I read a study recently about people who are addicted to the Internet. The study asked questions about how people used the Net. To find out if the people were addicted, they asked questions based on gambling addiction ("Have you ever bet your modem on a download?")
I was reading the article, feeling sorry for the poor saps who are hopelessly addicted to the Net, thinking up clever things the addicts might say to each other ("Psst, Hey, buddy, I got a T-1 connection here!" "I’m jonesing man, I’ll even take 14.4 throughput!").
Slowly, though, I felt a creeping sensation on the back of my neck. This was sounding increasingly familiar. The questions they asked—I could have answered yes to them! Oh my God! There was a monkey on my back, and it’s name was Reading!
"Have you used it to escape from problems?" Well, um, yeah, I guess, from time-to-time, or well, actually, just about every day. Yes, I admit it—I read to escape from problems in my life. Sometimes, I’ll just grab a novel and shut off the entire world!
"Have you tried and failed to cut back?" I swore that this year, I would only read on weekends. And only magazine articles. But pretty soon, I was sneaking a Danielle Steele, and then a mystery. Before I knew it, I was back into hard-core literature! I was mainlining Dickens and Hemingway!
"Have you remained preoccupied with reading while no longer actually reading?" I confess! I’ll think about the characters, and I imagine different endings. Sometimes I just think about the book and review the plot in my mind. It’s taking over my entire life!
I knew if I didn’t do something about it, I would be in serious trouble. I’d sell my kids, lose visitation rights to my house. I’d be one of those people in the Barnes & Noble who sit in overstuffed chairs all day, devouring book after book in an endless search for the perfect high.
I found some other people with my same problem. The stories they told were chilling.
"I used to be happy just watching TV—I could get news and entertainment from it. It was great! I started out so innocently. During a commercial, I’d read an article in the TV Guide. Pretty soon, I had moved up to magazines, pamphlets, supermarket tabloids. Then one fateful evening, I sat down with a book and I didn’t turn on the TV at all! That’s when I knew I had hit rock bottom," sobbed a young woman who asked to remain anonymous.
I talked to another man, who was wearing a tattered sweater and an unhealthy pallor about his face.
"You want to know how I got started? Cereal boxes. Something as plain and innocent as cereal boxes!
"I would read the ingredients, and then the back and the front. I thought, ‘What harm is there? It’s just a cereal box.’ Little did I know that those innocent cereal boxes were leading me down the road to a horrid addiction.
"On morning, I had finished reading the cereal box for the second time, when I saw a Playboy magazine that my Dad had left by his chair. I snuck over and opened it up, expecting to find pictures of naked women. Instead I opened it to—an article! I read it, and then another and another! Pretty soon, I was flushing and breathing hard—I had a ‘reader’s high,’ and I was hooked."
Experts disagree about the best way to handle people who are reading junkies.
"Stick them in a room with a TV that only gets Nickleodeon and the WB network," said Dr. Franz, an addiction expert with Time-Warner. "At first, they will resist, but eventually, they will be ground down by the TV shows and they will be over their addiction."
Dr. Howard, with the Institute for Reading Addiction, however, feels that gradual tapering off is best. "Move them from ‘literature’ to Agatha Christie mysteries. From there, you can expose them to coffee table books, People magazine, and eventually get them down to a comic book once a month."
There are those who wonder what the fuss is all about. Addison Montgomery is a spokesperson for Reading is Okay, and he says, "Reading isn’t as bad as everyone says. It doesn’t hurt anyone, and the link between reading and crime is only tenuous. Sure, some people go overboard and hold up convenience stores so they can purchase books, but most readers are responsible members of society."
I have this warning for Young People—don’t make the horrible mistake I made. Stick to your TV and don’t get started on that horrible road to a life-long addiction to reading!
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