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Ask Doc.

On May 6, 2023

As last week, send us your questions (even the craziest ones!) via dm on our Facebook account or by email to lettre.hebdomadaire.telecom@gmail.com.

Question from an anonymous reader

Question:

Hello Dr. Rustmaster,
my son has become addicted to web development, what should I do?
Anon

Answer:

Hello Anon.

I understand your distress. Your son doesn’t do anything anymore. He spends his time in front of his screen programming, the only thing you can hear from him are the loud and fast keystrokes on his Japanese mechanical keyboard which must have cost a fortune.

And the worst thing about it is that he focuses his attention on web development, an intellectually unstimulating but terribly absorbing activity that has the ability to envelop an individual. What your son is experiencing right now is what is called in cognitive science “flow”. Flow is a mental state reached by a person when fully immersed in an activity and in a maximum state of concentration, engagement, and satisfaction in their accomplishment. When he codes, your son no longer feels hunger, fatigue, has no sense of time or attachment to his appearance and personal hygiene. He lets himself go with his favorite framework, whether it’s React if there is still some relevance in him, or in the worst case, Vanilla JS.

It will be difficult for you to act, you try to talk to him, he doesn’t respond, he probably doesn’t even hear you. You have two imperfect solutions left, but they are your only degrees of freedom. The first would be to cut off his internet access or take away his computer (be careful, in advanced stages your son will probably continue to program on his phone…). It will be brutal, and your son will have to go through withdrawal like any addiction. The beginnings will be tough, he will be disarmed, wandering aimlessly in the halls, probably writing divs and useState in his head (it’s the phantom limb syndrome).

After a few weeks, he will resurface and after a few months you may even be able to give him access to his laptop again.

The second, more difficult to implement, less complete but inducing less psychological suffering for your son, is to redirect his flow from web development to a more intellectually stimulating and useful activity for society, whether it is kernel programming or even data analysis. Certainly, there is a chance that your son will still spend most of the day and night in his room in front of his computer. However, he will spend less time on it (these tasks require more theoretical knowledge and greater intellectual mobilization, which is more difficult to maintain over long periods). You will have a chance to see him outside of his room, or even outside your house.

Keep in mind that your son’s pathology is more inherent in the task itself than in the passion he puts into it. Passion is a good thing. I will invoke Plato who, long before the appearance of programming and even the theorization of flow, said that a confined man can be freer than a man to whom all doors are open, if his mind wants to be liberated. To free your son, it is not necessary to make him leave his room, but it is enough to make him leave JavaScript which poisons his mind.

May you, dear madam, succeed in your quest, which has the noblest intentions.

Dr. Rustmaster