I’ve come to the awful realisation that my life revolves around my internet addiction. I’m ashamed to say that it’s now a need rather than a want and it’s become more than an interest or even a necessity to enable me to function adequately. I’m mortified that when I have guests, sometimes I can’t wait for them to leave or I finish a phone call to a friend prematurely so that I can feed my addiction and that’s just awful and plainly unacceptable.
When I first wake in the morning, I should be thinking about getting out of bed before my Carer arrives to help me get showered and dressed, and perhaps, thinking about whether to have Cornflakes or muesli for my breakfast. Instead of that, my first thought is that I’ve got to get up because I need to go and check my email accounts and log into my Facebook page and if I can’t justify that then I’ll check my Amazon order to see whether it’s going to be delivered today or tomorrow. Better still, I could take a look at my bank account details hoping I will find the balance is black rather than red.
I bring up my WordPress blog and sit, staring at the screen. I’m racking my brains for a topic to write my next post about yet my mind is completely blank, so I find myself casually wandering off to my Twitter account (not that I’ve quite got the grasp of how Twitter works yet). I come back to my blog because I want to read my fellow blogger’s latest posts. But, I often fail at that too because of the incessant need to get my next fix of scrolling across the screen or tapping on the keys.
Just lately, I haven’t been feeling too great (I’m getting over a persistent viral infection) and have spent far too much time online, wandering from page to page, so much so that my right index finger is sore and aching from clicking my mouse and scrolling up and down the page. How sad is that?
In the evening, after my Carer has left and I’ve had my tea and got my pyjamas on, I ought to be thinking about going to bed. I tell myself that I’ll just spend five more minutes surfing the net. But, I don’t do that – it turns into ten minutes and then fifteen and before I know it, an hour has passed. I start nodding off – my forehead nearly hitting the keyboard.
I’ve really got to go to bed as I have to be up early in the morning. Why do I have to get up so early the next morning? Not because I need to let the cat out or I really should make that international phone call. I don’t have those excuses – I don’t have a cat and the time difference between my friend and me means she will still be asleep in bed. No – I need to get up that early because my addiction to the internet means I have to connect to my laptop and start the whole damn process again.
Essentially Ellie 