I'm living for seven days in an apartment in the centre of Amsterdam. Outside Japanese tourists ride by on their "Mac Bike" bicycles. I see them when I lean out my window. Most of the time I spend behind my computer, which is my lifeline to the outside world.

I use the Internet to order food, shop, chat, skype and date. I surf for hours looking for news and forum sites as well as the virtual chat rooms Second Life and Google Lively.

Babel
There you can create an alter ego who comes into contact with strangers. The Lively chat room is like a tower of Babel. Everyone writes messages via captions, which appear above the heads of virtual people like text balloons in a comic book.

All sorts of languages are interspersed without people understanding what the other is really talking about. People zap from one person to another. I don't feel lonely for a moment. I keep being drawn to my PC. If I'm not communicating with the Netherlands, then it's the US or Australia. There is always someone online.

Buying on Internet via eBay or other web-shops is easy. More and more services advertise via Internet: barbers, cleaners, even a farmer who offers to milk cows at the weekend. Then other farmers don't have to get up so early on Sunday. This service is called 'weekend milking'.

Zombie
After a few days I start to feel a bit like a zombie behind the computer. Someone sends me a mail asking if I'm becoming addicted to the Internet. I get online advice from psychologist Gert Jan Meerkerk, who is researching Internet addiction in Rotterdam. He says people can indeed show compulsive behaviour as a result of excessive internet use:

                                   (Virtual recluse: Saskia van Reenen)

"The term Internet addiction is misleading, it suggests that you can get addicted to Internet. That's not the case. What is true is that some of its applications can lead to problems: gaming, visiting pornographic web-sites or chatting via social-networking sites."

Internet gaming is so popular amongst South Korean youths that the government considers it a serious health problem. Every so often gamers are found behind the computer dead from exhaustion and dehydration.

Don't panic
Dutch Health Minister Ab Klink has promised to inform parliament whether existing health insurance is capable of dealing with these new kinds of addiction. Meerkerk says there is no cause for panic.

Research demonstrates that people with one addiction are often susceptible to other addictions. Hence people who are prone to alcohol or drug addiction can also become addicted to the Internet.
Social workers in the United States have developed a successful therapy to wean people off the Internet, which is similar to the one that kicks the gambling habit.

Ironically, you can also kick a habit online. This electronic therapy is proving popular because people are anonymous and feel they can say more. In the Netherlands you can get to grips with your alcohol problem online.

(Photo above left: Dutch Health Minister Ab Klink) 

Privacy
However during my online life everyone can see me the entire day via a web cam. Sometimes I feel spied upon. I ask Madelein McLaggan from the Dutch Data Protection Authority how I can protect my privacy when I chat with people:

"Our advice is not to place any personal data on the Internet that you wouldn't give to a stranger on the street. So be selective and don't volunteer too much information. If the data concerns another person, then ask that person's permission first. If you come across information on yourself published by someone else to which you object, then go to our website www.mijnprivacy.nl. There you will find tips about how you can contact the person who published the information and request its removal."

Ms McLaggan advises me to use another name whilst online so that people cannot trace my identity. However, the name must be non-existent - otherwise I could be guilty of Internet fraud.

After seven days I've mastered the rules of life on Internet. How do I reflect on the experiment? I'm satisfied and more knowledgeable about the opportunities the web has to offer. A life without Internet?... That I can no longer imagine.

*RNW translation (fs)

21 July 2008

[Copyright Radio Netherlands]