While browsing through random articles on Wikipedia, do you ever find yourself wondering “who the hell sits down and writes this stuff?” While I certainly feel that wasting countless hours browsing through this online encyclopedia is an example of problematic internet use (when virtually infinite information is at your fingertips, why ever leave your computer?), I believe that a much more severe instance of PIU is the addictive behavior of contributing to Wikipedia.When a user contributes to Wikipedia, he or she can create articles, edit articles, or upload files (images, music clips) to help add to the collective knowledge of the database. One can do this anonymously with only the computer’s IP address being logged, or the user can use a free, registered account (with a username, password, and profile page) to make an unlimited amount of contributions.
The simplest definition of Problematic Internet Use is the activity of spending too much time online, leading to negative consequences in the user’s life. Most users I know make an edit here or there if they see something incorrect, but the bulk of the content comes from a small portion of the contributing population (these users make thousands to hundreds of thousands of edits!).
Those who actively write and edit Wikipedia articles this much are certainly spending massive amounts of hours interacting with the site—enough time to negatively impact their “real” lives. Now I can’t go and interview the top editors to see if they are lonely and depressed people (Caplan’s model suggests they are), but I am going to make the assumption that because they contribute so much edits (and time), their social lives are probably not too active. These people will definitely favor the online action of becoming the author or editor of encyclopedia articles—this role provides the user with a boosted sense of competence and efficacious action—all while preserving the internet affordances of FtF anonymity and control over self-presentation.
As an obsessive Wikipedia editor contributes more and more, he or she will enjoy this sense of accomplishment and start to view other contributors and the task at hand in a hyperpersonal manner. Thus, the editing behavior will seem increasingly important (often Wikipedians believe that creating a free, infinite knowledge pool will save the world), and it will become excessive and compulsive. Because there is no reward or end-result to contributing beyond knowledge-based philanthropy and self-gratification, a user can complete Caplan’s suggested cycle again and again. Excessive amounts of time dedicated to editing should cause the user to retract solely into his or her online existence and feel even more dedicated to Wikipedia.
However, as addicted to editing as some people may be, I still personally love and support Wikipedia. I just feel (very idealistically) that it will become a more accurate and useful tool if less people obsessively edit; and instead, the world population contributes equally.
1 comment:
Rob-
Interesting topic and I liked your sarcastic additions (the ones in parentheses). However, a very good friend of mine is one of the many Wikipedia editors. Knowing him as well as I do, I can safely say that the time he spent editing and adding information did not lead to PIU and decreased social activity. In fact, he was in a fraternity, captain of the water polo team, on the ski and snowboard team, and a wilderness reflections guide. He actually used his time spent on Wikipedia to study for exams by editing and adding entries on topics relating to his pre-med classes. Thus, he was not putting extra time into surfing the site. The amount of entries he had created and edited (thousands) definitely helped him graduate last semester with top grades and helped admit him into a great medical school. I realize he is maybe an exception to your blog entry but there are probably a lot of people out there similar to him as many of the topics on Wikipedia are academic.
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