The digital disconnect: In relentless pursuit of ‘connecting,’ we miss out on each other

By Tyrone Beason

While communication and gaming gadgets have connected us in ways never before possible, yet they may also be profoundly hurting our ability to be social, emphatic and involved with each other. The signs are everywhere — from the near collisions on city streets where drivers are too busy texting to pay attention to the virtual relationships on Facebook and the addiction to video games.

By the time people reach the forested Internet addiction recovery center outside of Fall City known as reStart, the time for preemptive action has long since passed.

This is where counselors Hilarie Cash and Cosette Rae treat clients who are holed up in their Internet bubbles, sometimes after losing partners, jobs and homes because of their problem. ReStart, which opened in August, is the first rehab center in the nation aimed solely at helping a new category of addict that researchers are still working to understand. By February, eight people had completed the program.

What’s not new, perhaps, is the reason people come to depend on their virtual tools and worlds. “I think what we do is seek emotional satisfaction through texting or the Internet,” says Cash, who became intrigued by the Internet obsession in the mid-1990s after meeting her first video-game addict. The problem is “it’s like satisfying hunger by eating sugar.”

It becomes a vicious spiral…