I probably have no one to blame but myself.

Although I am tempted to blame Louise M., who helped get me into the mess in the first place.

I could also blame my wife, my daughters, and all their techie friends who spend so much time on various forms of ‘social media,’ whatever that is, and who include me in their ‘connected’ world, plus those of you who encourage me to continue with MillersTime.

Anyway, I have gotten myself to the point where I am in danger of the ‘iDisorder,’ where my ‘need’ for being ‘connected’ to the Internet, whatever that is, has gotten a bit out of control.

My most recent difficulty began innocently enough, I thought.

We were driving in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, enjoying the lovely scenery when we stopped for lunch at an Acadien restaurant (not good). While waiting for our food, both Ellen and I pulled out our cell phones (we had been ‘disconnected’ for at least two hours).

The first thing I saw in my email was a “Security Warning.” Apparently I was going to be disconnected from my gmail account if I didn’t provide some information. That got my attention. The warning seemed authentic, at least there was the Google logo, etc.

So I set about filling out the ‘forms’ and soon found myself in some loop that seemed to go nowhere but kept asking for more information.

Now we all know never to give our password out, and I’m not totally unschooled in being careful about scams. But between the warning about losing my connectivity and the apparent request from Google itself, my guard was breached.

I asked my totally ‘iDisordered’ wife for help, and when she couldn’t solve my problem, it dawned on me that I’d been ‘hacked,’ or scammed, or fooled, whichever is the right term.

I’d typed in my password as requested by ‘Google,’ (don’t they ask you for that on occasion?).

Looking at a few other emails I’d gotten, my long time friend Louise had written that she had been ‘hacked,’ and her entire address book had been compromised. Why hadn’t I read her email first?

So with visions of my entire 450 people MillersTime email list (and another couple hundred names in my address book) being subjected to what I had just experienced, I quickly tried to change my password in the hope that I could do so before the hackers used the list.

But all I had was my cell phone, and somehow I couldn’t change my password without going to my laptop computer and using WiFi (whatever that is), which wasn’t available in Cheticamp, NS.

For the next few hours, until we returned to our lodging and full connectivity, I had visions of causing my ‘loyal’ MillersTime readers hundreds of hours of problems. Needless to say, the scenery along the Cape Breton coast lost some of its allure.

Eventually we got back to the Kelty Lodge, and I was able to change my password, hoping that the scammers had not yet attacked my email list. I did the ‘right’ thing of warning folks not to fall into the same trap I had just fallen.

As far as I know now, no one connected to me was contacted from my email list.

Why had this happened in the first place? Don’t we all know never to give our password to anyone?

But just as most addictions can cause us to lose our better judgment, I suspect my growing obsession with connectivity had been responsible for letting down my usual guard against scammers.

So if it is not Louise’s fault, nor my wife’s, nor my kids,’ etc., can I blame ‘iDisorder’?

And if you have any suggestions what I can do about this problem, please feel free to comment on this posting (tho we all know how seldom getting advice really helps with obsessions).