychotherapy Institute, said that while middle-aged Koreans are prone to internet chat room addiction, foreigners - especially language instructors - carry a great deal of anger and frustration around with them from their daily lives and may similarly be vulnerable. Add loneliness, a stressful job and the fact that most of them are escaping from something back home into the mix, and soon, the need to vent these feelings becomes overwhelming.
"Internet chat rooms and message boards are full of lonely isolated people looking for human contact," he said. "They are the perfect place for people to release their anger and frustration because of low cost, easy access and most importantly: anonymity."
Shim believes that internet chat room usage is highly addictive, and in many cases, will not stop even when the person has left Korea.
"The more you attack, the more you're addicted," he said. "The habit becomes long term and is taken back to the addict's home country where it will continue unless treated."
A Daejeon University Language Institute English teacher, who spoke with The Korea Herald on the condition of anonymity, said he posts on Dave's ESL Cafe using several monikers and agrees with Shim that internet chat rooms are highly addictive.
"It's a maddeningly dark world which keeps drawing you in," he said. "Even when I'm away on vacation, I still log in and stir up the masses. You find that the most aggressive posters don't live in Korea and aren't even English teachers."
Shim advises those who suspect they may be suffering from internet chat room addiction to seek professional treatment and try to identify alternative ways to manage their anger and frustration.
"Twenty-first century society is an addictive society," he said. "We're all addicted to something in one form or another. Therapy will help you to understand the reasons and let you work towards finding an answer."
([email protected])
By John Scott Marchant |
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numazawa
Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Location: The Concrete Barnyard
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| Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 5:24 pm Post subject: Re: Korea Herald Says English Teachers Are Chat Room Addicts |
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| bonaducci wrote: |
"Twenty-first century society is an addictive society," he said. |
Addicted not least of all to media muckraking and self-serving psychobabble. |
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Imbroglio
Joined: 23 Jan 2003
Location: Behind the wheel of a large automobile
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| Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 5:30 pm Post subject: |
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Smee
Joined: 24 Dec 2004
Location: Jeollanam-do
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| Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 5:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
Add loneliness, a stressful job and the fact that most of them are escaping from something back home into the mix, and soon, the need to vent these feelings becomes overwhelming.
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I'd vent about this, but I'd hate to fulfill the stereotype.  self-righteous *beep*. |
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Zulu
Joined: 28 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 5:41 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, uh, because foreigners never saw the net before coming to Korea and there are no computers or chat rooms anywhere else.
Of course I'll defer to the internationally esteemed Dr. Shim - (who perhaps read just a little too much into p.e.n.i.s. envy). Regardless, his credibility undoubtedly ranks alongside the great Dr. Hwang.
I know one thing - the Korea Herald is becoming addicted to trashing foreigners and spouting the most laughable nonsense - but at least they spell-checked that one. Hooray!
Last edited by Zulu on Wed Aug 16, 2006 6:23 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Teufelswacht
Joined: 06 Sep 2004
Location: Land Of The Not Quite Right
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| Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 6:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Smee wrote: |
| Quote: |
Add loneliness, a stressful job and the fact that most of them are escaping from something back home into the mix, and soon, the need to vent these feelings becomes overwhelming.
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I'd vent about this, but I'd hate to fulfill the stereotype. self-righteous *beep*. |
My feelings exactly. Other than perpetuating the same old tired cliche's - makes you wonder about his "qualifications" to comment on foreigners. He apparently has been spending a lot of (too much) time on Naver.
Although, if you think about it, he is really just insulting Korea. What he is saying is that there is nothing worthwhile in Korea to attract foreigners. In his opinion, the only logical reason for foreigners to come to Korea is that they are running from something. Says a lot about his, and others, opinions about Korea, doesn't it. |
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canuckistan
Mod Team
Joined: 17 Jun 2003
Location: Training future GS competitors.....
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| Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 6:48 pm Post subject: |
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Perhaps the Korean Herald should have read this article:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/14/news/korea.php
| Quote: |
In South Korea, online rumors can hit hard
By Choe Sang-Hun International Herald Tribune
Published: August 14, 2006
SEOUL Kim Myong Jae's estranged girlfriend was found dead in her room in Seoul on April 22 last year, six days after she poisoned herself.
Two weeks later, Kim, a 30-year-old accountant, found that he had been transformed into the No. 1 hate figure of South Korea's Internet community, a victim of a growing problem in a country that boasts the world's highest rate of broadband use.
First, death threats and vicious text messages flooded his cellphone. Meanwhile, spreading fast through blogs and Web portals were rumors that Kim had jilted his girlfriend after forcing her to abort his baby, that he had assaulted her and her mother, and that his abuse had finally driven her to suicide.
