I’m the first to admit I spend probably way too much time online.

Since about 1991, there has been less than a fortnight in days when I haven’t at least checked my email. And that was mostly because I was on a plane somewhere and couldn’t go online!

But I’m tired of all this talk of information overload and internet addiction.

In fact, I have never bought the addiction bit, especially after I interviewed a woman making millions in the US by providing counselling services for those trying to cure their “internet addiction.”

Her brilliant scheme involved people chatting to her for an hour a week after handing over their credit card details and she would help them over a course lasting many months.

The irony was they logged online to her site from anywhere in the world to do this, and I suspect, once wowed by her sympathetic warm approach, got addicted to her pay-per-hour chatline and kept coming in and spending.

Good on her. The Internet has given many a snake oil salesperson a new vehicle and there are always suckers who fall for it.

I was reminded of all this when I kept seeing pushed on social networking sites (Oh the irony again!) the last week the word Reboot.

This was advertising a new scheme by a non profit orgaisation comprising Jewish “Internet entrepreneurs, creators of award-winning television shows, community organizers and nonprofit leaders” to obey a new commandment on the Sunday.

They advocated: Rest on the 7^th day of the week by switching off all things technology based. No facebook, twitter,internet or phone.

The National day of unplugging lasts from sundown Friday Us time to sundown Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.

Let’s hope those makers of ridiculous reality TV shows also agree not to have their shows screened on Sundays. Or any day, would be even better, please.

One Dan Rollman says technology is overtaking our life – some of us highly addicted people are even carrying around our phone. Clearly things have gone too far and this is a serious global issue.

CNN reports him saying: ”There’s clearly a social problem when we’re interacting more with digital interfaces than our fellow human beings. Rich, engaging conversations are harder to come by than they were a few years ago. Our attention spans are silently evaporating.”

And how did he express these thoughts to CNN? He sent an email to CNN saying so. It sounds to me as if he is the one with an addiction problem. Couldn’t he have picked up the phone and spoken to someone? So email was his first port of call? Go figure.

He urges us all to participate in his new Sabbath manifesto:

1. Avoid technology.

2. Connect with loved ones.

3. Nurture your health.

4. Get outside.

5. Avoid commerce.

6. Light candles.

7. Drink wine.

8. Eat bread.

9. Find silence.

10. Give back.

I have this mental picture of us all gathering around candles in some early century religious ceremony in a monastery for a day while our loved ones are busy trying to ring us on the iPhone to tell us to get back to living.

Like many religious cults, the principles are hard to argue with and have some merit for most of us.

What’s odd is that he has set up a website with the name the Universal World Record Database, which sounds like a branch of Scientology and people are encouraged to discuss online which principles work and which should be tweaked.

But isn’t that going to fuel my addiction? I might even get so involved in the debate, I start doing it on my iPhone when I’m not by the computer.

I wish him well in whatever he’s trying to achieve but let’s not give people a guilt trip and make them feel attached from using any technology one day a week.

For some of us, it’s an essential way to keep in touch with family and friends. And it’s the way we do things now, the way we get information and entertainment.

I pity those with a genuine addiction to something that is genuinely making them ill or unhappy. There are forms of conventional and unconventional professional help for them.

The rest of us have discovered those 90s buzzwords that it’s all about “moderation” and “a life – work balance” that make us supposedly happy balanced souls.

If you really do spend all your working life online, it may be a good thing in keeping you out of other trouble – or you may be covering up other real issues in your life, such as loneliness or inability to engage in acceptable social behaviour. Or it may just be fun and informative.

Whatever it is, you need to work it through, not go through a prohibition one day a week.

I don’t remember that working when they closed pubs on Sundays.