This is a book about Internet addiction. It’s about the most problematic uses of the technology we love today. It’s about the worst-case scenarios. Naturally, it’s focused on the negatives. But I hope that hasn’t given you the impression that I hate technology or I am opposed to it. I’m not. I love technology. Throughout the year or more that I researched and worked on this book, I read a lot of terrifying information that suggests that all of us are becoming increasingly addicted to our devices, and I certainly questioned my own use regularly, but I didn’t give up my own phone during that time. I curtailed use here and there, trying to implement some contemplative computing practices into my own life, as well as to look experientially at what level of addiction I might have myself. However, I didn’t quit social media or even give up my phone for a full day. While we could debate back and forth about whether or not that choice has to do with my own potential Internet addiction, the point is that I’m personally happy to have a cell phone and to spend time on it. I’m not the only one.
Very few people in our society, even those who recognize the widespread and growing problem of Internet addiction, suggest a return to a pre-Internet society. First of all, the train has already left the station. We aren’t going backward, and most likely the Internet and the similar technologies that will follow it in the future are here to stay. So, it’s pointless to talk about getting rid of it altogether. But more than that, there are some really awesome, wonderful things about the Internet that have made our society better. We wouldn’t even know about the effect of technology (or drugs, or anything else) on the brain if we didn’t have the computer technology to do that research. And more and more of us can access and understand that information thanks to the Internet.
There are people who land on either extreme end of the pros versus cons of technology argument. Some people believe that social media, or the Internet more generally, is leading to the end of the world, the downfall of humankind, and the destruction of all good things on our planet. Other people believe that technology itself can solve anything, that it’s perfectly fine that our brains are changing because that’s just what happens with evolution, and that the world is always better off when we’re connected to the Internet. Most of us, however, land somewhere in the middle. We like the Internet and don’t intend to give it up, recognizing the many benefits that it offers, but we also have a creeping feeling in our guts that we could be better using some of those online hours engaged in more socially proactive, concretely creative behavior.
It’s important to understand that this type of debate has taken place with every single big technological change in our society. In fact, even though today we all generally agree that long-form book reading has terrific benefits for almost everyone, there was a lot of controversy about the potential harms of books. Back when words first began being put to paper, there were many critics who said that this would harm oral history and prevent people from utilizing their memories in the future. In the nineteenth century, a librarian named Mary A. Bean made a big fuss about the damage reading could do to children because the content in some books could damage young minds. In the 1960s, some librarians were opposed to the fact that libraries were beginning to offer multimedia materials like filmstrips and tape recordings because this was unreliable or fragmented information. And books aren’t the only tools that have had their critics. From clocks to electric lights, people have always been concerned when new technology becomes ubiquitous. The Internet is just another extension of this. One could argue that this means all of the fear around addiction to it is unnecessary hype. Alternatively, one could argue that we’ve been progressively changing our society and our brains with technology and that this is one step further in a continuous problem.
There’s a lot to debate there, but this isn’t the place for it. Let’s assume that we are all likely to keep using the Internet to some degree. It brings a lot of benefits to us individually and collectively. We also recognize that for some people it can become an addiction, and that can be a huge problem. Within that context, let’s talk about the times and ways in which the benefits of the Internet balance out or even outweigh the problems associated with addiction to it. To do that, we need to look specifically at the mental health benefits of Internet usage.
Let’s start by going back to a topic that we already touched on briefly: the use of the Internet by people on the autism spectrum, particularly those who have nonverbal autism. Technology has the potential to offer people with this disorder the ability to communicate with others around them. This opens up a whole new world, not just online, but in their everyday relationships.
Meghan Cox Gurdon offers a great example of this in her book, sharing the story of an autistic boy named Gabe. His parents had tried reading aloud to him when he was young but mistakenly believed that he didn’t enjoy the experience, so they stopped doing so. Over the years he became, in his own words, addicted to screens. A professional in his life recognized the potential in that and introduced a type of screen interaction that would allow Gabe to begin communicating with his parents through the technology. They discovered that they had misunderstood his cues for all of those years and that he was actually enjoying interaction with them much more than they had thought. They began to read aloud to him again. He is quoted as saying that although he is addicted to screens, he would rather hear someone read aloud to him all day every day if that were possible than be on the devices. The technology facilitated his ability to communicate the ways in which his family could better connect with him. If it weren’t for the screens, they might never have learned that, so even if it’s true that he is “addicted” to screen technology (his own word), for that family, the benefits outweighed the harms.
