Harriet's Epic Quest: Escape the Infinite Scroll

[Harriet]

This epic quest is about defeating my internet addiction. I'll be adding a review of how I'm going every couple of weeks.

Anyone can join if you like. I have read many good books on the topic and can suggest or summarise if you like. To join, I suggest the following steps.

 

1: Honestly assess how much I’m using the internet and how it’s harming me. Think about the life I want without internet.

2: Decide when and how much and what kinds of internet I want to use.

3: Implement blocks and bans to assist with the plan.

4: Schedule regular reviews & update blocks as necessary, noting possible danger points and adding accountability mechanisms.

 

1. Harm & Benefit

 

It’s hard to tell how much my screen use is harming me because I have no control condition, no life without internet to compare. But I strongly suspect that it is:

 

• greatly exacerbating my mental fatigue
• creating a sense of mental burnout
• crowding out more valuable activities
• reducing my tolerance for activities requiring focus and effort
• sedating me so that I’m less motivated to improve my life
• creating a baseline feeling of dissatisfaction that encourages reward seeking
• interfering with sleep
• increasing my baseline anxiety, depression, and agitation
• making me spend more money as I discover things I “need”
• crowding out quiet time without input that is needed for reflection
• shortcircuiting the normal progression from boredome to motivation to activity
• making me more sedentary
• making me more boring
• making me more impatient
• stuffing my brain with low quality input, which ruins creativity
• unbalancing my input/output ratio, which leads to an imbalanced mind and life

 

I am looking forward to a life without anxiety where I have the mental energy to do a normal amount of work for the day. I hope to be working very consistently on the art, reading, and housework, and to make a lot of progress and feel pride and satisfaction. I hope that my avoidant moods will reduce and I will be more willing to go out instead of staying home and missing out on things. I hope increased outings and reading will lead to better conversations with people and make me feel less boring as a person. I hope that tuning out and having periods without constant input will create great calm and nurture my curiosity and interest in activity. I hope that I will experience greater levels of contentment which will spill over into greater restraint around other addictive behaviours like caffeine, food and alcohol.

 

2. Legitimate Use

 

I want to be able to use the internet for boring utilities like banking and ordering cat food without restriction. I want to limit scrolling for entertainment (which includes shopping, news, forums, over-researching topics of interest, and other), or anything that encourages overuse or pointless checking. I want to limit the total time I spend to, let’s say 2 hours maximum. This gives me time to use nerd fitness and do anything else I want. I may cut down on this amount later. I have found that a total time limit alone is no good, however, because I can use it in minute-long blocks to check for replies on social media. I could, for example, check nerdfitness 120 times like a total psychopath. So I also want to limit non-utility use to evenings only, after 5pm but before 9. That way I have internet-free time for work and daytime activities, and an internet-free wind down before bed. I’m okay with recieving texts, emails and calls since I mostly just communicate with my brother and Mr Harriet, and my inbox is very boring.

 

3. Concrete Plan

 

I have implemented blocks on my laptop and desktop using cold turkey. There is a whitelist with utilities which I can use any time, but everything else is blocked outside the hours of 5-9pm, and total use is limited to 2 hours per day. I will leave the blocks unlocked for two weeks so I can make necessary adjustment to the whitelists (one cannot think of everything in advance). On my phone I have set a 10 minute time limit for the browsers Firefox and safari, in case I need to look up anything on the go. On the iPad I have blocked all apps except for reading and art. I have locked these with a randomly chosen pin that I have written down and put in a drawer.

 

4. Review & Accountability

 

I have asked my brother and husband to set recurring monthly dates to review with me (at alternating dates, so I check in with someone every two weeks). I have also set up a recurring transfer to a savings account. If I break my blocks or otherwise violate the spirit of my bans and restrictions, I will transfer half the monthly savings to my brother or Mr Harriet. To avoid perverse incentives, Mr Harriet’s review will trigger a transfer to my brother if I fail, and if I fail my brother’s review the transfer will go to Mr Harriet. Certainly they will not form a dastardly alliance and fail all my reviews, lol.

 

Danger points for this two week period are:

• It is possible to download browsers other than Firefox and safari on my phone
• It is possible to take the pin out of the drawer and turn off the restrictions on my phone and iPad.
• It is possible to turn off the blocks on my laptop and desktop, as they are not yet locked.
• It is possible to add entertainment websites to the whitelists on my computer blocks.
• It may be possible to access internet on the television.

 

...

