Flash forward 5 years: I was engaged to be married, and expecting a baby. Like many pregnant women, the internet was my tool for information, and i soon stumbled apon a pregnancy chatroom. I returned to that chatroom the next day, and found that many of the same people had been coming back for months, even years to mingle with their fellow expectant moms. I started swapping belly photos with them, then baby pictures, and eventually we started hooking up webcams. We exchanged phone numbers. My daughter is turning 3 this year, and I still pop into the virtual room every once and a while.

Some examples of groups are Random Acts Of Kindness, Misker’s Denizens, Garden of Friendship and Hearts Of Gold. Other groups include Kindred Spirits, Inner Dreams, Web Addicts, Net Dudes and so on.

So we might suggest that a techneck suffers an addiction. When a normal person is accused of addiction, like in “smartphone addiction,” they will rationally agree to cut back in their usage. But not a techneck, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” (at least 5 gigs). Technecks are ready to sacrifice their health, their wealth, their wife, their husband, their partner, their kids! and anything else that separates them from cyberspace. I mean, after all, what else is there?

Tell a professional about it. Talk to a counselor. Because of its prevalence, several hotlines have already been set up. A professional is the best person to help you as the steps he or she can provide is normally backed up by research.

Engage in positive self-talk. Instead of telling yourself, “I can’t live without the Internet. I won’t feel good unless I am on the internet.” Tell yourself, “I can live without the computer. I can do it.” Make the decision to recover, and you will recover. Negativity will get you nowhere in life. By being determined and thinking positively, you will make your recovery happen.

Additionally, a techneck considers his or her op-ed pieces to be journalistic genius soon to be discovered by the world, and his or her comments on politics or religion to be the all of end all intelligence. I mean, who’s going to argue with them?

Lying. You won’t admit the amount of time you actually spend on the computer. Or you don’t tell the truth about what you’re doing on the Internet. You hide it from others.