People on the autism spectrum, whether verbal or not, have trouble with communication. They may not pick up on social cues, and this can cause a lot of awkward, uncomfortable interaction. Research suggests that social media can provide a helpful medium for practicing communication. In fact, a 2017 study completed at Yale University found that teens with ASD reported better quality friendships when they utilized social media to aid in communication. The study further found that although teens with ASD did experience some level of anxiety related to that online communication, the benefits of communicating with others via social media outweighed the drawbacks of the anxiety.
The same was not true for teens without ASD, suggesting that there’s a particular benefit to this medium for people with autism. Perhaps the medium of social media levels the playing field a little bit. In-person communication requires reading a lot of nonverbal cues, trying to understand subtleties in voice and inflection so as to pick up on sarcasm, irony, and so forth. There simply aren’t as many of those cues online. Therefore, all people online are navigating the tricky world of trying to understand one another without those cues. For people without autism, that’s a drawback; it’s often what leads to miscommunication online that can result in breakups, arguments, and so forth. However, for people with ASD who already experience that disadvantage in communication, it’s just par for the course. If people with ASD, particularly children and teens, can work with others such as parents and counselors to discuss those nuances, then online communication can enhance their relationships. If a teen on the spectrum uses social media to connect with friends and also has conversations with parents who help them to understand what a particular online interaction might mean from the other person’s point of view, then they get the benefit of learning more about communication while on that even playing field with the other person.
Social media, texting, and other online communication also give the person with ASD the opportunity to take the time that they need to respond. Although these mediums feel very immediate, they do allow for a pause in the way that in-person conversations sometimes lack. Particularly in groups, people with ASD may find themselves standing on the sidelines as the conversation flies back and forth, whereas online they can interject more easily when they are ready to do so. Being able to communicate with the same people both online and in person gives those people the chance to better understand the person with ASD, making them more likely to engage positively with them when they’re in the real world.
The benefits don’t just apply to teens with ASD. Adults on the spectrum also seem to benefit from moderate social media use. One study published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking found that adults with ASD who used Facebook in moderation were happier than those who did not. Notably, they didn’t find a happiness increase when those same adults used Twitter, so more research is necessary to determine the subtleties of when and how social media can help people with ASD, but signs do indicate that there are a lot of potential positives.
The Internet is also the perfect place for people with autism to explore their special interests. We saw in an earlier chapter how that can become problematic when it leads to addiction that feels destructive to the person. However, it can also be a positive. The individual gets very passionate about their special interests, but the people in their own lives may not have the patience or willingness to continuously listen to in-depth information about obscure topics. Even the well-intentioned neurotypical parent or friend may get tired of listening to the intricate details of different types of trains or the eating habits of dinosaurs. The Internet provides an opportunity to meet other people who are also deeply interested in these particular topics.
Special interests are not just a minor hobby to the person with ASD. They can be a way that the person self-soothes, keeping them functioning in their lives particularly during times of high stress. The individual may find that exploring their special interests helps them feel grounded, restores energy, and improves their ability to handle challenging situations. Of course, the individual can explore a special interest on their own. They can use the Internet to do so. But connecting with others in a social way to share that special interest can provide a particularly positive level of relational interaction that adds additional mental health benefits. The Internet provides a place to make such connections.
Finding people who share the same interests, or the same struggles, as you do is one of the key benefits of the Internet. Research indicates that families with children on the autism spectrum benefit from this in that they can use the Internet to connect to the autism community. People in their everyday lives might not understand all that they are going through and therefore aren’t always able to offer enough support, understanding, or advice. Going online to connect with others through social media allows parents and other family members to get that support. Support for caregivers in not to be underestimated. Caregivers of all kinds (not just those dealing with ASD issues) suffer a lot of stress and can end up in poor mental health as a result. Finding communities to help them can be hugely protective. Increasingly, those communities are accessible online.
When I did an informal poll of the people I’m connected to online, the vast majority said that the reason that they love social media is because it allows them to feel connected to others who are similar to them. Finding the communities that can support you offers huge benefits, no matter who you are and what you are struggling with. People feel isolated or “different” for a vast array of different reasons. Being able to go online to connect with others who understand them, express similar views, and offer support can be hugely beneficial. It can’t replace in-person connection, and the risk of addiction can lead people to use it as a replacement in a way that’s harmful, but it’s also better than nothing, so the person who doesn’t feel like they can connect with others in real life is better off connecting online than not connecting at all.
