Internet Addiction

fwiw, appointment with new psych this week, gonna give it another go. Posting ITT helped me reach the conclusion at least. See, the internet is good for something!

fuck, i thought i was the only one with these problems

(helps to finally be in a job where i feel competent and comfortable with what i'm doing)

Ugh... yes. This would solve all of my problems. I tend to procrastinate when I'm not confident that the task I'm supposed to be doing can be done well (by me or by anyone). I want to defer shitty, useless outputs as long as possible.

i've had intermittent problems along these lines. Not too bad right now (that i have bigger problems). Good luck Hurting.

man today has been tough because I actually got a lot of sleep, came into work rested and motivated, and WAS pretty productive for the first couple hours, felt like I could get this shit done, but then gradually fell off during the day. Still intermittently productive, better than average day overall, but here I am at the office again, still trying to finish this assignment I've been agonizing over. Guess I'm just posting this to help remind myself of my patterns, and that no, adequate sleep and motivation alone doesn't completely do the trick.

focus me is the best and most customizable internet blocker i've found. lots of specification and thorough scheduling (block ilx except for 12-1 etc) and you can make it unbreakable. ofc it costs money.

i think the scheduling is the more expensive option. was the main reason it stuck out to me. wanted to block all social stuff except for like an hour a day.

obv i haven't built up the will to start using it and never will lolololol

work computer won't let me install stuff like that. I was able to make a blocker plugin for chrome work, but it only works for chrome.

You people are (mostly) great, but I really think the Internet has been a cognitively and emotionally corrosive force for me. I tried to stop altigether and then just started going on benders, sucking up tons of content and entering into debates. I don't want to be traversing this much information per day but I crave it for some reason... also all of my work is on the computer too. How fucked is that? It's like being an alcoholic but the only jobs that exist are jobs at bars.

Does the average person think the Internet has added to the stress in their life? Am I the only one who feels this sense of pervasive unease? My rhetoric might sound over the top but really, I've been fantasizing a lot recently about moving to Walden Pond or doing something like that. Maybe this summer.

If your brain is asking for Walden Pond, then give it a break and let it have as much of Walden Pond as you can offer it. At the very least spend time in a park or outdoors every day. Even in crap weather. Walk around. Look at the sky. Stare at trees. Poke mud with a stick.

you should get a paper copy of sherry turkle to read, treezy (it's not great but you may find it somewhat reassuring to know you're not alone at all)

Treesh I feel you. And my habit has been way worse since I got the new phone. Constant microescaping.

treeship you are not alone. it certainly adds stress to my life. there are so much fewer things on it that i need than i realize. i've been painting my room this week and the hours away from electronics have been so good.

i wonder if certain personality types (maybe "type b" or introverts or those inclined to thinking/over-thinking or whatever) suffer a greater negative effect from the internet. or maybe different personality types respond to *limitless information* differently than others. like, my pre-smartphone life felt richer precisely because i was constantly starved for information which led to a deeper engagement with whatever particular book i had with me, etc.

A therapist I started seeing had a good description I thought of how things that have beginnings and ends tend to produce less anxiety (e.g., I start cleaning the kitchen, I finish cleaning the kitchen), whereas something like posting to ILX has no end, and this produces a kind of anxiety. I thought that was a good insight -- there's actually an anxiety to my need to post, to keep checking to see if anyone responded to me, is there another thread I should now respond to, did I get any OTMs, were my posts made fun of, etc.

xp i think that's likely ryan. i remember going to a panel discussion on david foster wallace -- an author i recently criticized on another thread -- where his biographer, dt max, said that dfw never used the internet because he was afraid that, for him, the internet might be a labyrinth from which he'd never emerge.

personally, i don't really have a point of comparison for a "pre-internet" life because i have had almost 24 hour access to a laptop with a wifi connection since i was 14. i remember "taking notes" in high school classes reading wikipedia and the times. i think this lack of a benchmark is part of what causes me to fantasize so often about what life would be like for me if i were born in, say, 1949 instead of 1989 and the internet came along late enough that it never became second nature for me.

also, i know, at some level, that my issues have to do with avoidance and escapism and that the internet is just the "crutch" i reach for when i feel too bored or anxious to do what i am supposed to be doing. in a different context, maybe i would reach for something more sinister like alcohol. still, i do feel that my resilience has been eroded by constant access to unlimited information. i've lost the ability to just sit with myself, evaluate my surroundings, and plan the next step without a constant, gnawing sense that i am missing something. a serious round of cognitive behavior therapy might help me reverse this.

also, hurting, that therapist sounds very otm. it reminds me of the advice to "take one thing at a time," which i've heard often from various sources, but which has always seemed unreasonably difficult to follow.

