Korean Job Discussion Forums

[happeningthang]

Bonaducci put this article up in another thread, but I thought it needed it's own.

I read somewhere that of all the Dave's ESL cafe forums - the Korean is the busiest and the angriest. What do you think? Is this article a fair assessment of what's going on here and elsewhere online?


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This article from The Korea Herald explains perfectly why Korea's EFL Internet heroes are such tough guys:

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 *beep* 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

[jmbran11]

This article (or at least the link) was posted here a couple of weeks again. Maybe by RR? Actually, I think it was someone else.

[khyber]

I just wanted to mention that I had seen kevin on pusanweb (if it's the same guy).

I am disturbed that he would be interviewed AND then counted as the avareage foreigner in the Korean community.

That guy was messed up.

[bonaducci]

At first, this article annoyed me but after reading it a few times and thinking about what I had seen going down here and in other chat rooms connected to EFL in Korea, I realised that what the medical professionals were saying was true. An excellent story in my opinion.