But soon you find yourself online all the time, logging on “just to check a few things,” and then look up, bleary-eyed, only to realize hours have passed. You can’t be anywhere without looking at your phone at the steady stream of information on your RSS reader, e-mail, Facebook and Twitter. And being without online or mobile access makes you anxious and jittery, and you can’t even enjoy yourself until you’re re-connected.
Maybe that sounds normal, but the growing saturation of connectivity in our everyday existence — to the point of interrupting the enjoyment of real life — is an increasing concern among the psychiatric community in the U.S. You may have a valid medical reason you can’t step away from your computer, because as the American Psychiatric Association says, Internet addiction may be a real mental health disorder