Internet Addiction

most "news" is distorted and frequently bad for you so yeah

i don't think a lot of full-on politics people are quite as well-read as all that tho

I might try restricting my internet to 1-2 days a week. I really need to shake up my routine and find ways to cut down. Quitting outright (everything except email) has never been successful for me for more than a month or so, and it seems too extreme given that there’s value in using the internet in moderation. It just so easily becomes consuming, and I can’t do other things as effectively when it's available. I can’t focus on books in the same way, and I'd like to think books matter a lot more to me than the internet.

"addiction" i don't think is the right term but i compulsively check my phone and laptop to an unhealthy degree. i can't even take a piss these days without looking at twitter or ilx. it's bad

i'm pissing right now whoooooaaoaaaa

(not really, but that wouldn't be out of the realm of possibilities.)

"alcoholism" i don't think is the right term but i compulsively drink to an unhealthy degree. i can't even take a piss these days without having a drink. it's bad.

(think there's nowt wrong with the term addiction if it becomes all encompassing and compulsively tbh)

nah i think addiction is substantively different than compulsivity. i would never compare my compulsive reach for my phone to struggling with alcohol or drugs

You're right, it was challops on my behalf. Still think internet/being connected can really be an addiction though. Compulsive behaviour can fuck you up.

for sure

My name is hardcore dilettante and I am a straight-up internet addict. It’s ruining my physical health. Quitting fb and Twitter helped a lot with the mental health aspect.

extremely online and never gonna log off, all the way since like 1990

An addiction might be defined as what happens when your brain becomes convinced that some inessential element of your life is absolutely essential, so that supplying yourself with it comes to eclipse the importance of eating, sleeping, staying warm, or other basic necessities. There seems to be something about screen-based devices that lend themselves to addictive brain reactions.

DOPAMINE, MOTHERFUCKERS

teach yr children well

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/11/14/563767149/increased-hours-online-correlate-with-an-uptick-in-teen-depression-suicidal-thou

Recently been hearing about creators of the very biggest websites feeling guilty about their part in the creation of them.

What wasn't new to me was that people continually find reasons to keep using the internet for more minutes/hours; that it's like the websites use you. But I was still struck by this somehow, I probably hadn't considered enough the possibility that specific website and device design choices were really damaging my life. Perhaps there's some outside of internet activities I only do because it feeds into a certain internet compulsion?

I generally don't think of myself as an angry internet guy but I've increasingly noticed myself getting angry and then thinking "who or what can I mock without being too much of a jerk?"

I generally don't think of myself as an angry internet guy but I've increasingly noticed myself getting angry and then thinking "who or what can I mock without being too much of a jerk?"

I can very much relate to this. I had to get off twitter because it was fuel for this dynamic.

I decided to keep the internet to Fridays and Saturdays. Optionally Sundays when I'm doing something really time consuming.

It's genuinely troubling to think how much harder this would have been if I didn't live between my parents houses. I just leave all my internet devices at my father's house and there is no horrible struggle necessary.

This is the arrangement I used to have before 2013 and I've really been feeling the benefit from it. It does feel a lot like the good old days but maybe it'll never be the same. I still think about the internet a lot and all the things I'm going to say and do on Friday and Saturday, so there's still this gravitational pull but maybe it's no different than thinking about your next shopping trip.
The first few Fridays I was surprised at how little I enjoyed coming back to the internet and it very quickly became much clearer which websites were just time killers I'd be happier without.

I just have to accept that some internet activities are going to take a very long time to catch up on (like years of Monster Brains, 50 Watts and my youtube watchlist).

If I manage to catch up with my books I want to read more online fiction because there's so much of it these days and it's hard to imagine reading much of it in good time. Maybe I'll have to print it all off and get used to buying more ink cartridges.

My internet was down for 2 days. Struggle is real man. It's like an appendage. Good luck

Maybe I'll have to print it all off and get used to buying more ink cartridges.

if you have a kindle you can copy and paste stuff into a word document then email it to your kindle, that's what I usually do if I want to read a long-form online article (assuming that you don't count the kindle as breaking the 'no internet devices' rule)

I applaud your decision RAG, I couldn't do it. I take it you don't have work or study for which you'd need the internet? (this in itself seems like something that's non-existent nowadays)

A kindle is a good solution. As is an ipad without internet connection, to use it like a kindle, just for stuff to read.

Kindle was partly what got my internet usage out of control. It would be difficult to resist turning on the internet. And also, I want to stay away from electronic screens.

I'm not studying anything these days.

