We live in a world obsessed with digital media. Wearable technology – whether watches, glasses or fitness trackers – is trending in the tech space, so it’s better to develop the skills to deal with digital media effectively before every aspect of your life is consumed by it.

It’s incredibly easy to fall into an addiction cycle with digital technology, whether it’s your iPhone or a new online game. Because of this tendency towards addiction – I know I am always becoming obsessed with one form of media or another – it’s equally important to recognize the stages of addiction, and learn how to recover from it. Here’s a breakdown of what I have observed as the main phases of digital media addiction:

Phase 1. Experimentation

You’ve just purchased a new laptop or tablet. It’s smooth, shiny, and makes you feel like you belong on the Starship Enterprise. When you turn on that adorable little Wi-Fi button, you can access a whole new world of information through the Internet. It’s all very new and exciting.  It’s almost like its 1998 again, and you’re accessing the Internet for the first time with one of these.

This is a glorious time. Everything about it is new and fresh. You’ve never looked at the Internet in this way before. You scroll and click your way through pages and pages of exciting content. Whole new websites and trends might have cropped up in your absence. “Memes? GIFs? What are these strange and exciting new forms of media?”

The next thought – if you’re in performance marketing – might be, “Can I make money off of this?” Go for it. Maximize that marketing spend. Or, you can do what I often do, and just lurk on Pinterest creating a digital version of what your life would be like in a world with endless time and money. It’s very easy to slip directly into addiction in this stage, but it often wears off and you enter Phase 2.

Phase 2. Regular Use

Regular digital media users are plugged into their media, and have a few devices, whether they are smartphones, tablets, or laptops. If you are one, you spend a few hours a day responding to emails, checking up on your Facebook friends, skimming a few choice blogs, or exploring Wikipedia. Your smartphone only has a few, essential applications, and you primarily use it to make calls or send text messages – rather than spending hours trying to break through one Angry Birds level.

This is a happy stage to be at. You are involved in the digital world, and might feel pretty high tech because you have a Kindle. You’ve been using the same types of digital media for a while, and have no particularly strong urge to change your ways. It’s enjoyable watching new users struggle to use some forms of social media, whether they’re your grandmother or an unfriendly coworker. You get it, and they don’t. You’re in the “in-crowd.”

But – you really aren’t. You’re just a normal user, and people who are actually addicted to digital media probably envy your blissful ignorance while their eyes grow tired from staring at screens all day.

Phase 3. Risky Use/Abuse

“Risky” users of digital media are not quite addicted – not quite completely dependent, but they definitely spend unhealthy amounts of time plugged into the digital world. Your iPhone 5 is your best friend. You would never show up to a meeting without your trusty laptop. You bring your iPad with you to the gym. You use your devices to engage with all sorts of media – from social to news to entertainment. Being plugged in is essential to you, and the hours of the day where you are not engaged with some form of digital media at any given time are significantly less than the hours you spend not interacting with digital technology.

It’s a very fine line between this stage and complete dependency. I like to think that the real difference is how you behave when your Internet stops working. When you can’t connect – you will probably fall into one of two categories:

1. You get frustrated for a little bit, and then switch to a task that doesn’t involve anything digital, like going for a run or reading a book. Yes – a physical book – you know, those ones made of paper? You accept the fact that the internet is not working, and if it continues for an abnormal amount of time – say a day or two – you become more proactive about getting it fixed.
2. After screaming with rage for a few minutes, you start trying everything in your power to get the Internet back on. Nothing works. I mean, nothing. No Apple TV, no Pinterest, no Facebook, no email, no friends. If you’re at the office – you can’t even contact your IT department to help you fix it. You might have to physically walk over to IT, or actually interact with your Wi-Fi router.

Phase 4. Addiction and Complete Dependency

When you wake up, you check your Instagram feed, reblog Tumblr posts, and explore the front page of the Internet before doing anything – even before sitting up in bed. Hours of your free time disappear completely before you notice that you’ve been trying to level up in your mobile game all afternoon.

Your weekends are consumed by Netflix, you don’t remember the last time that you touched a physical newspaper, and you spend more time communicating with friends via social media than you do with them in the physical world. If you’ve ever experienced separation anxiety from Instagram or your email inbox – you may have a problem. Your sleep is constantly disrupted by notifications, and late night searching binges.

You pride yourself on being an excellent multi-tasker, but according to research at Stanford University, there’s really no such thing. You find yourself constantly switching between websites, tasks, apps, and devices. Having the newest, most “hi-tech” devices and software is essential for you to continue living in this way – but downloading a software update would mean turning off your devices. Five minutes without being able to use Google Chrome is far too long.

You know you have a problem, but you don’t care, because you need that media fix. You can’t not check your phone or respond to notifications. People joke that your smartphone is an extension of your arm, and you would turn home halfway through a 45-minute drive if you forgot it. This addiction only scales up from here, entering the world of MMORPG addicts, and people who don’t sleep at all because they are glued to their screens.

Any of these stages can be dealt with effectively, and scaled back in a way where you can enjoy the perks of the digital world, while still living a fulfilling life.

Recovery.

Start small. Try unplugging every now and then. Go for a walk without your smartphone. Bring a notepad to your next meeting. Take actual notes.

Try going to dinner with your friends and putting all your smartphones in a stack in the center of the table. If anyone touches the stack, they pay for the whole table’s dinner. You’d be surprised at how different conversations are when people don’t have their nose pointed towards a small screen.

Recovering from a digital media addiction is not easy, but making an effort to do a little bit every day will make a difference. 

What stage are you? Leave a comment below…we want to hear your story!