There are many people who are limited in their real-life connections because they are housebound or have limited social activity due to mental and/or physical health issues. If you literally can’t leave your house because you are physically unable to do so, then having an online community can serve as a lifeline to protect your mental health. Likewise, if you have limited access to a diverse community of people who understand you (e.g., you live in a very small, isolated town), then finding people who do respect and empathize with you can be a lifesaver, despite the fact that those people may “only” exist online.
Back in 2012, I authored a book called Crochet Saved My Life, in which I interviewed about two dozen women about the health benefits of crafting. One of those women, Marinke, expressed that crochet had helped her as she coped with depression and social anxiety related in part to her experiences as someone on the autism spectrum. Over the next few years, she connected with a large number of people online, sharing the beauty of the craft of crochet. She began to design crochet patterns, particularly colorful mandalas, and she even published a book of her work. Sadly, after a few years of doing well, depression came back, and she died by suicide. When that happened, I felt real, strong grief despite the fact that I “only” knew her through online communication. I launched a project in her honor, Mandalas for Marinke, through which hundreds of people contributed crocheted mandalas, mostly using Marinke’s designs, to raise awareness about depression and suicide. Many, many of those people expressed how deeply affected they were by her death. They didn’t know her “in person,” but she had played a very real role in their lives, blogging and using social media to share not just her love of crafting but also her challenges with mental health. In this instance, many people felt real grief, which is, of course, the risk that you take when engaging in serious relationships. The community also came together online to honor her and support each other through that grief. This is just one example out of so many showing how the relationships that people form online are genuine, authentic, and deep. For all the shallow interactions that form the negative side of online life, there are also these very meaningful relationships. For anyone suffering from social isolation for any reason at all, those relationships can’t be underestimated.
People can feel isolated because they are literally housebound. They may feel isolated because a mental health disorder, including ASD, separates them from others due to communication problems, differences in understanding one another, and so forth. Or they may be different in a way that causes people in the real world to bully and judge them—someone who is very overweight, someone who is transgendered, someone who is “different” and unfortunately lives in a place where difference is not accepted. Any of these things can drastically impact the person’s mental well-being, and the Internet has the potential to provide a safe space for that person to get through those challenges. It’s not always a safe space, as we’ve seen. And even when it is, there’s the risk of becoming so comfortable in that space that the individual opts out of the real world, limiting themselves in ways that are unhealthy. It’s not either-or; the Internet has risks but can also provide massive benefits particularly for people who are suffering in real life. That benefit is not to be underestimated even as we consider the risks. This potential to go either way is what makes understanding Internet addiction such a complex issue.
As we discussed previously, one of the most-studied forms of Internet addiction is addiction to online gaming. It comes with a lot of risks. But it, too, has another side. There are benefits, including social benefits and mental health benefits, to online gaming. Even though it poses such a great risk of Internet addiction, it’s not all bad and may at times be a good thing.
Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), such as World of Warcraft, have the most potential for addiction. But they also have the ability to teach players important life skills and give them the opportunity to practice them. Those skills include working together with others as a team; planning ahead and adapting to changes in a narrative or situation; engaging in real-time communication (which is often voice communication); improving skills in reading, problem-solving, and math; and developing fine motor skills as well as hand-eye coordination.
Research published in the January 2014 issue of American Psychologist found overwhelming potential benefit in four key areas of life: cognitive, motivational, emotional, and social. They emphasize that many of the key benefits of gaming for children in particular come from the fact that gaming is a type of play and that children engage in play to work through many of their emotional challenges in life. When children go to therapy, for example, they don’t sit and talk to a therapist like an adult might. Instead, they play games, which is how they express themselves and problem solve, especially when they don’t have the words to explain what they’re going through. While there are certainly differences between online gaming and playing tag or soccer with your real-life friends, the authors of this research argue that many of the benefits of play can be found in online game play just like they are in real life.
In addition to the benefits of play, they found that gaming offers other widespread benefits. For example, they found that people who play shooter games have improved attention allocation as well as better spatial skills. This may correlate with long-term success in science, math, and technology. Notably, they agree that Internet use and gaming change the brain, which is one of the biggest issues in addiction, but they argue that those brain changes aren’t necessarily a bad thing. These games may change the brain in ways that improve performance and ability over time. That said, they noted that different games have different benefits; games that weren’t shooter games didn’t change the brain in these same potentially beneficial ways.
