We’re more digitally connected than ever before, and it’s having a chilling impact on our health, wellbeing and relationships. But society is also taking steps to deal with this new and growing problem. How do we save ourselves from internet addiction?
Holed up in his room, half-starved and too wired to sleep, Andrew Fulton spent his first few weeks at university living like a fugitive. Had alcohol or drugs been his poison, the other students might have clocked the danger he was in sooner. But Fulton had been undone by his craving for a different fix: the adrenaline-fuelled highs from online video games.
He had first turned to the internet as a refuge from the anxiety and alienation that lingered throughout his school years. But by the time he was 19, Fulton became so consumed by his obsession that nothing seemed to matter unless it was happening on his screen.
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“Any time I wasn’t on the computer, I was lightheaded, I was angry, I was anxious, I was hungry,” says Fulton, who is now 23. “But when I was back on my computer I felt normal. It was like my IV line; my nutrients.”
He set out on a painful journey of recovery, and eventually managed to turn around his relationship with computers. It was marked by several bouts of avoiding the issue, and multiple setbacks which he concedes nearly killed him. Key to his success was a rehabilitation centre in the US called reSTART.
Nestled in hill country outside Seattle, about a two-hour drive from Fulton’s home town of Ellensburg, the organisation runs highly structured residential programmes for people – mostly young men – who are battling to escape the seductions of the virtual world. There is a structured routine with time for exercise, recreational activities, group therapy and learning life skills like cooking, cleaning and doing laundry.
Participants live together in a house and can stay for months. Already, more than 200 people have attended programmes and the team has received more than 10,000 telephone queries about its work. Demand has grown so much since the centre opened in 2009 that reSTART has launched a scheme for young people aged 13–18 at a new campus called Serenity Mountain.
Any time I wasn’t on the computer, I was lightheaded, I was angry, I was anxious, I was hungry
While Fulton’s addiction was severe and extreme, technology’s lure is something most of us can identify with. Amid an unceasing torrent of distractions from social media, smartphones and messaging apps, many of us feel enslaved by our devices. Though Fulton only began the hard work of recovery when he realised there was no other choice, there are signs that people are increasingly reassessing their use of devices.
“It’s about asking what our current relationship with technology is and reframing that in a more positive, balanced way,” says Orianna Fielding, founder of the Digital Detox Company in London, which advises companies how to help their employees better manage their digital lives. “It’s about enlarging our offline life by reshaping our online life.”
This shift is overdue, particularly in Britain, where young people seem especially susceptible to tech overuse. According to a report by the Education Policy Institute thinktank, more than one in three British 15-year-olds are ‘extreme internet users’ who spend at least six hours a day online. This figure is higher than in all the other 34 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, apart from Chile.
The older generation seems by no means immune: just ask the many teachers exasperated by parents who dismiss their children’s bids for attention with…
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