 

“When we are not doing well, most of life slips away from us; when we are inactive, much of it—but when we are inattentive, we miss it all. Can you show me even one person who sets a price on his time, who knows the worth of a day, who realises that every day is a day when he is dying? In fact, we are wrong to think that death lies ahead: much of it has passed us by already, for all our past life is in the grip of death.”  Seneca--Letters on Ethics.

[Sovalis]

You and Seneca are like peanut butter and jam for me. Following, of course. ❤️ 

[Harriet]

On 1/16/2024 at 6:05 PM, Sovalis said:

You and Seneca are like peanut butter and jam for me. Following, of course. ❤️ 

 

That is a powerful compliment. Thank you ❤️ 

 

...

 

I added some more art websites to my whitelist today. I had a problem with cold turkey where it kicked me off nerd fitness after 22 minutes, saying my 120 minute non-whitelist allowance for the day was used up. I wonder what that is about. I turned it off to research the problem but couldn't find any results. Let's see if it does the same thing tomorrow. I wonder if it counted my YouTube art time toward the allowance? But I put those channels on the whitelist. If the whitelist didn't work, it wouldn't have let me go on at all because everything off the whitelist is blocked outside the hours of 5 to 9pm. 

I'm jotting down all my changes to the blocks to report to my brother later. Gotta be honest. Using the internet for art is very much in the brief, though, even if it's just browsing. I'll reconsider if browsing art starts to crowd out actual painting, but that isn't happening yet.

[Mad Hatter]

I want to join! No that’s not true, but I do need to do something about my out of control internet habits and I’m trying to do more of what I need and less of what I want. I don’t want to go cold turkey though. I’ve tried bans in of all kinds in the past - ranging from a super aggressive ALL media ban to time restrictions for only certain websites. The experiments were worthwhile but for me it mostly highlighted that excessive internetting is a symptom rather than a cause and didn’t fundamentally change anything. It just made me crabby and triggered rebellion and the blockers are way too easy to work around anyway.
 

Having said that, things went a bit wonky when traveling. I started spending way too much time on YT and twitch, partly as sleep aid when my daily rhythm went crazy, partly as a source of stability and comfort I guess, having the same voices semi in the background (on top of my regular use). Travelling can get a bit lonely. And there’s often a lot of dead time. It’s useful to consider which needs internetting fills, even if it does so badly.

 

Now that I’m in a somewhat more stable situation (for how long I don’t know) I’d like to be a bit more mindful about how I’m using media. I came up with a few trial rules to increase engagement with the media I consume:

 

- Take notes on YT videos. If it’s an art video practice straight away or soon after. Then maybe I’ll actually learn and retain something and there would’ve been a point to watching the thing. And if I can’t be bothered to take notes, it means either that the video is not interesting enough or that I’m too tired and should do something else. 

- Also note if what I’m consuming is just in case learning, just in time learning or entertainment pretending to be educational. None of it is necessarily bad, but consider whether it’s worth consuming now or if it’d be better to do a deep dive later. (Eg climbing videos when I’m currently not even climbing)
- Also consider reading books instead of watching videos for deeper/more nuanced views.
- If a video is pure entertainment/sleep aid (I’m not ready to get rid of this yet) take note of what/if it’s really fun and fatigue level. Maybe try something else depending on energy and focus levels.

- Only open NF when I’m ready to post or reply, instead of opening up the same tabs a million times for later.

- IG is not much of a problem, it’s mostly eye candy. But it’s become awful since my ad blockers stopped working. I still open it on autopilot anyway so I’ve limited it to 5 minutes per day on screen time as a reminder.

- No multitasking media. It most likely means I’m bored and should be doing something else.

- Delay consumption in the morning. No specific goal time, at least for now, but I don’t want to reach for the phone first thing (unless it’s for music.)

 

 

[Mad Hatter]

1 hour ago, Harriet said:

But I put those channels on the whitelist.

This won’t work as each video has a unique url that doesn’t include the channel name or id. You’d have to whitelist each individual video. (Or maaaaaybe it could work per playlist, not sure how they’re organized.) But this might not be a bad thing! You could prepare a number of videos say once a week and focus on those, instead of risking the temptation to binge watch entire back catalogues in one go. ?