Another benefit of some games is a self-esteem boost that they offer. MMORPG, in particular, may offer self-esteem benefits for some players. Games are set up to offer continuous rewards. The addictive side of that is the dopamine hit it gives, but it also provides positive reinforcement, which can help boost feelings of good self-esteem. This is magnified when team members also provide positive reinforcement. Setting and meeting goals in a game can make the player feel more competent. Getting peer support enhances that. Since negative self-esteem correlates with many mental health problems, including but certainly not limited to eating disorders, activities that boost self-esteem can be an important protective factor.
Speaking of feeling competent, let’s talk about Self-Determination Theory. This is a theory in psychology that presents a framework for understanding human motivation. This theory argues that people are motivated by both extrinsic and intrinsic rewards and that the three key rewards in motivation are competence, autonomy, and relatedness. When these three things are present, people are more motivated, which also makes them feel better mentally and socially, persist through challenges, and experience improvements in both performance and creativity. When people lack any of these three motivations, they experience negative mental health consequences. We’ve already seen one way in which gaming can foster competence. A 2006 paper on the topic argues that gaming can also foster autonomy (in that you can make a lot of independent decisions in the game) as well as relatedness through teamwork. Thus, gaming has the potential to offer great levels of motivation, which in turn can lead to improved mental health. That said, it’s important to note that the same paper found that people who play the games obsessively are less likely to reap these rewards, so when game play heads toward addiction, the costs may outweigh the benefits.
However, we have to be careful when making assumptions about those costs and benefits. For example, it’s easy to assume that if you enter a dissociative state when gaming, then that’s always a bad thing. But a 2010 study published in Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry found that when World of Warcraft players get so immersed in their game play as to “induce dissociative states in which players attribute dimensions of self and experience to in-game characters,” it has the potential to actually benefit the player’s well-being. Many of the benefits found in this study associated with being in a flow state, not the least of which was stress reduction. Ultimately, they found that whether these immersive states were positive or negative depended on whether the individual used gaming to reduce stress or gaming was likely to cause them stress. Thus, whether gaming specifically, and Internet use more generally, is negative or positive depends significantly on the individual. Even what looks like a problem generally may not be problematic for a specific individual. That’s why it’s helpful to go back to the definition of Internet addiction that includes the aspect of causing harm or negative repercussions in life; constant game play may not be a problem if it’s not causing harm. For some people, it may even be beneficial.
One interesting area of exploration is the use of video games to assist with pain management. Immersion in a video game can help reduce or even eradicate chronic pain. The game SnowWorld, for example, was created specifically as a nonopioid form of pain management for particular use in the military and in burn treatment. Gaming releases not just dopamine but also endorphins that can help protect against pain. People who for any reason don’t want to utilize a substance such as morphine can sometimes reap the same pain management benefits from gaming. Of course, that itself could turn into an addiction, so there are pros and cons, but it can certainly be a short-term benefit if not one useful in the long term.
We can’t talk about the potential mental health benefits of the Internet without talking about the fact that today it is used as a medium for therapy. People use the Internet to find therapists and to get therapeutic advice. People also seek social support, which sometimes looks a lot like group therapy, through forums, social media, and other aspects of the Internet. More directly, people can access therapy services with educated and licensed professionals whom they meet with online. Sometimes online therapy is an adjunct to in-person therapy; other times people complete their entire therapeutic experience online only. Online therapy usually takes place over video to allow for as much face-to-face communication as possible. However, it’s also possible to have voice-only therapy, and sometimes people even get therapy or therapeutic support through text messages and voice messages. It’s an emerging field, and one that changes rapidly, so we are only just beginning to understand the pros and cons.
Overall, therapy is a helpful supportive tool for people in many situations, and online therapy is no exception. Like with all aspects of the Internet, it seems to provide the most benefit when it is a supplement to, instead of a replacement for, in-person connection. That said, just like in the cases of isolation described earlier, online therapy is better than nothing for people who can’t access in-person therapy for one reason or another. Online therapy tends to be low cost (although it may or may not be covered by your insurance). It makes therapy, particularly more niche forms of therapy, available to people in small towns and rural areas where they might not be able to access the same services in person. People who are housebound due to agoraphobia, paranoia, another mental health issue, or a physical limitation may find that online therapy is their only viable therapeutic option. People who travel frequently, or couples who are currently in a long-distance relationship, may be able to keep therapy appointments more regularly when online therapy is an option.
