Bradford Regional Medical Center to Offer Internet Addiction Treatment Program

Are you a karma junkie? Memes Got You Hooked? Chasing the Youtube dragon endlessly? If so, consider checking into the nation’s very first internet addiction program, running directly out of Bradford’s Regional Medical Center. You too can be free from the tyranny of endless cat pictures.

The program starts September 9 with a 10-day voluntary program aimed at alleviating internet addiction in those of us who take the geek thing a little too far. That alleviation, of course, comes from a whole menu of “digital detox” programs couples with medication, if necessary.

But will it help? Is this really something to worry about? Well …

“Research has found that Internet addicts and drug addicts experience similar withdrawal symptoms, especially when going cold turkey. A 2006 study by Stanford University’s School of Medicine found that nearly one in eight Americans suffers from at least one sign of “problematic Internet use” — such as the inability to stop looking at their phones or computers for an extended period of time.”

Maybe now would be a good time to unplug. [MLMN]