[Harriet]

21 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

I want to join! No that’s not true, but I do need to do something about my out of control internet habits and I’m trying to do more of what I need and less of what I want. I don’t want to go cold turkey though. I’ve tried bans in of all kinds in the past - ranging from a super aggressive ALL media ban to time restrictions for only certain websites. The experiments were worthwhile but for me it mostly highlighted that excessive internetting is a symptom rather than a cause and didn’t fundamentally change anything. It just made me crabby and triggered rebellion and the blockers are way too easy to work around anyway.
 

 

Self knowledge is important. I know I use internet as a symptom of fatigue, but I believe it also causes fatigue. Vicious. 

 

21 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Having said that, things went a bit wonky when traveling. I started spending way too much time on YT and twitch, partly as sleep aid when my daily rhythm went crazy, partly as a source of stability and comfort I guess, having the same voices semi in the background (on top of my regular use). Travelling can get a bit lonely. And there’s often a lot of dead time. It’s useful to consider which needs internetting fills, even if it does so badly.

 

Very useful. Was it a bad thing, using it for company and to sleep? 

 

21 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

 

Now that I’m in a somewhat more stable situation (for how long I don’t know) I’d like to be a bit more mindful about how I’m using media. I came up with a few trial rules to increase engagement with the media I consume:

 

- Take notes on YT videos. If it’s an art video practice straight away or soon after. Then maybe I’ll actually learn and retain something and there would’ve been a point to watching the thing. And if I can’t be bothered to take notes, it means either that the video is not interesting enough or that I’m too tired and should do something else. 

- Also note if what I’m consuming is just in case learning, just in time learning or entertainment pretending to be educational. None of it is necessarily bad, but consider whether it’s worth consuming now or if it’d be better to do a deep dive later. (Eg climbing videos when I’m currently not even climbing)
- Also consider reading books instead of watching videos for deeper/more nuanced views.
- If a video is pure entertainment/sleep aid (I’m not ready to get rid of this yet) take note of what/if it’s really fun and fatigue level. Maybe try something else depending on energy and focus levels.

- Only open NF when I’m ready to post or reply, instead of opening up the same tabs a million times for later.

- IG is not much of a problem, it’s mostly eye candy. But it’s become awful since my ad blockers stopped working. I still open it on autopilot anyway so I’ve limited it to 5 minutes per day on screen time as a reminder.

- No multitasking media. It most likely means I’m bored and should be doing something else.

- Delay consumption in the morning. No specific goal time, at least for now, but I don’t want to reach for the phone first thing (unless it’s for music.)

 

I feel like these will require a lot of awareness and discretion, which I often lack when I'm tired. But maybe it's just right for you. Let us know how it works! 

 

21 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

This won’t work as each video has a unique url that doesn’t include the channel name or id. You’d have to whitelist each individual video. (Or maaaaaybe it could work per playlist, not sure how they’re organized.) But this might not be a bad thing! You could prepare a number of videos say once a week and focus on those, instead of risking the temptation to binge watch entire back catalogues in one go. ?

 

It's weird because if the urls are blocked, why can I access the videos outside of 5pm and 9pm? It's like they're successfully blocked by my "allowance" block, but not by my "schedule" block (I layered blocks to get the conditions I desired). Right, good idea; it wouldn't be so bad to spend some time collecting resources on the weekend. For that, I'll need some extra allowance, because it just takes time. I could allow an hour of YouTube on Sunday, but then the danger will be that I will use it to watch lectures by health gurus. (Yeah, I need a better hobby). I've found it's best to limit my need for discretion and willpower, because I'll use the thing as intended for a few weeks or months until I have my next crash, then I will do the non-food equivalent of hastily shoving a second entire cupcake into my face before even swallowing the first, like I'm dying from cupcake deprivation in the desert and just found a life giving cupcake oasis. I absolutely cannot trust my future self. But a one hour limit, once per week, wouldn't cause a freefall into distraction addiction, so that's something.

[Mad Hatter]

On 1/18/2024 at 5:20 PM, Harriet said:

Very useful. Was it a bad thing, using it for company and to sleep? 

Hmmm I’d say no, until it became a crutch.

 

On 1/18/2024 at 5:20 PM, Harriet said:

I feel like these will require a lot of awareness and discretion, which I often lack when I'm tired. But maybe it's just right for you. Let us know how it works! 

Same. But that’s kinda the point. I don’t want to rely on blockers, that never got it right for me anyway. Another thing I might consider is to simply do write off days where I watch everything until I get ultra bored and saturated. I’ll keep experimenting until I find something that works. ?

