The best thing I ever did was give up reading the Daily Mail's online edition, Mail Online. I'd stumbled upon it before the Australian version was launched, and would occasionally log on at the end of a long day of work for a dose of what I thought was harmless, easily digestible fun — quirky news stories, gossip from the glossy world of celebrity.
This portal — the world's most visited online English-language news website — provided me with the entertainment equivalent of chocolate: a hit that was satisfying, relaxing and permissible in small doses.
But it wasn't long before this mental junk food started to bloat my mind, to pollute my psyche. The so-called 'news' was really sensationalised reporting; the celebrity gossip was really the nasty appraisement of film stars and models — their bodies, their parenting habits, their personal relationships.
I had always understood that people who readily consumed paparazzi shots were responsible in some way for the resulting misery caused to many of those in the photos. But my dalliance with Mail Online shocked me into fully comprehending the price celebrities paid for the public's demand to see images of them taken outside their work context: the complete sacrifice of every scrap of privacy for both themselves and their children.
The internet's need for dynamic, frequently refreshed images with which to feed its readers was leading, I realised, to the widespread harassment of people simply going about their day.
By scrolling through and sometimes clicking on stories in which celebrities had been photographed without their permission, I had effectively become part of the problem. The paparazzi photographer was the supplier, and I was one of his users, creating a demand for more of his product every time I clicked.
I was one of a vast network of people sitting behind their computers and guzzling the unflattering, critical, unauthorised images plastered across Mail Online's so-called 'wall of shame' sidebar.
When actors Jennifer Garner and Halle Berry appeared before a committee at Sacramento's state assembly to press for the introduction of laws aimed at protecting children from the activities of paparazzi photographers, I realised that I was engaging in a despicable act: the consumption of other people's private stories.
On a personal level, my Mail Online habit was also having disturbing side-effects. My general sense of contentment and wellbeing was dulled, especially in the moments after I visited the site.
I felt a bit grubby reading those salacious stories,