Addiction to Technology

If I spend too many hours using technology am I addicted?

I think so. One day, I looked at my Instagram stats and it said I had an daily use of about 4 to 5 hours, and that is just one app.

After all, I start my day looking at my cellphone. Usually, I will search on Whatsapp and Instagram if I got any new messages. E-mail hasn't been a communication tool for me in a while. I use it for official purposes and those answers usually take a while to come back. I know that I am emotionally connected via technology to other people, so I look at my phone or my computer to see if I get any response from people that I am invested in some way, romantically, affectionately, professionally... 

To distract myself from my worries, I use apps like duolinguo to pretend I am learning a new language, or Instagram to pretend that I am getting information about the world, when all I get are tidbits of digested info designed to lure me into an endless loop of vertical swipes. 

I also come home and turn on streaming apps like Prime TV, Max or Disney to find some consumable series or movies that might burn some time and possible blur my focus further from my own life issues. It is like taking a glass of wine just to dull the feelings. I guess I do this more when I feel l am alone and it is been feeling unbearably lonely as of late. (Not that being a lone is a problem, feeling as if it is loneliness that makes it into a problem and quite frankly the way I have been dealing with it makes it a problem). 

The worst side effect that it has on me is creating a shorter span of attention. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to focus on information. Reading books has been substituted by eBooks but I don't even spend that much time reading, because it requires a focus that it has been missing. 

Earlier today, I fiddled with the idea of loneliness and it has become clearer to me that my interaction with the technology is responsible for my growing loneliness... So if I spend time looking at an app to see if I get a reply to a message, it can only mean that I am addicted to the trigger of response. 

Side-note: Many years ago, when I was a teenager, the entertainment at the house was VHS movies or series and Spectrum video-games, that would take about 5 minutes or so to load. Back then I noticed that I was being too addicted to that, so I tried a week of without playing, I do not remember if I steered clear of the TV entertainment at the same time. I know that for a few days it produce some effect on me. It was good. I am considering backing off from technology for awhile, just to see if I can rebound my feelings to a better state. 

But, I know that it is going to be hard to disconnect, because I feel that to do so, is to cut myself from the hive where my family and friends are most of the time. 

You see, we have agreed to be seemingly semi-permanently  connected to a Net of information and entertainment that keep us distracted from being alive and this happens to a point where we cannot stand to be in the place where silence has lease. 

Maybe I should start with a small diet, granting myself one hour of internet access per day and use it accordingly. Books will hopefully be a patch to outgrow this addiction. 

I hope I make it better and realize that being alone does not preclude a loneliness sentence.