Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from DadLabs! In this episode of The Lounge, Daddy Clay confesses to an addiction to computers, email, and the internet. Daddy Brad offers suggestions to fight these addictions such as designating family time and setting parameters on when to access the web. Worried about becoming addicted to all these new technologies? DadLabs can help. DadLabs The Lounge ep. 238.

DADDY BRAD Merry Christmas!

DADDY CLAY Ho Ho Ho!

DADDY BRAD From the DadLabs. You know, we're all at home, sleeping off our turkey high. So we wanted to give you this.

DADDY TROY We've reached deep into the bad and brought you back a classic episode. Brought to you by Parentricity.com

DADDY CLAY And for this Christmas Day special, for those of you who unwrapped a laptop or other tech geeky device for Christmas, we bring you this special Lounge on my computer addiction. So enjoy that.

DADDY BRAD I administer hip therapy.

DADDY CLAY It's not like that. It's all about email.

DADDY TROY Dude, it's Christmas.

DADDY CLAY What? You're perverted.

DADDY BRAD (sings)

DADDY CLAY Welcome back to the Dad Labs. Today, Daddy Brad is gonna help me out with a little problem I have.

DADDY BRAD Yes.

DADDY CLAY And I hope you will too. Please leave me a comment. Help me out, because I have an addiction to the interweb.

DADDY BRAD It's good. First step, admit the problem.

DADDY CLAY I spend too much time checking my email, checking the internet. This used to not be a problem. It used to be that I had a job that paid me money. And when I was at my job, I would check my email, and surf the web, and do some shopping for my wife.

DADDY BRAD Share. Share.

DADDY CLAY And I would come home, and the computer would be off. And there was no temptation.

DADDY BRAD As it should be.

DADDY CLAY But now that I'm doing this, kind of interweb, I guess we could call it a business.

DADDY BRAD Yeah, interweb business.

DADDY CLAY With you and with Daddy Troy. I find that the computer is a temptation. That I want to go and I want to check my email. I want to check the web stats. I want to check my voice mail. That I'm spending all my time at home, it's compromised, because I've always got like one foot going towards the computer.

DADDY BRAD Get a hold of yourself man. Get a hold of yourself. You know what burns me up? This burns me up. When I am trying to talk with someone, trying to interact with them, and I get, "Yeah. What was that?" So think about that. Think about your children want to talk to you, want to interact with you and you're - Get a hold of yourself! Close it! You need to close the computer until from the time you get home until the time they go to bed. Then you can feed your addiction.

DADDY CLAY Daddy Brad, I'm feeling judged.

DADDY BRAD Well, you should be. You should be.

DADDY CLAY I'm feeling a little judged right now.

DADDY BRAD Cut it off, man. Cut it off. I'm trying to help you. I'm saving the marriage.

DADDY CLAY I came here for help.

DADDY BRAD Okay, sorry.

DADDY CLAY And I'm what I'm feeling is judgement.

DADDY BRAD That's good. I'm not an enabler. Here's what I think. Here's what I think. You need to say family time is family time. When you get home in the afternoon, don't open your computer. Don't check the stats. Don't check your email. Wait til your kids go to bed.

DADDY CLAY You don't check, you don't answer your phone? You turn your phone off?

DADDY BRAD Yeah, yeah, you know that.

DADDY CLAY You're a liar. If you had a Blackberry, you'd be checking that son of a b*tch every two seconds of your life.

DADDY BRAD That's why I don't have a Crackberry.

DADDY CLAY So you think that I should just turn the computer off and never. Okay, let me ask you this.

DADDY BRAD No, until they go to bed. Turn it off until they go to bed. Then feed your addiction late in the dark hours of the night.

DADDY CLAY Well, let me ask you this question. Okay, is this legitimate? My computer is in the same room as the kid's TV.

DADDY BRAD Right.

DADDY CLAY So, while they're watching Spongebob, I might quickly sit down and check the email. And check the stats real quickly. Is that legit? I mean, I'm actually sort of supervising their television time at the same time that I'm checking my email. Is that legit?

DADDY BRAD Yeah, that's okay. They're watching TV, they are engaged, and you can check. But here's the deal. You know, it's got to be, when you're trying to interact with them, that's when you need to draw the line. Is there a problem? Do you have a problem? Do you get sucked in and you can't pull away after Spongebob is over?

DADDY CLAY I figure, here's my rule, that it doesn't count as computer time if you're standing up. That if you're standing up at the computer and you're checking your email, that's just you know turning it on and off. That's not really sitting down and using it.

DADDY BRAD Daddy Clay, I think someone with your type of addiction, with your type of lack of self discipline, with your type of need to feed the computer, you need to set some really hard rules and say, you know, I can't just have one look. I gotta have multiple looks. I can't go to just one page. I gotta go to lots of them. What you need to do is say, I am not going to, in the beginning, I am not going to look at my computer while my kids are awake. I'm going to interact with them. I'm going to interact with my wife. See how that goes. See how that. You know, if you're getting frisky with your wife, do you watch TV? No, you're very very focused on what you're doing.

DADDY CLAY Okay, here, I have another piece of information here for you. How do you quickly kill your screen?

DADDY BRAD Why would you need to kill your screen?

DADDY CLAY If you were buying, say a surprise gift for your wife, late at night, and she comes in.

DADDY BRAD Just shut it. Hey, what are you doing? Nothing.

DADDY CLAY But that's totally lame. I mean, she knows that you're shopping if you do that.

DADDY BRAD She knows anyway.

DADDY CLAY How do you - here's what I think. Is you've got to keep a dummy screen up behind the current screen, that's like CNN. And so you quick close that top window, cause if you minimize it, it goes and you could probably see things on that as it goes down on the corner. So I think you gotta quick kill it. I don't know. What do you do?

DADDY BRAD I just don't check my email or buy gifts. Unless I'm at the office.

DADDY CLAY Okay, so you know the statistic that there are a certain percentage of men who masturbate in the shower and there's a certain amount of men that are liars. I think there may be a similar statistic for this issue.

DADDY BRAD Are you judging me?

DADDY CLAY I'm just saying that I'm looking for a little help and trying not to feel judged.

DADDY BRAD Okay, I'm not judging. I'm giving you the deal. Shut it off. Just don't deal with it until you can get a hold and control of your ability to feed your need for the Internet.

DADDY CLAY Okay well, thank you Daddy Brad. If you've got thoughts about how I need to manage my computer time and life, please drop us a comment. And thanks a lot for visiting the DadLab lounge.