"By the time I found out the source of this outrage, it was too late. My name, address, photographs, telephone numbers were all over the Internet," Kim said. "Tens of thousands of people were busy sharing my identity and discussing how to punish me. My name was the most-searched phrase at portals." News reports and portals confirmed that his name was at the top of such lists.
The allegations against Kim were first posted on his former girlfriend's home page after her death and quickly spread in various versions. Kim vehemently denies the allegations, and the police later said they could not substantiate them.
But Web users took the matter into their own hands. They bombarded Kim's employer, the food and beverage company Doosan, with so many calls demanding that it fire Kim or face a boycott that Kim quit. Anonymous hate mail swamped the Web site of Kookmin University, where Kim attended evening classes, forcing him to drop out.
"I couldn't believe what was happening to me was real," he said. "My family had to move to a new house. I was afraid to dine out or use public transportation. I had to live like a fugitive."
In South Korea, which has one of the world's most developed Internet communities, the problem known as "cyberviolence" has reached frightening proportions, officials say.
Complaints filed with the government's Korea Internet Safety Commission more than doubled to 42,643 last year from 18,031 in 2003. Women have reported sexual harassment. A 16-year- old schoolgirl accused of informing on an abusive teacher ran away after her photos and insults were splashed on her school Web site. A singer struggled with rumors that she was a man. Twist Kim, a singer and comedian, had a nervous breakdown after pornographic Web sites proliferated under his name, as if he had created them, causing television stations to spurn him.
In most countries, Internet users oppose government attempts to censor the Internet. In South Korea, however, in both government-funded and private surveys, a majority of people support official intervention to check unbridled freedom of speech on the Internet.
A poll taken in November showed that nearly one of 10 South Koreans from 13 to 65 said they had experienced cyberviolence.
The problem in South Korea may presage what will happen in other countries, according to the authorities, who have begun cracking down on the problem.
"In the past few years, the Internet has grown in South Korea explosively," said Kim Sung Ho, secretary general at Kinternet, a lobby of domestic portals. "The Internet community has developed faster and stronger in South Korea than elsewhere. So we are struggling with its side effects earlier than other nations."
Since last year, dozens of people have been indicted on charges of criminal contempt or slander for writing or spreading malicious online insults about victims like Kim Myong Jae. They face fines of as much as 2 million won, or $2,067.
This month, the National Assembly will debate a bill that would require the nation's 30 major Internet portals and newspaper Web sites to confirm the identities of visitors before allowing them to use bulletin boards, the main channel of cyberviolence.
"The idea is to make people feel more responsible for what they are posting on the Net," said Oh Sang Kyoon, a director at the Ministry of Information and Communications. "Victims cannot live a normal life. They quit jobs and run away from society. They even flee the country. It's like lynching victims in a 'people's court on the Web.'"
Some critics question whether such a law would solve the problem. Cyberviolence, they say, has been increasing even though most of the country's major Web sites are already applying the policy.
"This is violating privacy in the name of protecting it," said Oh Byoung Il, director general at jinbo.net, a civic group. "It discourages anonymous whistle- blowers. It impedes the free flow of communication, the soul of the Internet."
Official interference will also discriminate in favor of foreign portals like Google, said Kim of Kinternet. For instance, when users search for "sex" in a South Korean portal, they must first prove they are adults by supplying personal data - a requirement that does not apply to the Korean-language Google, which operates with an overseas server.
But Kim Myong Jae condemned the portals as willing accomplices in online mob attacks. While painfully slow to respond to victims' complaints, Kim said, the portals - the largest of which, naver.com, attracts 15 million users a day - highlight real-time lists of the most- clicked-on news, thus helping spread sensational, and often libelous, items.
Kim said he had filed suit against the nation's top four portals: Naver, Daum, Yahoo! Korea and Nate.
And portals say they are now screening their contents more vigorously. "Rather than being an arena for sound debate, the Web bulletin boards have to some extent become a place for verbal defecation," said Choi Soo Yeon, a naver.com spokeswoman. "We have 300 monitors who work round the clock to delete abusive and defamatory language." But ultimately, the portals say, the users who post on the Web should be responsible for content.
South Korea saw an explosion of Internet users as the country emerged from decades of military rule, and citizens jumped on the new technology as a way of expressing long-suppressed views. About 33 million South Koreans - out of a population of 48 million - use the Internet, most of them with broadband connections. And many of them are not shy about their feelings.
News articles on portals or newspaper Web sites often are accompanied by feedback sections, where readers comments. Some news articles attract thousands of entries, ranging from thoughtful comments to raving obscenities. When suspicions first emerged last year that the cloning expert Hwang Woo Suk had faked his groundbreaking work, few dared to speak in public against the man lionized as a hero. Scientists, who unveiled evidence of fabrication through anonymous postings, brought about Hwang's downfall.
