Many years ago, when I first touched an IBM XT computer, I was mesmerized by the charming green text on its screen, the rhythmic stroke on the dirty keyboard, and the enchanting melody of fan noise. I knew this sort of thing would cost my life dearly. Now it’s time for a change. I want to go back home and say “Honey, I am a changed man”. But it takes time.

Behavior changes go through stages. They are precomtemplation stage in which people don’t even think about their problems, contemplation stage in which people start to realize their problems, preparation stage in which people are thinking of ways to correct their problems, action stage, and maintenance stage or termination. These five stages comprise the main idea of transtheoretical model proposed by Prochaska and DiClemente (1983,1994). Although exact time periods may be blurred by overlaps among these stages, it serves as a very useful guideline in the process of either self-improvement or coached therapy.

I am sure I am in the action stage, but sometimes I step back to the preparation stage. This back-and-forth is not atypical during the behavior modification process. But what intrigues me is why I can’t move forward.

Theoretically, addicting to computer and internet has the same mechanism as smoking, watching TV, and high fat diet. The positive reward is the culprit for the addiction. However, it is less interesting to know how one gets addicted, as most people may never be able to figure out. Delineating the negative impact to our life is also unnecessary (if you don’t know, you are still at the precomtemplation stage). The critical question here is how we can change ourselves.

There are basically two ways: one is radical change and the other is gradual modification (sounds nonsense, erh? They are people writing research papers on this :). It turns out either way works on some people for some problems.

The radical approach tries to cut bad behavior once for all, thus putting one in great pressure of withdrawing. Without supervision or coaching, most individuals will recede to the original status. The advantage of this method is that it will fix the problem in a short time. It seems to me that for substance abuse such as smoking, alcohol, or drug usage, the radical method usually works (and sometimes preferred), but participants should be closely supervised.

The gradual modification is probably a good alternative. The advantage is that you can always see improvements, thus rewarding to yourself all the time (no matter how small it is). Because of the quick feedback, behaviorists recommend this for self-improvement. In fact, most self-help books are framed around this method. The disadvantage of the method, which not many books will tell you, is the high occurrence of relapse. The small improvements also mean less harm for small downgrade. People generally don’t see any harm to go back a little, thus they won’t move forward quick enough but gradually fall back to the situation before intervention. “Let me eat a piece of meat. It is so delicious. I will cut more tomorrow to compensate it”. The compensation never happens. In fact, this is the focus of current behavioral research.

For behaviors such as compulsive computer and internet usage, it has its unique problems. Computers and free internet access are everywhere. For some people, their jobs require computer use intensively, and the internet access is constantly on. One can’t abstain from computer and the internet completely. This kind of readiness poses a great temptation to do other things. One has to be specific on what he/she can do and what he/she should not do. This proves very hard.

Sadly, most people who devise the self-improvement methods never have experience on this issue. It is true the thorough observation can reveal truth and sometimes unexpected one. However, a trained and experienced one would be better suitable to design a behavioral intervention.

The way I prefer is more likely a radical approach. Basically, cut-off the worst one right away, and work around the rest ones gradually.

To be continued on technical details….