Online therapy might be particularly valuable for someone who is in immediate crisis. When you’re in crisis—feeling suicidal, for example—it’s critical that you get help immediately. Depending on where you are and what kind of professional support you already have in place, that help may or may not be easy to access. For example, if you already have a therapist whom you see regularly, then you may be able to call that therapist and get in for an immediate appointment. On the other hand, if you don’t have a therapist and you aren’t even sure how you would pay for one, trying to get help in the midst of a mental health crisis can feel almost impossible. Oftentimes people resort to calling a hotline, which is really a form of online or phone therapy, and the person there may suggest that they go to the emergency room for immediate help. While that might be a good solution for some, it’s not for others. The option of online therapy for crisis situations becomes a good one. If you need help immediately and a licensed therapist is on the other end of your computer at any time of day or night, then they can help you during your crisis.
Crisis intervention is only one type of therapy. Another type of therapy that seems to work well in the online world is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). This is a popular type of therapy that helps you better understand your thoughts and actions and learn new coping mechanisms. It’s been found to be an effective treatment option for many mental health issues including anxiety disorders and substance use. Since it is effective for substance addiction, it has the potential to be beneficial for people struggling with Internet addiction. Research so far indicates that there may be no difference in the success of CBT when received as online therapy versus in person. Someone may be able to visit an online therapist or one in person and get the same results when it comes to the benefits of this particular form of treatment. In comparison, if your personality and mental health issue are better treated by something such as somatic therapy or relational therapy, then you might not benefit from online therapy because you need that in-person touch and communication style.
Some people find that online therapy is a good “first step” for them when they’ve never tried therapy before. Going to therapy for the first time can be intimidating. If you’re coping with social anxiety, or you struggle to let down your guard with people in person, or you simply aren’t sure whether or not therapy is right for you, then you might put a toe in the water by trying out online therapy first. If you have a positive experience, then you benefit immediately from that and may also decide that you want to go to in-person therapy as a next step, which offers additional benefits. If a person wouldn’t have gotten therapy any other way for whatever reason, then online therapy is a good solution. Whether the benefits outweigh drawbacks for other people is up for debate.
One of the arguments commonly made for technology is that it can be used by children to enhance education. It’s an interactive, educational tool, after all (or at least it can be), but according to Nicholas Kardaras, “There is not one credible research study that shows that a child exposed to more technology earlier in life has better educational outcomes than a tech-free kid; while there is some evidence that screen exposed kids may have some increased pattern-recognition abilities, there just isn’t any research that shows that they become better students or better learners.” This doesn’t necessarily mean that technology and the Internet can’t be beneficial to students; it means that on its own the Internet isn’t an educational tool. It’s all about how we use it, so changes need to be made to educate children (and their parents and teachers) about ways to utilize the Internet that enhance their existing skills and improve their educational outcomes rather than serving as a substitute for other skills.
Consider the scenario of learning language from a dictionary. In the olden days of the twentieth century, when a child was reading a book and came across a word that they didn’t know, the way to find out (other than asking an adult) was to check out a dictionary. That action is still the same today, and doing so is much simpler thanks to at-our-fingertips technology. There is no need to stop reading, search the house for where the dictionary is, find the right page, and read the word. But, while it’s more convenient to do a quick online search on your phone for the meaning of a word, is it as effective? The entire process of finding the word in the dictionary may lend itself better to actually remembering the meaning of the word that you learn than the quick look-it-up Internet option. When you look up a word on the Internet, or ask Siri for the definition, you see what it means and then quickly move on to something else, and usually that word falls out of your memory. The tangible multistep action (and the more dedicated intent to learn) that comes with looking the word up in your desktop print dictionary can help to solidify the meaning of that word in your memory.
Does this mean that you can’t learn language through reading and looking up the words that you don’t know in an Internet dictionary? Of course not. What it means is that we have to be more intentional about our actions, noticing that this is a word we want to learn and taking the extra steps to learn it. This means not just looking up the word on the Internet but taking the time to write the word down along with its meaning, maybe use it in a sentence or write out the context in which we found the word and go back to it again to keep reminding ourselves of what it means until it’s locked into our memory. If we use the Internet only as a shortcut, then it may not offer benefits, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have the potential to be a great thing.
Creating a vocabulary list on your phone and setting a phone reminder to review it regularly can be just as effective as using index cards to learn new words. It is all about setting the intention and the behaviors that support that intention, whether we do that with technology or not. It’s just that in today’s Internet-dominated world, it becomes much easier to mindlessly look up the word, see what it means for the moment that you need it, and promptly forget its meaning moments later. That can happen when looking up a word in the physical dictionary as well, but the effort put in to find the word gives you the time and focus to solidify your intention to learn the word. If you can find ways to slow down your Internet use long enough to set and meet that intention, then the technology can serve the same purpose.