One of the most famous victims of online mob rule was the so-called "dog- poop girl." A cellphone photograph of a girl who failed to clean up after her dog in a subway car was posted on the Internet. For weeks, people pursued her relentlessly; the girl reportedly dropped out of school as a result.
To Kim Myong Jae, it was familiar. "Two months after I became the target, I visited a plaza near my old company. I dressed differently. Still a person reported my appearance on the Web, how I looked and how that person felt sick to see me," Kim said. "It's a handicap I may have to carry for a long time."
SEOUL Kim Myong Jae's estranged girlfriend was found dead in her room in Seoul on April 22 last year, six days after she poisoned herself.
Two weeks later, Kim, a 30-year-old accountant, found that he had been transformed into the No. 1 hate figure of South Korea's Internet community, a victim of a growing problem in a country that boasts the world's highest rate of broadband use.
First, death threats and vicious text messages flooded his cellphone. Meanwhile, spreading fast through blogs and Web portals were rumors that Kim had jilted his girlfriend after forcing her to abort his baby, that he had assaulted her and her mother, and that his abuse had finally driven her to suicide.
"By the time I found out the source of this outrage, it was too late. My name, address, photographs, telephone numbers were all over the Internet," Kim said. "Tens of thousands of people were busy sharing my identity and discussing how to punish me. My name was the most-searched phrase at portals." News reports and portals confirmed that his name was at the top of such lists.
The allegations against Kim were first posted on his former girlfriend's home page after her death and quickly spread in various versions. Kim vehemently denies the allegations, and the police later said they could not substantiate them.
But Web users took the matter into their own hands. They bombarded Kim's employer, the food and beverage company Doosan, with so many calls demanding that it fire Kim or face a boycott that Kim quit. Anonymous hate mail swamped the Web site of Kookmin University, where Kim attended evening classes, forcing him to drop out.
"I couldn't believe what was happening to me was real," he said. "My family had to move to a new house. I was afraid to dine out or use public transportation. I had to live like a fugitive."
In South Korea, which has one of the world's most developed Internet communities, the problem known as "cyberviolence" has reached frightening proportions, officials say.
Complaints filed with the government's Korea Internet Safety Commission more than doubled to 42,643 last year from 18,031 in 2003. Women have reported sexual harassment. A 16-year- old schoolgirl accused of informing on an abusive teacher ran away after her photos and insults were splashed on her school Web site. A singer struggled with rumors that she was a man. Twist Kim, a singer and comedian, had a nervous breakdown after pornographic Web sites proliferated under his name, as if he had created them, causing television stations to spurn him.
In most countries, Internet users oppose government attempts to censor the Internet. In South Korea, however, in both government-funded and private surveys, a majority of people support official intervention to check unbridled freedom of speech on the Internet.
A poll taken in November showed that nearly one of 10 South Koreans from 13 to 65 said they had experienced cyberviolence.
The problem in South Korea may presage what will happen in other countries, according to the authorities, who have begun cracking down on the problem.
"In the past few years, the Internet has grown in South Korea explosively," said Kim Sung Ho, secretary general at Kinternet, a lobby of domestic portals. "The Internet community has developed faster and stronger in South Korea than elsewhere. So we are struggling with its side effects earlier than other nations."
Since last year, dozens of people have been indicted on charges of criminal contempt or slander for writing or spreading malicious online insults about victims like Kim Myong Jae. They face fines of as much as 2 million won, or $2,067.
This month, the National Assembly will debate a bill that would require the nation's 30 major Internet portals and newspaper Web sites to confirm the identities of visitors before allowing them to use bulletin boards, the main channel of cyberviolence.
"The idea is to make people feel more responsible for what they are posting on the Net," said Oh Sang Kyoon, a director at the Ministry of Information and Communications. "Victims cannot live a normal life. They quit jobs and run away from society. They even flee the country. It's like lynching victims in a 'people's court on the Web.'"
Some critics question whether such a law would solve the problem. Cyberviolence, they say, has been increasing even though most of the country's major Web sites are already applying the policy.
"This is violating privacy in the name of protecting it," said Oh Byoung Il, director general at jinbo.net, a civic group. "It discourages anonymous whistle- blowers. It impedes the free flow of communication, the soul of the Internet."
Official interference will also discriminate in favor of foreign portals like Google, said Kim of Kinternet. For instance, when users search for "sex" in a South Korean portal, they must first prove they are adults by supplying personal data - a requirement that does not apply to the Korean-language Google, which operates with an overseas server.
But Kim Myong Jae condemned the portals as willing accomplices in online mob attacks. While painfully slow to respond to victims' complaints, Kim said, the portals - the largest of which, naver.com, attracts 15 million users a day - highlight real-time lists of the most- clicked-on news, thus helping spread sensational, and often libelous, items.
