Last Friday I walked into the most recent inpatient Internet addiction treatment center to open in the United States and asked a really dumb question. “Do you have Wi-Fi here?” I bumbled, prompting an awkward smile from the man who opened the door at the Fall City, Wash based ReSTART Life Program. It was the equivalent of walking into fellowship meeting and asking for a single-malt Scotch.

It was also revealing. I hadn’t checked my e-mail, Facebook, or Twitter accounts for nearly 14 hours by the time I showed up at the wooded five-acre retreat, situated with some irony less than 15 miles from Microsoft Corp.’s Redmond headquarters.

UPDATE 2016: If you can locate this article, it’s worth the read, but you’d need to reach out to Newsweek as it’s no longer available online.