Addicted To Selfies, Social Media, Games? This Bengaluru Clinic Can Help You Logout

Technology has now taken over everything and without it, mankind probably wouldn’t survive for many days! While some people have the sense to use technology in moderation, its quite easy to be addicted to it. But, there is a clinic in Bengaluru that will cure you of your addictions!

Termed as the technology de-addiction clinic or the Service for Healthy Use of Technology (SHUT) clinic located at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bengaluru.

The Service for Healthy Use of Technology (SHUT) clinic

This clinic is founded and run by Manoj Kumar Sharma, who is a clinical psychology professor. He has developed strategies on how to treat and cure addiction to technology. It is a prototype that can be implemented throughout the country to cure any such cases.

In the words of Manoj Kumar Sharma, “Since 2008, I have been carrying out some research or the other in this area to understand the phenomena of technology use. Why people use technology and what its consequences are. Though it has benefits we are looking at it from the mental health perspective and we are trying to see how technology use affects mental health of an individual.”

Services for Problematic use of technology, Lucknow

This innovative treatment has already started spreading as another clinic has been initiated at King George Medical University, Lucknow. Dr P. K. Dalal, who is the Head of the Department, said, “Seeing the number of patients coming to us with such issues rising, we felt the need for a similar clinic in Lucknow. We get at least ten cases every day related to excessive use of technology.” This clinic will be called ‘Services for Problematic use of technology.’

A Case Study of the De-addiction Clinic

A 21-year-old college student, who took selfies every 15-20 minutes, visited this clinic to be cured of her addiction to selfies. She was diagnosed with a mental ailment, called the dysmorphic disorder, which causes her to believe and obsess about her made-up ‘flawed appearance.’

15 sessions were carried out with the patient, which were a part of medication and behaviour change strategy combined. The strategies at SHUT clinic focus mainly on ‘restructuring a person’s thought process.’ She was told to reduce her smartphone usage for up to 2-3 hours a day. Additionally, she was kept away from using a mirror to keep it to a minimum of 5-6 times a day.

As per reports, the clinic covers a variety of addictions – gaming, the Internet, social media, shopping, pornography, Netflix and Amazon Prime as well.

Will this clinic successfully cure us of the growing addiction to technology? Share your opinions with us in the comments section!