Sounds a lot like me, I'm older I think but we had stuff like Prodigy and AOL in the house by the time I was 13 or 14 -- no laptops in class yet but I was already message board posting, which is still the activity that I spend the most time doing on the internet today. Relate to the whole question of "is it really the escapism that's the problem and the internet is just the thing that fills the need?" but there is something I think that is more addictive about the internet than other escapes, maybe the combination of unpredictability, quick dopamine rewards, variety, the physical aspect of clicking/typing, the availability of it everywhere now etc. I did blow a lot of time in college on pinball and arcade games but at least there you had to spend money so it felt like there was a constraint (also you couldn't just like hang out in an arcade for eight hours pretending to do your work and eating your meals there).

yeah, the way the computer is the tool i use for both my work and avoiding my work seems dysfunctional and also unavoidable. i grade my students' papers on google docs, often a tab away from ilx and facebook and there would just be no way for me rearrange my life in a way that i wasn't spending hours in front of the screen anyway. so physically separating myself is not an option; i need to avoid doing distracting things while using the computer.

p.s. hurting, harbl, and ryan, thank you for sharing your experiences because, while i wish you didn't have these difficulties in your lives, it is good to know that people i like and respect also have issues with time management and can relate to what i am saying.

cognitive therapy probably a good way to approach this. particularly in the sense of constructing a different set of habits. I think the Internet will always be a pretty powerful pull on me but I do try to, say, reach for a novel instead of my phone when I start itching for a dopamine rush (or whatever it is). or even just sit and listen to music without doing anything else. or leave my phone at home when running a few errands. small strides.

I hadn't had internet access until a decade ago and even then there were lots of periods of it not working or not being used much. Until two years ago the internet was just a weekend thing, now it's constant and it only takes a short time for it to become a crutch. Now my life before the internet seems like some exotic fantasy I'd like to return to.

But in terms of images and music, my viewing and listening habits would be horribly restricted. A bit less choice for books too(which will probably only decrease). And losing the internet advantages for showing my art would be a really big blow.

But before my complete internet obsession, I watched godawful tv, even repeats of tv shows I didn't like the first time around. At least now I can always procrastinate by viewing topics I love. A far better quality of harmful procrastination.

yes but a procrastination activity that never gets boring is like, life-stealing kryptonite.

It's good to also sometimes take stock of your life and say "well, I AM ultimately getting the papers graded, I have this job, I'm apparently considered competent and productive enough to keep it" just to avoid the anxiety snowballing

solution: go back to dial-up modem

i've fantasized about buying a typewriter and lugging that, instead of my laptop, to the coffeeshops where i spend the majority of my hours away from school. i think more women would talk to me but maybe not for the right reasons. the only downfall is that typewriters don't do what i need them to do, which is produce word documents in .doc or .docx form and answer emails.

coffeeshops without wifi (or just ones where I have deliberately not asked the password) are very special to me. there are programs, I believe, that block the Internet, or just certain sites on your computer for a period of time.

i used to not have the internet at home, until i moved in with my partner a few years ago (in fact I was largely off of ILX in those years). she wouldn't consider getting rid of our wi-fi. but i find that i have to disconnect myself to be productive, and it's increasingly hard to find places to do that, since all my work (or nearly all of it) is on the computer.

the other problem is that i /do/ need the internet for much of my work, although i don't need it nearly as much as i use it.

i find that the computer and the internet adds all kinds of excess tasks to my life, probably because i think i have some undiagnosed mild OCD. i find myself organizing stuff on the computer all the time, things that in the scheme of things are completely useless.. mostly because they are simple tasks that can be accomplished quickly, while the /real/ work i have to do is huge and neverending. it's easier to feel "productive" when you get a million pointless little things "done" (even if they really only lead to more pointless tasks) instead of chipping away at a few huge, messy things.

i KNOW i would accomplish more of actual import if i just tossed the internet overboard and found some way of writing and researching without relying on my laptop. but that seems like such a huge move, and there's also an insidious social pressure to stay on the internet. (to pick a straightforward example, my partner gets upset whenever i suggest that i might want to kill my various social media accounts. she likes being able to interact with me that way, look at my FB wall, etc.)

anyone relate to any of this?