Of course, this is just one example of the Internet as it applies to education. This is really a very broad discussion. It ranges from whether or not kids should use technology in the classroom (and if so, how much of the time and in what ways) to the potential benefits and drawbacks of an online-only education. If kids are ignoring the teacher because they’re watching funny memes on their phones during class time, then that’s a negative, but if the teacher uses a funny meme at the start of a lecture to capture the kids’ attention, then it can be a positive. If a child drops out of school because of bullying, then attending an online-only program might be the best option, but if a child never has to face the outside world because they’re able to do their entire education online, then that could be problematic. Like many aspects of the conversation around where we’re going with technology as a society, this is a huge topic that we can’t fully address here.
One issue that’s specifically relevant to mental health is the growing problem of attention disorders. Children who are exposed to a lot of screen time, and certainly those children who develop a full-blown addiction to the Internet, seem to have problems with attention that relate to those changes in the brain discussed in previous chapters. Many of the teachers I’ve spoken to say that in their own experience, attention levels have decreased dramatically in recent years and they believe that technology is at least partially to blame. If children aren’t able to pay attention in a classroom, then they aren’t able to learn as well. But if technology can be utilized in positive ways in the classroom, then perhaps it can mitigate some of that harm. It’s a controversy that our society is still in the early stages of sorting out.
The Internet is here to stay (at least until technology advances again and replaces itself with something else). So, one course of action is to utilize the power of our technology for good. We can use the Internet itself to help mitigate the negatives of Internet use. Perhaps we can even use the Internet to resolve Internet addiction.
In terms of minimizing harm, there are numerous apps and tools now available to help people who are concerned about overusing the Internet. At a very basic level, we can easily research the problem of Internet addiction and come to find solutions, as well as peer support and perhaps even professional support, through the Internet itself. If you think that you or someone you love might have a problem with Internet addiction, one of the first things that you might do is head to Google or ask Alexa to tell you more about Internet addiction. This is one of the simplest ways in which the Internet itself can help battle the problems of using the Internet.
Once you determine that either you have an addiction or you want to limit your Internet use so as to reduce the risk of developing an addiction, you can implement a variety of safeguards. In the earlier chapter on treatment options for Internet addiction, we saw that a harm reduction approach means that most people are going to use the Internet to some degree but will limit that use in various ways. They will reduce their use to specific tools, limit their time on devices, or do both of those things. Our technology now comes with built-in tools and easy-to-download apps to help facilitate that self-limitation. (Parents can also use those same tools to limit children.)
When Apple released the iOS 12 update for its devices, it came with a new feature called Screen Time. This means that anyone who has an up-to-date iPhone, iPad, or other Apple device can not only see how much time they’re on the device but also easily limit themselves based on that information. Screen Time allows you to see the following:
This gives you a lot of information that can help you see what features of your device might be addictive for you personally. You can alter the settings to include all of your devices or just one. Moreover, you can use the app to schedule “downtime” (time when you don’t want the screen to work) as well as time limits for each app and specific content/privacy restrictions. So, if you see that you overuse Facebook, especially at lunchtime, you can put a limit on your daily Facebook use and also schedule downtime at lunchtime to make sure you aren’t using up your limit then. You can easily turn these things on and off. If you have a full-blown addiction, that ease is a problem because you can quickly resume your problematic use. But if you’re in the early stages of problematic use, tools like this can help you regain control over your Internet use so that it’s working for you instead of against you.
This built-in iPhone app is just one of many examples. There are many similar apps available to monitor and limit use of your phones, tablets, and computers. There are also many other types of apps and software programs that have the potential to help limit online distractions so that you can reap the benefits of the Internet without engaging in the more addictive properties. For example, you can look for Zenware, which is a category of software that helps restrict usage during certain activities. One great example is WriteRoom, which blocks out your whole screen so that all you see is the text that you’re writing (green text on a black background that harkens back to the early days of computer technology), allowing you to focus on deep thought and writing without any of the tempting distractions of other tabs and windows. Similarly, Ommwriter turns off email and chat notifications and also allows you to choose one of three calming backgrounds that were specifically chosen by a color therapist to allow for relaxation.
The Internet has the potential to cause addiction for some people. But it also has a lot of benefits, and the Internet itself can provide solutions to addiction. One of the scariest things about Internet addiction is that the technology has advanced so quickly that we are changing our daily behaviors, and potentially our brains, in the blink of an eye. But one of the most amazing things is that as fast as we’re seeing problems, we’re using both technology and the connectivity to others that the Internet allows to identify and resolve those problems.