Teen net addicts pee in bottles to stay glued to WoW
Brits' screen-break aversion doesn't bode well for desk job future
British youngsters have become so addicted to the internet that they will relieve themselves into bottles rather than step away from their screens to visit the lav, reports the, er, Sun.
It is online multiplayer games such as World Of Warcraft that are coming between children and the toilet, with addictive game play encouraging these unsavoury bottle-peeing habits.
The revelation comes from Professor Tanya Byron in the second part of The Sun's searing look at childhood in modern Britain.
Drawing on her experience as a clinical psychologist, Bryon, who is a Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Edge Hill University, cites several cases from her own practice of (male) youngsters who would rather store bottles of their own urine under their tables and continue gaming than leave their computer and go to the toilet.
"I've worked with kids who will urinate in a bottle in their room, rather than leave the screen," she writes.
Elaborating on the dangers of World of Warcraft, Byron also mentions kids who will wake up in the middle of the night to compete in international games. She writes:
We know there are young males who play Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs), such as World Of Warcraft, and who, if part of an international guild, will set their alarm and get up at three in the morning to play.
Sleep is disturbed in order to engage in an overly dominant online life, and this has an impact on their offline life — going to school, staying awake and concentration.
Will desk-pee-bottles become standard practice as the new generation grows up and moves into the workplace? We hope not. ®
COMMENTS
Indeed...
" Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Edge Hill University"
Seriously, wtf does that mean? Nothing, I should know. Im a Professor of Spotting Made Up Bullshit Titles at the University of Worthless and Meaningless Qualifications.
She's a proper muppet that one.
"Where the hell are the parents?"
I imagine they are reading that bastion of truth and morality, The Sun.
So much for individualism
Any parent knows that the hardest thing in the world is to persuade a teen to get out of bed. Yet here we have at least 2 kids who are so motivated by something that they'll voluntarily haul themselves out of the pit (while hopefully not tripping over bottles of stale pee - hey, if it was good enough for Howard Hughes ....) at 3 a.m. to partake of an activity with other, like-minded, people.
Rather than praise their dedication, determination and competitive spirit, she chooses to scoff at their choice of entertainment and criticise their methods of maximising their participation. I can't help wondering if this lady is guilty of a huge double standard: taking the errr, "mick" out of games players yet admiring sports-people who spend much more of each day (and are prepared to suffer more) fulfilling their obsession for equally fleeting successes and rewards.
Maybe she should be less concerned with forcing normative behaviours on children and look instead at how this enthusiasm (or obsession?) can be harnessed into something a bit more constructive than passing comments on how other people spend their time?
Go one further like Cartman
Do what Cartman did in South Park, and get your Mum to hold the bed pan for you whilst you do a number 2
life sux. wow all the way.
Perhaps if we hadn't made such a hair-ripping nightmare out of our miserable lives, a digital getaway wouldn't be so alluring.
