ExLibris: excluded from social networks

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  “I think nothing could be more characteristic with regard to the clinic more than the person who founded it – and that was a very ambitious and remarkable psychologist Ryan Roberts. Previously he had been counseling celebrities, helping them to find harmony in their family relationships. Doing that he became a celebrity himself. Ryan often appeared on different TV shows, magazines and parties. Then he probably became bored with the family therapy domain or maybe it ceased to provide him with an income that corresponded to his expenditures, so Ryan decided embark on a new, modern venue – treating social networking addiction. And he made the “right” choice. The media frenzy surrounding his new clinic allowed him to develop that business to a scale he could only hope to. But Ryan wasn’t interested in people who really needed help. His target were those who were able to pay for his services, even if they didn’t need one. He skillfully capitalised on the generation gap. Parents concerned with their children’s addiction to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, were ready to spend considerable amounts of money to have that “cured”. Ryan became the person who agreed to accept their financial sacrifice in exchange for a promise to help their children.

  Married couples, who had previously been counseled by him on how to build a strong lasting relationship, later brought their own kids to Ryan, and he must have explained to the younger generation how to live in the real world, not in the virtual one. And I became involved in that too. Obviously seeing Internet addiction as something equal to hacking (or just mockingly perhaps) the Judge chose the clinic as a place where I was supposed to do the community service. I was supposed to assist the psychologists working there, just like the volunteers did. And that place really had a great impact on me. It was there that I finally found Alberta, whom I believed to have been lost for me forever, and made many other friends. Moreover, I got to know at what lengths some people are prepared to go to achieve their purpose. I realized that Ryan, who in his TV appearances seemed to be a nice and prudent person, in reality was something absolutely different when money came into question; and I moreover found out that his son Donovan, my girlfriend’s ex, had inherited from his father the ambition and the conviction that means of achieving your goals matter really little,” I said.

  “OK, let’s get back to that day, July 11, when it all began,” the lawyer said. And as far as the clinic played the key role in your “act”, I need to know everything that had happened there with your involvement starting from July 11 till present. You must tell me absolutely everything – what you did, conversations that you had, gossip you heard…”