If you bring a typewriter to a public space you have >75% chance of becoming the subject of a piece on hipsters written by someone who doesn't know what a hipster is

Mr. Ship, I would stand over your table while you typed CHAK-CHAK-CHAK-CHAK-CHAK-CHAK-CHAK-CHAK-CHAK-CHAK *BRRRRRRRRRRRRP-DING!* CHAK-CHAK-CHAK before throwing coffee on you and being led out of the cafe screaming, "It was worth it! It was worth it!"

yeah, i was gonna say, typewriters are NOISY

word processors though :)

Well, as long as you don't print anything.

i've fantasized about buying a typewriter and lugging that, instead of my laptop, to the coffeeshops where i spend the majority of my hours away from school. i think more women would talk to me but maybe not for the right reasons. the only downfall is that typewriters don't do what i need them to do, which is produce word documents in .doc or .docx form and answer emails.

― Treeship, Monday, November 24, 2014 3:33 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This actually gives me an idea -- it's probably possible (easy?) to just modify a laptop and take out the wi-fi adapter. You could run word and whatever other software you need on a cheap laptop with no wifi. Of course that would mean not getting e-mails and such during those times.

As an alternative, I wonder if one of those cold-turkey type programs has a perma-block feature, like just have a laptop where every time-wasting site is completely blocked and work on that one when you need to get shit done.

deleting FB is a a very good idea imo. if only I could delete my Twitter and RSS as well. (tho the latter I've managed to whittle down considerably.)

it's a shame ILX tends to be a bit of a time suck for me sometimes because it's one of the few places where my time and engagement are rewarded even a little bit.

i wish there were one of those "suspend the internet" apps that was a little more customizable. so for example i might need to be able to access certain library websites but don't want to be able to browse the web more generally. or perhaps i want to /always/ block certain sites (like ILX, heh) but only /sometimes/ block other ones (like email). but i've yet to find an app where you can make fine-grained adjustments like that.

of course, all of this speaks to the fact that i just need to work on exerting better self-control. but the internet is a really profound and profoundly addictive distraction esp. when half the time I can sort-of justify what I'm doing a broad sense even if practically it's distracting me from the truly important things I need to do.

there is an extension for firefox called "block site". it would be cool if there was one that was like, "block everything except _____" but i haven't seen that.

i also find that the more i browse the internet the more i find cool stuff that i "need" and spend money on things i don't really have the time to fully absorb (books/music/movies/etc.). so i could stand to benefit from getting off the 'net in several ways.

it looks like this one can block everything with exceptions: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stayfocusd

I have that one, I like it a lot except it only works with Chrome, so if you have other browsers it's useless (I'm firefoxing right now bc StayFocused is blocking on Chrome). I wonder if you could deinstall all other browsers or something. I don't think I can deinstall explorer on my work computer though.

the other day i was looking at some photographs taken in new england in the 1920s and saw one of some kid using an outdoor water pump and i got a really strong urge to just disappear into the country and live off the grid for a while. for better or worse, i haven't exactly arranged my life so i can do that.

btw hot tip: if you're traveling long distances, take the train. no internet access, few distractions. i tend to get a fair bit done. but i'm also one of those people who (a) loves train travel and (b) can sleep pretty well on trains.

Have you ever tasted well water? Ugh, it's like licking the end of a Thunderbolt cable.

xp amateurist - most trains in the UK have Wifi unfortunately. Although Virgin, despite being the most expensive train co, charge for the internet.

i'm sure amtrak in the US will have wifi eventually, and may well have it on certain lines already. but not on the trains i've been on over the past few years.

this is gonna sound a little silly and old-man op ed-ish perhaps, but im starting to think that boredom, like *real* boredom, like the kind of boredom i spent most of my childhood trying to figure a way out of, doesn't exist anymore? or that the kind of boredom we experience now is qualitatively different now, more manic or repetitive boredom, refreshing websites and the like, rather than the kind that would actually get you to leave your house or go kick a tire or something. and i wonder if, on some level, you need to cultivate a little boredom to re-train or re-construct an ability to focus or even take pleasure in things that are not so immediately grasped in a short stimulus-reward cycle.

I've thought the same thing many times. Although sometimes I wonder if my life feeling "filled up" with worries might just be a function of adulthood. But then again, the sense I have of having "no relief" is probably at least in part due to spending all my free moments engaged in, as you said, "manic repetitive behaviors." This feeling of emptiness and disenchantment -- exhaustion -- is a kind of boredom, but it's not the kind that makes the says seem endless.

