As the clock ticked past midnight last Sunday and my eyes stared wide open at a ghostly shadow on the ceiling, I remembered reading long ago that, if you can’t sleep, get out of bed.

So I quietly crept out of the sack and down to the couch, where I picked up my tablet and turned on my LED television, only to be horrified when I remembered that LED screens disrupt your sleep-inducing melatonin levels.

I was scared.

And then I watched, for what felt like the eighth time, what seems like a six-minute commercial for a doormat for dogs. My eyes wide open. The clock now ticking toward 2 a.m. Sleep nowhere to be found. Palm leaves tapping the window like the fingernails of death.

Now I was really scared!

I averted my eyes from the blinding television and concentrated on reading the latest gadget news on my tablet. But the light, the LED light! Was reading yet another review of yet another new fitness tracker leading me down the path to blissful slumber, or was every second staring at the screen adding another two seconds of awake time?

The blue light streamed out from the screen and into my eyes like daggers. It wasn’t only murdering my melatonin production, it was making me more susceptible to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. Yikes!

Then a comforting memory entered my weary brain: I wouldn’t have to turn my device off (the horror!) because I had an app to filter out the demon blue light waves boring holes directly into my REM sleep!

I’d never felt so relieved. It was as if, with undead walkers bearing down, ready to eat my flesh, I was whisked to safety.

The blue light streamed out from the screen and into my eyes like daggers. It wasn’t only murdering my melatonin production, it was making me more susceptible to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. Yikes!

As I turned to more mindless tech news on my device-in-hand, I started thinking about how scary it was that I just instinctively picked up this device. Not a book. Not even a magazine. An Internet-connected device that feeds my insatiable appetite for more.

More information. More updates. More likes. More, more, more.

I also read something once, definitely via the Internet, that there’s some sort of dopamine (which is your brain’s chemical reward for pleasure) rush triggered by the very notion of there being “more” whatever.

According to an article in The Atlantic, “anticipating the reward of new content for completing a task can excite the neurons in the ventral tegmental area of the midbrain, which releases the neurotransmitter dopamine into the brain’s pleasure centers.”

In other words, if you see a link (anticipation) and something appears when you click on it (reward), you experience pleasure. You are the dog and the entire Internet is Pavlov’s doggie treat. (I wonder if Pavlov had a Soggy Doggy Doormat?)

As scary as it sounds, there is a real disorder, called “problematic Internet use,” which researchers say has “similarities with substance use, impulse control disorders, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.” And although the older “Internet addiction disorder” apparently originated from a hoax, according to Wikipedia, more researchers are seriously looking into how excessive Internet usage impacts our lives.

Previously, when I thought about Internet addiction, I just thought, “Well put the darn phone down!” Now, I’m worried that I might have the symptoms! And it’s scary!

It’s like all of those horror movies, when, 10 minutes in, you’re already yelling at the screen, “Why would you go into that dark building after you heard those screams?”

Except this is real life. And you know that if you click on that link, you’ll see another cute kitten wearing people clothes. You know it’s not adding any value to your life. But you just keep clicking.

What time is it? I have to get some sleep. It’s almost Halloween, you know. Have you seen that article about the “The 57 greatest pet costumes?” It’s online. Right here.

Go ahead, click it.