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| The Way of Self-Treatment | Many people already have calendar schedules they keep current and check often on their computer. Using such a program to log one's on-line time and what that time was specifically spent on would be a means of both establishing a base line for the behaviour and tracking recovery progress. Also, a client could set such program to flash a message at regular intervals, reminding the user to stop momentarily and evaluate if their current Internet interactivity is warranted or not.
Of course, some people have individual problems. If a person is "hooked" on hanging out in a chat channel with their close net friends, the reinforcement pattern will be different from someone involved in maintaining an alternate persona in a role playing MOO.
Every modality (email, real time chat, MOO's) has a different pattern of reinforcements it supplies. One approach that might work across such sub-types of Internet addiction is an effort by the client to limit their Internet use to a regular set time each day.
This would help counter the highly reinforcing variable ratio aspect where one is never sure when something exciting is going to appear, but the total amount of excitation is dependent upon the amount of time on-line.
For example, if someone knew that they were only going to check their email at 9 am, this would put the reinforcement back on a variable fixed schedule, where the reinforcement value is less. The desire to log on to see what might have transpired will be confronted as a first step in a recovery program.
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