Internet Addiction

I think I have an unhealthy addiction to the internet. Every waking hour of my life, the first thing I think about aside from praying is checking my mail. Recently, my psychological dependence on surfing the web has caused me to cram for my NMAT review. Right at this very moment, when I am supposed to be finishing three chapters of my Physics book, I am here in front of my laptop, satisfying my unexplainable and insatiable craving to be online.

A few months ago, I deleted all my social networking sites because I noticed that my time is usually used up by browsing friend profiles, updating my shoutout, reading memes, and consuming whatever feature a networking site has. I think it proved succesful, since I curbed my internet use to a minimum, allowing me to review unperturbed for the NLE. After I took my board exams, I started joining social sites again, hoping to post my SocialVibe badge all over the place. One thing led to another, and I again find myself spending hours and hours on the internet.

While this obssession/ addiction/ compulsion has not reached a point where it has crippled my life.

See, even my supposed next sentence is marred with denial.

I still manage to take a bath, eat, and sometimes work out. But other than that most of my days are just filled with endless hours surfing the web. Clicking link after link and finding myself far from the original task I had in mind. Many times I feel an upsurge of self-control, believing that I can prevent myself from drifting to unproductive net surfing, but then after a while, I notice that time has drifted by like a river opening up to a dam.

Usually I convince myself that "I would be just checking my mail", or "I would just be looking around for a few minutes"; eventually minutes turn to hours, and hours get wasted on aimless reading and 'interesting' time hogs instead of tasks I was supposed to accomplish. I am a procrastinator. And a really highly effective one at that.

I am really contemplating on purging my connections to this life consuming monster. Technology is good until you are hooked. I recently downloaded Leechblock (a productivity tool for Firefox that allows you to block certain websites on times you normally have something important to finish). Social sites are blocked from my laptop everyday except Wednesdays and Fridays--since cold turkey rarely works. I turned it on the other day. Monday was a struggle, Tuesday I used the other PC just to "check" my social sites, and today I am wallowing in regretful depression.

The only appealing solution to me now is to completely detach from the internet again.