[Mad Hatter]

One thing I hadn’t considered (or maybe subconsciously purposefully ignored ?) is games. Instead of turning to YT I just turned to games when tired. But I only want to game when I’m engaged otherwise what’s the point? Plus to make it worse I lose all the time. ? It’s quite a bit harder to note my engagement though compared to videos as I tend to get sucked in in an entirely different way. And taking notes while gaming doesn’t seem right. Need to come up with some other check… Tricky. 

[Mad Hatter]

On 1/18/2024 at 5:20 PM, Harriet said:

It's weird because if the urls are blocked, why can I access the videos outside of 5pm and 9pm?

No idea they can sometimes be fussy to set up. I once had blacklists, whitelists, scheduled lists at different times and it can get pretty messy with unintended consequences if not careful.

[Harriet]

7 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

Hmmm I’d say no, until it became a crutch.

 

Same. But that’s kinda the point. I don’t want to rely on blockers, that never got it right for me anyway. Another thing I might consider is to simply do write off days where I watch everything until I get ultra bored and saturated. I’ll keep experimenting until I find something that works. ?

 

It sounds like you don't spiral into totally awful overuse and insanity quite as rapidly as I do. Lol yes aversion therapy. Sit on your social media of choice and refresh every 10 seconds for 2 hours, then never use it again. ? 

 

2 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

One thing I hadn’t considered (or maybe subconsciously purposefully ignored ?) is games. Instead of turning to YT I just turned to games when tired. But I only want to game when I’m engaged otherwise what’s the point? Plus to make it worse I lose all the time. ? It’s quite a bit harder to note my engagement though compared to videos as I tend to get sucked in in an entirely different way. And taking notes while gaming doesn’t seem right. Need to come up with some other check… Tricky. 

 

Interesting. I am a bit more okay with my use of games because I do enjoy them (whereas with internet it's like the pokies--addictive but not enjoyable). And eventually I get tired and want to stop. I've also found it relatively easy to keep them for only after 5pm except for a few days, since getting the console. Do you want to cut down on gaming at all? Or do you just want to use it more mindfully?

 

1 minute ago, Mad Hatter said:

No idea they can sometimes be fussy to set up. I once had blacklists, whitelists, scheduled lists at different times and it can get pretty messy with unintended consequences if not careful.

 

It is indeed fussy I guess that's a good reason to stick to locking it with a password instead of, say, with a year long timer.

[Mad Hatter]

6 minutes ago, Harriet said:

It sounds like you don't spiral into totally awful overuse and insanity quite as rapidly as I do. Lol yes aversion therapy. Sit on your social media of choice and refresh every 10 seconds for 2 hours, then never use it again. ? 

It depends on what it is! TikTok I can’t handle. At all. I can spend hours in TikTok paralysis where I hate myself but also literally can’t physically move away. ?YT I can also easily spend hours on. But while I’d easily watch say x number of climbing videos in a row by different creators with different styles, I get saturated much more quickly if I’ve queued up videos from the same creator and have to watch them all in a row.

 

12 minutes ago, Harriet said:

Interesting. I am a bit more okay with my use of games because I do enjoy them (whereas with internet it's like the pokies--addictive but not enjoyable). And eventually I get tired and want to stop. I've also found it relatively easy to keep them for only after 5pm except for a few days, since getting the console. Do you want to cut down on gaming at all? Or do you just want to use it more mindfully?

At the moment I have so much free time I don’t mind spending it gaming, as long as I enjoy it while I do. And as long as I don’t do it during my high physical energy time and miss training. For me games often start enjoyable but then sometimes it turns obsessive and I kinda want to stop but not until I finish. Or I get tired and don’t notice I just start playing really badly and mindlessly. (I play mostly strategy games atm since I only have my iPad) Sometimes I simply get super sucked in and while not great it’s fine once in a while. That’s much more of a problem when I’m on my own anyway. 
 

20 minutes ago, Harriet said:

It is indeed fussy I guess that's a good reason to stick to locking it with a password instead of, say, with a year long timer.

I’m sure they just require a bit of tweaking!
 

For me the locks became altogether useless once I started turning them off by killing the process manually. After that first time it was doomed. ?

[Harriet]

2 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

I hate myself but also literally can’t physically move away.

 

Familiar.

 

2 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

But while I’d easily watch say x number of climbing videos in a row by different creators with different styles, I get saturated much more quickly if I’ve queued up videos from the same creator and have to watch them all in a row.

 

Okay, so the type of content matters a lot for you.

