Internet Addiction = Idolatry

Yesterday my neighbor was digging a trench for a new sprinkler system and accidently cut the Comcast cable to both of our homes. Result: we had no cable TV, telephones or internet access for 24 hours. Another result was that the extent of my internet addiction (and media addiction in general) was revealed once again.

Also Yesterday Take Your Vitamin Z posted the image to the right and a link to an article by Alexia Tsotsis referring to Facebook as The New Smoking:

We’ve all been there; You’re at an outing or a dinner table with friends but itching to check your email or Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or Google+ or Yammer or what ever digital hit of serotonin you prefer. Have you ever “gone to the bathroom” in order to check email or come up with a socially appropriate excuse to pull out your smartphone just so you can check your @ replies on Twitter

Remember when the critical mass of smokers used to leave the table or meeting in groups to go indulge their habit? I straight up open my laptop at bars and parties, and then feel more guilty about that than drinking.

A new British study released today backs up what we otherwise know intuitively, that Internet usage is increasingly becoming an addiction. Out of 1000 people surveyed after being cut off from the Internet for 24 hours, 53% reported feeling “upset” about being deprived of online access and 40% said that they felt lonely after not being able to connect to the Internet. Participants described the digital detox akin to quitting drinking or smoking and one even said it was like having his hand chopped off (!).

Read the rest here.

Not sure what I am going to do about this, but I need to do something. Anything, good or bad or indifferent, that becomes an ultimate thing has also become an idolatry thing. God deliver me from all idolatry!