Surefire signs you have an Internet addiction.

The Internet is the shit: We work on it, play on it, it’s there for us through thick and thin, and there’s nothing quite like reminiscing about the good ol’ days by scrolling through our browsing history. The Internet completes us. We could pretend we don’t have an Internet addiction, that our favorite activity isn’t Netflixing “Gilmore Girls” while not tweeting our every thought, but who are we kidding?

Here are 25 signs you’re hopelessly addicted to the Internet:

1. Your laptop is always open, just in case.
2. When you think of something hilarious to say, you don’t say it – you tweet it.
3. When the power goes out, you have a meltdown of epic proportions.
4. Your cat lies on your keyboard so you remember to feed him.
5. You say “lol” instead of you know, laughing.
6. You know exactly what Kim Kardashian is doing right now (even though you don’t want to know).
7. You can’t start eating your appetizer until you Instagram it.
8. You don’t pause your show for a bathroom break – you take it with you.
9. When someone wants to use your computer you get all territorial.
10. You sleep-text.
11. When planning a vacation, the only criteria you look for is an excellent wi-fi connection.
12. You can’t remember the last time you used an actual Thesaurus.
13. You visit the weather channel website instead of looking out the window.
14. Sometimes you hear phantom Facebook alerts.
15. You get mad at your friends for not thinking the dramatic squirrel YouTube video is as hilarious as you think it is.
16. You don’t order takeout using the phone anymore.
17. You only know how to express your feelings through emoticons.
18. You never make a decision without Googling your options first.
19. You have a Google Alert set up for cat videos.
20. You sent out memes instead of Christmas cards last year.
21. You check your email every 35 seconds – even when you’re not waiting for anything important.
22. Real life? Heard of it.
23. The first question you ask everywhere you go is, “Is there wi-fi?”
24. You’ve lost entire days to the black cavernous hole of (glorious) doom that is BuzzFeed.
25. You’ve pulled a muscle nodding along to this entire article.

Do you have an Internet addiction?

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Social networks create relationships at the touch of a button. So why are we still feeling lonely?

I’ve been Netflix-ing episodes of this quirky show called ‘The Guild” (originally a YouTube series, it ran from 2007 – 2013). It’s a pretty funny story about a young violinist who’s addicted to an online video game she plays with a group of people she’s never met.

To me, the most interesting part of the show is the video diary kept by the main character. In these brief moments, she talks about feeling lonely, and how playing the game both helps and exacerbates the issue. Feeling lonely despite hanging out with the same six people online for eight hours a day is an intriguing paradox. Most of us have at least a few hundred “friends” on Facebook or followers on Twitter. We interact with these people multiple times a day, sharing details and photos from our private lives. Yet many of us still find ourselves feeling lonely. Why?

The impact of social media on our quality of life is the focus of a four minute film that recently (and somewhat ironically) went viral. Called “The Innovation of Loneliness,” the piece provides a simple yet profound answer to a question you may have asked yourself: What is the connection between social networks and feeling lonely?

Although our interactions on social networks seem to mirrors the way relationships work in the real world, there are some important yet subtle differences.

The visual attractiveness and ease of use associated with Facebook and other social media platforms scratches two of our favorite itches: a lack of time and a fear of intimacy. We love these sites because they make it so effortless to “connect” and “stay in touch” yet never require us to experience the gritty, dirty, messy, inconvenient parts of relationships. So, despite the ability to interact with thousands of people at the touch of a button, we still find ourselves feeling lonely.

Social media also plays into our inherent selfishness, allowing us to obsess over whatever topic or person we want, making us believe we always have an audience, and as such, tricking us into thinking we’re never alone. Another detriment of social media is the ability to hide behind the edit button. “Since the dawn of our species, relationships have been based on face-to-face interaction, which is by definition unfiltered and spontaneous. Online interaction, however, can be tailored, tweaked, and photoshopped until it looks just how we want it to. This has lead to a situation in which social networks serve as platforms to present finely manicured façades, not the authentic, messy reality of our identities,” writes Jordan Bates for Refine The Mind.

When combined with other psychological factors mentioned in the short film, these aspects of social media become dangerous because they warp our expectations for real relationships. When people in the real world don’t respond like our online friends, or when we’re forced to face realities about ourselves that are easily hidden on Facebook, it bothers us. Even though we’re still feeling lonely, we become addicted to the illusion of social media, and can eventually prefer it to the more difficult challenges of being a real human.

This isn’t to say that interactions on social networks are all worthless, or that your Facebook friends are solely to blame for your feelings of loneliness. But it should be a wake up call. It’s time to “[r]educe, moderate, and disconnect,” advises Bates. Take the time to consider the impact of social media on your real world relationships, realize you’re more than a profile pic and a pile of likes, and limit yourself to those “friends” and pages that stimulate the person you are offline.

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Okay, this ages me, but for the sake of this article I’ll tell you. I remember a time without internet. I remember getting letters in the mail, calling from a landline, and making fun of Facebook. I even remember when I sent my first email. But nowadays, internet addiction is the norm; the idea of living offline or without the internet seems a foreign concept.

I’m a writer that depends on WWW to communicate with my editors, set up interviews, and research my articles. In my free time, I check Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. I get news updates from Twitter. But after reading about Paul Miller, a 26-year-old tech writer who gave up the internet for a full year, the idea seems more and more appealing.

For Miller, he sought a break from the internet to solve larger issues like a lack of focus and time wasted. He wanted to write and read books, meet friends in person, and get out of his apartment. In the end, going offline didn’t solve all of his problems, though his editors did say his writing was more focused and he did lose a bunch of weight.

Whatever the issues that plague him, they did not simply go away from switching email to snail mail or choosing a paper map over Google. But Miller did find space to take a closer look at himself and his habits. For me, that’s a great start and motivation enough to take a closer look.

Do you Have an Internet Addiction? Ask Yourself These 4 Questions:

1. Do you often realize that you’ve been online longer than you meant to be?

2. Do you choose to spend time online rather than with other people?

3. Do you use your smartphone in awkward social situations rather than just talking to those around you?

4. Even when you have stuff to do, do you find yourself connecting to the internet first?

If you answered yes to more than one of these questions, maybe it’s time to take a few steps back from the World Wide Web. And that doesn’t mean you have to give it up for an entire year to feel pleasantly disconnected.

Here are 4 tips for facing your internet addiction:

1. Add an internet free day to your week. Maybe it’s a weekend day when you don’t have to check email. In fact, leave your smartphone at home.

2. Have certain allowable times for checking email, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social networking sites. Maybe once a day or once every other day during a certain allotment of time.

3. When you’re out with friends, do not take your phone out of your pocket or purse.

4. Call instead of email at least a few times per week.

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