 

2 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

I play mostly strategy games atm since I only have my iPad

 

So they don't have natural stopping points like quests?

 

2 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

For me the locks became altogether useless once I started turning them off by killing the process manually. After that first time it was doomed. ?

 

I'm not sure what you mean? You really cannot bypass a locked cold turkey block as far as I know. And I can only unlock the screen restrictions on my phone and iPad with a password. Not foolproof, but having the password in the cupboard helps, as does knowing I have to report to Brometheus or Mr Harriet.

[Mad Hatter]

7 minutes ago, Harriet said:

Okay, so the type of content matters a lot for you.

I think it’s a novelty thing. Shiny new video is shiny, 8 of them are not. The problem is that there’s an endless number of shiny new videos and topics on YT. ?

 

8 minutes ago, Harriet said:

So they don't have natural stopping points like quests?

You could argue there are a few breakpoints but my brain doesn’t consider them such. ?

 

9 minutes ago, Harriet said:

I'm not sure what you mean? You really cannot bypass a locked cold turkey block as far as I know. 

Remember I was a developer until not long ago. ? Social accountability can be a very strong tool!

[Harriet]

20 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

I think it’s a novelty thing. Shiny new video is shiny, 8 of them are not. The problem is that there’s an endless number of shiny new videos and topics on YT. ?

 

Yes there's always a new shiny. That's the internet. It's only gradually that I start to realise the qualities of the shinies and the shiny-hunting is poor, and that my joints ache.

 

20 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Remember I was a developer until not long ago. ? 

 

Say no more. Really, for my sake, say nothing else. I need effective self binding because my future self is completely untrustworthy. 

[Mad Hatter]

16 hours ago, Harriet said:

Yes there's always a new shiny. That's the internet. It's only gradually that I start to realise the qualities of the shinies and the shiny-hunting is poor, and that my joints ache.

It’s sneaky like that.

 

16 hours ago, Harriet said:

Say no more. Really, for my sake, say nothing else. I need effective self binding because my future self is completely untrustworthy. 

No worries I won’t.?I just have a “how can I break this?” problem, even if it doesn’t serve me.

[Harriet]

I'm having a minor fatigue/illness crash, which is a danger point for internet overuse. But also, I think internet overuse makes me more tired and delays the mental and motivational aspect of recovery, so that my slug phases last longer than necessary. So it will be interesting to see if I can recover more quickly and get back to being active sooner without internet. I am playing a video game, but it not so interesting that I would want to play it if I weren't unwell, so I hope it won't interfere with my sense of when I can get back to things. We shall see.

[Mad Hatter]

I’m totally failing at everything. I can’t seem to get into a rhythm. Dealing with my grandma is at times quite stressful and my sleep is wonky and all I want to do is destress with the internet and games. Maybe I should do a hard ban for a week or so after all, just to reset? 

[Harriet]

3 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

I’m totally failing at everything. I can’t seem to get into a rhythm. Dealing with my grandma is at times quite stressful and my sleep is wonky and all I want to do is destress with the internet and games. Maybe I should do a hard ban for a week or so after all, just to reset? 

 

It sounds like the stress is creating a high need for escape. I think a bit of escape and mental rest is fine and very necessary, but my problem with the internet is: it only *seems* effortless and restful but I think it doesn't actually restore mental energy very well; and it is also addictive and reduces my baseline readiness to do other activities. So it creates the need for escape that it pretends to cure. Do you have escape activities that are not unrestful and do not become addictive? Maybe a slightly more boring old game, or a novel? What would you do if you totally banned them? Would you have opportunities for rest that are also in line with your ability to take advantage of them? Or would you just go crazy?

[Harriet]

Review 01.02.24

 

I did my first review with my brother yesterday. There wasn't much to discuss as I only turned off the cold turkey blocks in order to add utility and art websites, as was my plan. I didn't change the blocks or use the internet against the spirit of the plan.

 

The good news is I am not thinking much about the internet during the day. I do think of things I want to look up, but by the time it gets to 5pm it doesn't seem as important, and there have been several days where I didn't use up my allowance and just went to bed. I am not yet a superhumanly motivated and accomplished optimised ultra hero. I'm still lazy and avoidant. But my days have got books, knitting, and some very, very old video games in them instead of the hypnotic infinite scroll. Hopefully things will look up once I get over the current crash. Usually during a crash I would be fully immersed in the distraction addiction, and would feel mentally stale and grotty as well as physically sick. Now I'm just sick, yay? Hopefully it will be easier to notice when I am recovered and am once again interested in being active.

