Need Internet Addiction Treatment? Here’s How Counseling Helps

How Can Counseling Help with Internet Addiction?

Before, I start talking about how counseling strategies can help with internet addiction, I would like to discuss the gravity of the issue with regard to internet addiction in our society.

Internet addiction is quite widespread. On average, Americans spends 6-8 hours per day on their screens. We are so willing to be distracted through online media. This distraction can propel the under-utilization of our spiritual gifts.

The problem is so real that I will be speaking as part of a panel discussion at Bellevue Christian School after the screening of the indie movie “Like” at the school.

The movie “Like” addresses the problems and solutions to internet addiction among teens and how parents can model appropriate behaviors away from screen time themselves.

Thinking about this Scripturally, the principle found in 1 Corinthians 6:12 is important:

“Just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean that it’s spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I’d be a slave to my whims.” — 1 Corinthians 6:12, The Message

The New American Standard Bible (NASB) puts 1 Corinthians 6:12 this way:

“All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.”

To beat an internet addiction, think about focusing on what is profitable spiritually in your relationship with God and neighbor. Real relationships often get neglected when you are addicted to the internet and screen time.

3 Tips for Overcoming Internet Addiction

Here are my three primary tips on overcoming internet addiction and how counseling helps:

1. Become a developer of online content rather than a consumer. Having a development mindset increases creative thinking and problem solving. There is more joy when you are open to the innovative ways of the Lord.

2. Counseling helps improve communications skills with real people dealing with real emotions. This leads to spiritual maturity with the Lord and with others. The internet removes you from some of the consequences of your actions online, which leads to numbing your emotions rather than working through your emotions and embracing what God says about you.

3. Internet addictions can take away from sleep, work, and family and friend relationships. Counseling helps you focus back on your sleep, work, and relationships. Counseling will make you more reflective of each action and it will be easier to evaluate whether you are being spiritually profitable.

If you’re looking for Christian counseling for internet addiction or some other issue, feel free to contact me or another counselor in the counselor directory above.