In 2017, several people concerned about their tech and internet use banded together to create Internet and Technology Addicts Anonymous (ITAA), a global fellowship inspired by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).<\/p>\n
Jenny is one of their members. At the height of her phone addiction, she would not sleep for days. She would barely eat or drink, her dependency was so strong.<\/p>\n
“I would lose chunks of my life,” explains the 30-year-old, who doesn’t want the BBC to use her real name.<\/p>\n
She didn’t care what popped up on her screen – a film, a series, a short video – as long as she was watching something.<\/p>\n
“I did not realise how I addicted I was until I was in withdrawal and I had to ask friends and family to keep my devices under lock and key,” Jenny recalls.<\/p>\n
“It was so bad, I thought I am going to die if I don’t watch something.”<\/p>\n
If she relapsed, she would resort to taking or “borrowing without permission” a laptop or a smartphone from her family.<\/p>\n
But then the guilt and shame would kick in, and she would want to stream more content to block out the feelings.<\/p>\n
After years of “searching for help”, she came across ITAA and followed their 12 steps. She is now in recovery and has not streamed or watched anything for five years. <\/p>\n
Jenny says she feels comfortable with having a basic phone, and going online for her job. “I’m now in control,” she says.<\/p>\n
Another ITAA member, Tom, says his addiction led him to dark places. He could lose whole months of his life to his phone and other screens.<\/p>\n
“I would binge for 10 hours straight \u2013 I could be listening to music, watching something on YouTube, scrolling through social media and playing a video game \u2013 all at the same time.<\/p>\n
“Then I would go for a two-hour walk, and binge again. This could go on for months.”<\/p>\n
Tom’s addiction was so overpowering that it led to him losing his business and his sense of purpose in life.<\/p>\n
“I became suicidal,” he says.<\/p>\n
“I am starting to get real joy in life again. I play lots of pickle ball, I get outside and I go to the gym.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2017, several people concerned about their tech and internet use banded together to create Internet and Technology…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":["post-522044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}