MAs I looked at my computer screen, I blinked in disbelief. I had just typed my name into Google and was stunned to see page after page of results about me. It was April 2009 and I was a new author in Nigeria. My first book was about to be published and I had no idea how much excitement the international publishing scene generates before publication. A year earlier, a Google search for my name had only returned four results – most of them related to my old school’s alumni website. Now there were 600 and I devoured every single one of them: reviews, blogs and comments. But my fascination quickly evolved into something much darker as I became addicted to searching my name on Google every hour of every day.
The signs of my addiction were more subtle than those of an alcoholic or drug addict, but they still disrupted my life. Mobile internet and smartphones were a rare luxury in Nigeria at the time, with only 9% of the 156 million population having access to the internet. I only looked up my name online when I was working in an office or at home, hooked up to an unreliable external modem. When I was out with friends, I would ask them if I could borrow their laptop or phone. I would excuse myself from gatherings and lock myself in the corner of a friend’s room to be near the internet modem.
During periods when there was nothing new to read about me on the internet for days, I constantly refreshed the page. The moment when a new mention finally appeared was euphoric and made all the previous hours of clicking and waiting worthwhile. Over time, I realized that my name was perhaps one of the most misspelled on the planet, so I adjusted my search habits to include misspellings: Adoabi, Adaobe, Adobe, Adoabe, Trisha, Nwambani, Nwanbani, Nwubani, Nwabani, Uwaubani, Unwabani, Nwabuani, Nwabauni. I was determined not to miss a single result.
In April 2010, an invitation to attend a writers’ award ceremony took me to New Delhi, India. During a week of events, I found myself in a school, alongside two other writers, answering questions from students. One of them particularly touched me. The student wanted to know if we Google our own names and, if so, how often. Her question provoked laughter from the entire room. But it caught me completely off guard. Until that moment, I had lived under the assumption that my incessant habit of typing my name into Google was a private addiction. A personal neurosis that belonged only to me.
My fellow writers and I continued the discussion after we left the venue. One of them told me about a friend, a world-renowned novelist, who had set up a Google alarm for his name. When they spent time together, his phone would beep constantly, drawing his attention back to the screen. I was overcome by a growing sense of panic as I realized: I was not alone in my obsession, but a newcomer in a broad community of digitally fixated people. A vision of my future self appeared in the present, shackled to the incessant beeps of my phone, tormented by mental restlessness. When I returned to Nigeria, I resolved to break free from the grip of what I had finally recognized as a behavioral disorder.
My university degree in psychology came in handy when I began a self-imposed program aimed at regaining control of my Googling. I started with the modest goal of one hour, and channeled every ounce of willpower into stopping myself from Googling my name. The rule was simple: Only when the clock ticked down a full 60 minutes could I give in to the habit, and consider it a reward for my patience. Over time, I extended the challenge—to two hours, then longer and longer, until I reached a point where I was only searching for my name once a week, and eventually just once a month. Gradually lengthening the intervals between searches weakened the compulsive urge, and my brain’s craving for the search ritual subsided.
It’s been 13 years since I managed to kick the habit. While I still search for the titles of my books or type my name into certain websites to find articles I’ve written, the last time I searched my name on Google was in January 2011. Friends, colleagues, and bosses have tried to lecture me at various times about the importance of staying up to date with what’s being said about me online. “So you can respond to mistakes or negative comments,” one said. But I know how quickly I could fall back down the rabbit hole. Regaining control of my own mind was too important to me to take that risk.