But I'm sure over the years, more and more things will require internet.

I consider having no mobile devices to be my limit. Now that i'll be jobless in 5 weeks, i need to use the web for more than bullshit.

when I am home I pretty much do not use my computer except checking email and what not. Not out of self control but genuine loathing!

This comes of using a cimputer all day at work I think

I just want to paint and go into forests and read paper things

I refuse to admit I have a problem:

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a19505007/internet-broken-brain/

glad I never created a Twitter profile

do we have any ex-ilxors who returned to ilx and can tell what life without ilx was like compared to life with ilx?

Really should be more internet - social media detox centres. Based on a recent thread here on ilm in which shit went sour, nobody ends up benefiting from the fall out. Going offline or into some sort of retreat is one option I gusss but most people don’t seem to have the ability to log off and breathe. One of the worst addictions bar none

IMO from spending a bit of time in rehab and step programs, most addictions are (at least in part) people self-medicating for anxiety, grievances and regrets, or otherwise something lacking in their lives. Internet addiction provides the illusion of conviviality, satisfying a self-perpetuated need because it prevents cultivating RL relationships.

Otm, he typed into ilx.

Yeah that’s otm for sure

Also there’s a fear of missed opportunities from not reading posts - it’s like you have to be there at all times to stand your ground which is exhausting and a waste of energy imo

Any time I’ve walked away I feel better, just me but like I always feel worse spiralling into wars with people or even just seeing someone get piled on

yeah the last couple of weeks have been a bummer

i use freedom p aggressively, it works

flopson, you mean you step away a lot

I'm really enjoying not having the internet for a chunk of the week. I still haven't quite figured out how to cram everything into two or three days but I'm working on it.

It's really sad looking at people you admire on twitter acting like they're in highschool trying to say cool things and all the stupid clique behavior.

Some really intelligent people now seem incapable of realizing when their attempts at ingratiation are appallingly gooey.

i remember when I used to care about the internet; for years really. now I fucking hate it and am only on here when I'm at work.

I'm always trying to find the right mix of sites to block and keep. I don't want to block ILX, but I think Youtube has to go. Being on the computer too much has been messing up my sleep lately.

Quite horrifying to think back to how much time I spent checking for updates and looking at things that felt important at the time but weren't at all.

I like ILX a lot and really enjoy posting here and reading everyone's posts, but I hate how much time I spend on the internet and I wish it were possible for me to find some balance. This weekend I'm anxious and feel like crap about an observation at work that didn't go well, and I have to wait until Monday to find out how badly I screwed up, so I'm unable to concentrate on anything and I just keep refreshing the same sites. I know I'm doing this as a way to numb my brain and fast-forward through the weekend, but knowing I'm doing that doesn't help me not do it.

I used to live in a cabin with no internet, where I had to drive into town to check emails, and that was great because I had internet time but it was automatically limited and my home was an internet-free space. I wish I could go back to that.

There are some ADD-centric tools that can help with that. Like apps that will shut off your internet access after a prescribed amount of time.

Cold Turkey is a good one.

I've been using one, but unfortunately I've figured out how to get around it by opening an incognito window.

Try Cold Turkey, it's wise to your schemes, including incognito mode or changing the date/time to circumvent the lock.

Oh good! That sounds great, thank you!

yeah I use cold turkey a fair bit, it does the job!

I've been thinking about this very thing today, before I saw this thread. (Irony right there, I guess.) I really do have to figure out some way to lessen my time online. Cold turkey is inconceivable. I wish I were the kind of person who could say "Your house is filled with unread books and unwatched movies and unheard music--why don't you spend most of your retirement attending to that?" and follow through, but I just don't have the mindset or discipline or whatever is needed to do that. So much of my occasional moodiness is attributable to the internet in one way or another.

It's brutal, isn't it? I'm sitting in this room filled with books, and it's like I can't even see them.

Lately I've been reading books about the attention economy and I still get distracted mid-sentence by the very mechanisms being deconstructed therein.

Disconnecting myself altogether from social media has helped immensely, both with the extent to which the internet gets its hooks in me and the extent to which the internet contributes to my feeling like shit.

Like on the extremely rare occasion that I open Facebook, I start feeling like shit within minutes and know it's time to step away again.

Trump being in power for four years made it possible for me to surgically seek content, both on his re-electability, and his approval ratings, desperate to see signs of an end.

when he left, that still left things like daily COVID statistics, news on vaccines, stimulus, etc.

when this is over....might finally be at the point where like, the internet is just 'there' again, like pre-2016.