Hidden addiction: Television

Everybody hurts: addiction, drama, and the family in the reality television show Intervention.

This article employs the literature on reality television as well as empirical studies on addiction to analyze Intervention's narrative. We look at the narrative structure of the Intervention's first six seasons (2005-2009), its repeated emphases on the causes of addiction, and the show's purported success rate. Highlighting disturbing discrepancies between the show's representations and assert...

Addiction to Technologies: A Social Psychological Perspective of Internet Addiction

In recent years, there has been a large amount of scientific and media attention toward what some clinicians have termed "Internet addiction." This article asserts that habitual use or misuse of technological innovations is not a new phenomenon. "Internet addiction" is examined in light of research and theory on how people interact with technologies. The literature reveals that we have been con...

Life imitating art: Depictions of the hidden curriculum in medical television programs

BACKGROUND The hidden curriculum represents influences occurring within the culture of medicine that indirectly alter medical professionals' interactions, beliefs and clinical practices throughout their training. One approach to increase medical student awareness of the hidden curriculum is to provide them with readily available examples of how it is enacted in medicine; as such the purpose of ...

The hidden epidemic: opiate addiction and cocaine use in the South, 1860-1920.

Does V Ideo Game Add Ict Ion Ex Ist?

The rise and popularity of computer games as a leisure phenomenon has become an ever-increasing part of many young people’s day-to-day lives. Coupled with the rise in popularity and usage, there have been a growing number of reports in the popular press about excessive use of the video games (‘‘joystick junkies’’). Although the concept of ‘‘video game addiction’’ appears to have its supporters ...