Yes, the boredom thing is a huge deal. I am approaching this as a parent now* because I have very little kids and this stuff is only going to get exponentially more relevant and pressing and crazy as they grow up. A lot of what I've read about raising children stresses the importance of boredom to help them develop their coping mechanisms, just like ryan said.

This shit genuinely worries me because if internet 'addiction' or pervasiveness etc affects me, an adult who is the latest of late adopters and has no particular love for tech and gadgets etc, then what chance do my teeny innocent kids have at growing up without it affecting their development? The formation of their senses of self, their habits, everything. My 3 year old is already OBSESSED with phones, tablets, computers, any type of gaming shit. And we make a conscious effort to limit it in our home. But most families we know in this area have tablets, DSes, whatever, and let their toddlers have them whenever they want. My son has, at a playground, as I ran after him while carrying my smaller son, followed and tried to get in the car with a family we'd never met before because one of their kids had an iPod and was letting my son look at it. I had to drag him out of this family's car crying. What chance do they have when these devices seem that enticing and literally everyone else is always using them, everywhere?

*although it can and does apply to my own life too

ryan: looks like there is some research confirming the phenomenon you described of people forgetting how to cope with ordinary boredom, and subsequently experiencing a more insidious, boundary-less type of boredom all the time

This aligns with research conducted earlier this year by John Eastwood and his colleagues at York University in a meta-analysis of boredom. What causes us to feel bored and, as a result, unhappy? Attention. When our attention is actively engaged, we aren’t bored; when we fail to engage, boredom sets in. As Eastwood’s work, along with recent research on media multitasking, have illustrated, the greater the number of things we have pulling at our attention, the less we are able to meaningfully engage, and the more discontented we become.

In other words, the world of constant connectivity and media, as embodied by Facebook, is the social network’s worst enemy: in every study that distinguished the two types of Facebook experiences—active versus passive—people spent, on average, far more time passively scrolling through newsfeeds than they did actively engaging with content. This may be why general studies of overall Facebook use, like Kross’s of Ann Arbor residents, so often show deleterious effects on our emotional state. Demands on our attention lead us to use Facebook more passively than actively, and passive experiences, no matter the medium, translate to feelings of disconnection and boredom.

In ongoing research, the psychologist Timothy Wilson has learned, as he put it to me, that college students start going “crazy” after just a few minutes in a room without their phones or a computer. “One would think we could spend the time mentally entertaining ourselves,” he said. “But we can’t. We’ve forgotten how.” Whenever we have downtime, the Internet is an enticing, quick solution that immediately fills the gap. We get bored, look at Facebook or Twitter, and become more bored. Getting rid of Facebook wouldn’t change the fact that our attention is, more and more frequently, forgetting the path to proper, fulfilling engagement. And in that sense, Facebook isn’t the problem. It’s the symptom.

http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/how-facebook-makes-us-unhappy

thanks for posting that!

been trying to get back into a daily meditation practice but honestly just getting nowhere. I wonder if that's too much too fast. gonna let myself just be "bored" for 20 mins a day first.

this is good

http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/fear-of-screens/

For as long as there have been social media and mobile devices, there have also been articles or books aimed at lay audiences arguing that we’re trading real life for something digital. And then come the replies from researchers who have found that the relationship is much more complicated — that people who text more often also meet face to face more; that the contemporary technologies of social isolation were, and are, the television and the automobile, not smart phones; that there’s been a recent reversal of the long post–World War II trend toward social isolation.

Her digital dualism is plain when she describes how we have “used technology to create a second nature, an artificial nature,” or when she discusses a “world of screens,” or when she laments “the pull of the online world” away from the real world of humans. “We turn to our phones instead of each other,” she says, as though our phones do not contain each other. She worries that online, “we are tempted to present ourselves as we would like to be,” as if such virtuality and self-presentation hasn’t always been basic to the traditional “real” world of human bodies. Digital dualism allows Turkle to write as though she is championing humanity, conversation, and empathy when ultimately she is merely privileging geography.

There is another way we can handle our phones, one that doesn’t call for a misguided “mindfulness” that misperceives technology as inherently toxic: Don’t be rude to others, with or without your phone. Be mindful of people rather than screens. Focus less on your relationship to your device and more on your relationship to human beings. This includes not feeling entitled to someone’s attention just because they are geographically near, and it especially includes not putting forward your nonuse of a phone as proof of your superiority and others’ subhumanity.