For the next period I need a better way to handle art videos on youtube. They don't seem to work quite right with the whitelist. My brother suggested the youtube kids app but I think that limits to children's content, so that's no good. I think an option would be to just add 30 minutes of video time per day. I could potentially use it to watch other content, but it wouldn't be enough to cause a spiral into internet overuse.

 

Another option would be giving myself an hour or two on Sundays to add specific videos to the whitelist, but I haven't done that yet (I don't always have the energy or willpower to do the advance planning for art) and I also don't know if the cold turkey blocks will get even more finicky if I add a huge number of items to the whitelists. I could try it, though. 

 

Since my next review is with Mr Harriet, I will consult with him (because if he disagrees with any of my changes and gives my review a failing grade, $25 goes to Brometheus).

For the next period it's also time to add an unrememberable password to the desktop and laptop bans. I can write it on paper and put it in my desk for emergencies, but it adds another layer between me and the compulsion.

[Harriet]

Mr Harriet did NOT review me at the agreed date. When I brought it up he agreed and said it came up on his calendar but he forgot. And then... he did not review me. I don't know if he thought that this exchange was sufficient, but oh well. With his blessing I added my internet allowance to 3 hours per day because the cold turkey block that was supposed to allow unlimited utilities (banking, groceries, etc) is actually counting it toward my precious nerdfitness time. 

I also found out I can "choose to ignore" the app limit on my phone without inputting a password. I did this, and used the Pinterest app beyond the daily allowance, in order to look at hair cut and colour pictures in the wake of my disaster cut/colour. I was distraught. It's not the worst internet addiction slip up. It could be problematic, though, that I can easily "choose to ignore" the web browser apps on my phone. I thought I gave screen time a password so I don't really understand why it's not requiring it.

 

EDIT: I'll just review by myself. Banning the internet hasn't changed my life. I still kind of get bored and listless in the afternoon and am definitely waiting until I can get on the internet. Then when I realise it's not that interesting (or when I run out of allowance) I feel bored again and just go to bed early. 

I assume I will become a curious and motivated person soon, though. Very soon.

[Harriet]

Review 1 March:  I have to transfer money to Mr Harriet because I ignored the time limit on Pinterest on my phone and looked at hair colours and cuts, as described above. This was around the time I got a bad haircut and was totally devastating, but Brometheus found this excuse insufficient and failed my review. Fair enough, it was an illegal action. Otherwise all is well. With the blessing of Mr Harriet I added an hour to my allowance last time, because cold turkey isn't working properly and the utility websites are cutting in to my discretionary time. So I have 3 hours for everything, including nerd fitness, ordering groceries, checking maps, etc. It's fine. I'm not totally transformed and I still tend to be hanging around waiting until I can use the internet from about 4pm onward. But my mornings and early afternoons are more productive. 

[Harriet]

Mr Harriet missed the review again. It's fine, I haven't broken the internet bans or done anything against the spirit of them. I am settling in to a routine without daytime internet, though I still use up my full allowance many days in the evening. Not all days. Sometimes there's nothing I want to watch, or search, and the forums are quiet. I am playing more video games, but mostly because I get hungry before dinner and need a more powerful distraction than reading in those last couple of hours.

[Elastigirl]

I missed this when you posted before.   It was very interesting to read how you have cut down and become mindful. 

On 2/21/2024 at 10:56 AM, Harriet said:

I assume I will become a curious and motivated person soon, though. Very soon.

This was interesting to me too. I always think how much more productive and creative I would be if I didn't internet, but probably not that much.

[Harriet]

16 hours ago, Elastigirl said:

I missed this when you posted before.   It was very interesting to read how you have cut down and become mindful. 

 

Thank you! I expect to see better changes over the long term, but I already feel some relief.

 

16 hours ago, Elastigirl said:

This was interesting to me too. I always think how much more productive and creative I would be if I didn't internet, but probably not that much.

I think I will definitely be more productive. I think I just need some space for my brain. But it depends how much you use it in the first place, I think.

[Elastigirl]

7 minutes ago, Harriet said:

I think I just need some space for my brain.

Hmmm, interesting . I hadn't thought of it that way.  But, I see the point. If every time I get a little bored, I reach for my phone and scroll something, my brain never has time  to ponder.  Most the time on my walks I don't listen to anything. I think that's why I like walking, it gives my brain that free space.