The Internet phenomenon is becoming more common in Saudi Arabia with each passing day, as are its negative effects on family and personal life in the Kingdom.
Parents here are concerned with the time their children are spending surfing the Net. Once we were concerned mainly about what our children were exposed to online, like pornography; but now even the most innocent of online games are becoming an obsession.
We talked to some concerned parents.
Nahla has three sons, aged six, 15 and 18.
"My problem is with my 18-year-old son," she said. "As soon as he gets home from college he sits in front of the computer screen and he remains there until well after midnight. I have no objection to him playing online games; but it has affected his entire life.
"He eats his meals while he is glued to the computer, he doesn’t have a decent conversation with me or his brothers for days on end, and he just does not partake in our family life even when we take day trips. I’ve tried telling him to limit the time he spends surfing, but he has become completely carried away. He’s been like this for three months."
It is not only teenagers who are spending too much time away from their families in their obsession with the Net. Even husbands isolate themselves from their wives and children to play online games like cards for hours together.
Ghaliyah told Arab News: "It’s great when I go to Lebanon to visit my family and go online to chat with my husband while he is working in Riyadh, and during this time I am glad of the Internet.
"But I dread returning because he spends most of the weekend on the computer playing cards with people all over the world. I want him to spend more time with me and the children, but he refuses even to go out of the house. He tells me I’m hen-pecking him for making him feel guilty for spending time on his own. When I get really depressed, I think that I might be better off divorced!"
The obsessive effect of online games and surfing should not be taken lightly.
People should be made aware of this and strategies, awareness workshops, help groups should be devised to combat this growing Internet disease. Those who devise these Internet games should provide a warning on the instructions about how they can be addictive, as they would on cigarette packets.
There should be a legal policy devised by our governments to ensure a log-off, automatic setting to stop games after an agreed safe limit for 24 hours; or a limited use of online time on home computers where the connection would disconnect after a certain period of time, like a legal speed limit for driving.
Some may argue that this represses individual freedom. If so, any legal policy protecting the welfare of people would be considered an infringement on individual freedom. The fact remains that it is for the better.
The negative impact of any technological advancement must be monitored before it gets thrown into society by those seeking solely to profit from it. Software companies and Internet providers have a responsibility to make sure they are not damaging the health of their customers.