Kim said he had filed suit against the nation's top four portals: Naver, Daum, Yahoo! Korea and Nate.
And portals say they are now screening their contents more vigorously. "Rather than being an arena for sound debate, the Web bulletin boards have to some extent become a place for verbal defecation," said Choi Soo Yeon, a naver.com spokeswoman. "We have 300 monitors who work round the clock to delete abusive and defamatory language." But ultimately, the portals say, the users who post on the Web should be responsible for content.
South Korea saw an explosion of Internet users as the country emerged from decades of military rule, and citizens jumped on the new technology as a way of expressing long-suppressed views. About 33 million South Koreans - out of a population of 48 million - use the Internet, most of them with broadband connections. And many of them are not shy about their feelings.
News articles on portals or newspaper Web sites often are accompanied by feedback sections, where readers comments. Some news articles attract thousands of entries, ranging from thoughtful comments to raving obscenities. When suspicions first emerged last year that the cloning expert Hwang Woo Suk had faked his groundbreaking work, few dared to speak in public against the man lionized as a hero. Scientists, who unveiled evidence of fabrication through anonymous postings, brought about Hwang's downfall.
One of the most famous victims of online mob rule was the so-called "dog- poop girl." A cellphone photograph of a girl who failed to clean up after her dog in a subway car was posted on the Internet. For weeks, people pursued her relentlessly; the girl reportedly dropped out of school as a result.
To Kim Myong Jae, it was familiar. "Two months after I became the target, I visited a plaza near my old company. I dressed differently. Still a person reported my appearance on the Web, how I looked and how that person felt sick to see me," Kim said. "It's a handicap I may have to carry for a long time."
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Qinella
Joined: 25 Feb 2005
Location: the crib
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| Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 7:13 pm Post subject: |
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Actually not too bad of an article, aside from one little thing: GENERALIZING ABOUT THE WHOLE BASED ON ACTIONS OF A FEW. Every article someone posts here from the KH is doing exactly that. I've met a lot of foreigners in Korea, and most of them say they don't use Dave's or any online message boards. And how many people get on these sites and flame away all night until dawn? Maybe.. less than 20?
It was nice that the article mentioned part of the reason many feel compelled to b*tch on the internet is due to the stress of adjusting to Korean life, but the assumption that MOST of us are running from something back home is absurd.
If the writer had a brain, he would've realized that most of us use the online community as a way to keep our sanity in this often maddening country, and that flames are an inevitable part of any online forum that isn't heavily moderated.
But we know how that integrity shoe feels so awkward on the Korea Herald foot. |
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Zulu
Joined: 28 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 7:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Just curious. Has anyone actually ever met any of these supposed 'foreign' writers who write this tripe for the Korea Herald and the other 'papers'? If they are actually foreigners I hope they're using good noms de plume for the sake of their journalistic futures back in the real world, should that ever work out for the poor buggers. |
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mole
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Location: Act III
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| Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 7:53 pm Post subject: |
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So how many of you returnees have sought therapy for your Dave's addiction?
I won't. Yet. I still have an excuse. I'm at the computer anyway, shopping for a home, auto, insurance, etc.
When should I start to worry?  |
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tiger fancini
Joined: 21 Mar 2006
Location: Testicles for Eyes
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| Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 7:58 pm Post subject: |
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O my god!! Have they never observed the Korean teachers in the teachers room, frantically 'buddy buddy-ing' away?!?!?!  |
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Zyzyfer
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Location: who, what, where, when, why, how?
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| Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 8:01 pm Post subject: |
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| I'm starting to think those writers got a laugh out of your initial reaction to that one article and are now writing simply to rile up the battleaxes of ESLCafe. |
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eamo
Joined: 08 Mar 2003
Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.
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| Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 8:07 pm Post subject: |
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| It's suffice to say that the writer works for the Korean Herald. Lack of quality is to be expected. |
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cuckoo for kimchi
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
Location: somewhere lost in time and space...or korea
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| Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 9:07 pm Post subject: |
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| over 22,000 internet cafes, eh?? Yes...and I am positive they were put in place to feed the beast for all of us English teachers. Not the thousands of Koreans who play starcraft for 20 hours a day. |
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ajgeddes
Joined: 28 Apr 2004
Location: Yongsan
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| Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 9:30 pm Post subject: |
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| cuckoo for kimchi wrote: |
| over 22,000 internet cafes, eh?? Yes...and I am positive they were put in place to feed the beast for all of us English teachers. Not the thousands of Koreans who play starcraft for 20 hours a day. |
22,000? In the whole country?There's like 22,000 in Gangnam.  |
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