Net addict kids fall asleep in class

High school students are so addicted to the Internet some are spending up to 19 hours at a time on their computers.
Experts say students are falling asleep in class and withdrawing from social life because of the addiction.
The Internet Safety Group says Internet addiction among New Zealand youngsters is rising.
Last month it started training Auckland school counsellors on how to deal with students who have unhealthy Internet habits.
Cyber psychologist Nathan Gaunt said at least one New Zealand teenager had tried to commit suicide this year after their computer was disconnected by their parents.
"It's not the first time I have heard of that," he said.
Mr Gaunt, a social psychologist at the University of Auckland, is researching a PhD on Internet relationships.
Therapists were dealing with Internet addicts – compulsive use of the World Wide Web was now a recognised disorder – or students exhibiting symptoms associated with it.
School counsellors were seeing students who fell asleep in class because they had spent the night on the Internet, or who were skipping school to play computer games. One teenage boy was found to have spent 19 hours on the Internet.
In many cases the students became anxious if they could not get to a computer, Mr Gaunt said.
Addiction could start in children as young as eight. While most students were not addicts, many showed signs of addiction such as constantly checking for messages or staying on the Internet to find "one more" chatroom.
Such behaviour, termed "random reinforcement" was highly addictive, he said.
"The students who have the problems are the ones who spend the night on the Net. They are setting their bedtimes back to 2am.
"The problem is we don't know a lot about what kids do online," Mr Gaunt said.
Hautapu Primary School, 4 kilometres north of Cambridge, has banned students from using one form of Internet messaging.
Principal Shane Ngatai said it created a subculture between students on the Internet. He knew of older students who waited till their parents had gone to bed before spending hours on the Internet at night.
The school also wanted to protect students from paedophiles who were known to use Internet messaging to interact with students and find out where they met, he said.
ISG secretary Claire Balfour said school counsellors were faced with an addiction that had never been a problem till now.
"This is a generation where the older ones don't know anything (about the Internet) and the kids know much more. You get skilled hackers at 8, 9, 10 years old because you can go into a hackers' chatroom and learn how," Ms Balfour said.
The safety group is preparing another training module for counsellors in October. It is also preparing Education Ministry-funded modules to improve student Internet safety. The modules are aimed at principals, boards of trustees, librarians, cyber safety monitors, and ICT teachers.
Students were unlikely to volunteer information about their online life because their greatest fear was becoming disconnected from the Internet, Ms Balfour said.
(Bron)