Digital addiction and the chaotic mind

[EnygmaEve]

Also make sure you get some of that morning light.

How I wish I could afford one of these bad boys.

[concretecavewoman]

My big huge problem is that I can't unplug before bedtime. There's a growing body of research that suggests that staring at the warm blue glow of electronics before bedtime keeps you from producing enough melatonin to pass out, and I am plugged in to the minute I drift off, either messing around on my cell or Kindle. And if I have a lot of trouble nodding off? Guess what I do then?

My sleep is getting to epic amounts of fail.

Going to start setting an alarm an hour before my "go to bed, you fool" alarm goes off that reminds me to unplug and get away from the TV, XBox, Computers, Phones, etc etc.

This also means I will have to find a new hobby that will keep me busy for 1 hour a night that doesn't involve any of these. :|

I have an alarm on my phone called Go The F*ck To Sleep (a la the bedtime story). It goes off at 9pm every night and it's been super helpful, especially in these summertime months when it stays light til 10pm and it's easy to forget that it's bedtime.

[EnygmaEve]

I have an alarm on my phone called Go The F*ck To Sleep (a la the bedtime story). It goes off at 9pm every night and it's been super helpful, especially in these summertime months when it stays light til 10pm and it's easy to forget that it's bedtime.

Um.....me too. Like, exact time and words. WTF mate.

Also, I forgot to set my "Get the F off the computer" alarm, so here it is 15 mins till my sleep alarm goes off and I'm still on the computer :|

[Siferiax]

To prove addiction, I just read this whole thread and clicked pretty much every link (which are now open in tabs).

I've been struggling with this and like someone else said, I had a huge problem with going back to the same sites when there wasn't even anything new to check.

I was also ruled by notifications! So the suggested "set up email notifications" I turned off on purpose, because it kept me checking back to my email every time I got one.

Right now my only problem is work. At work I'm browsing online... because what else will you do at work?! No seriously I avoid writing documentation and do the internet.

(Unless I get interrupted and someone asks me to do something, I'm online, I swear)

So a few steps I took to cut back on my addiction (I'm writing from work, with 15 tabs open including this one):

1. get rid of notifications. Email can wait.

2. start realizing that life isn't about the internet.

3. start telling myself I JUST checked social media at work, I can do without turning on my computer.

4. I don't need to turn on my computer for social media, I have my ipod.

5. This resulted in me checking my ipod wayyy often. First thing I did when I woke up, last thing I did when going to sleep.

6. Putt social media apps in a folder on my ipod and put it on the last screen. (aka remove a trigger).

Slowly but surely it's getting better. I have a quest now that says each day check social media no more than two times.

I'm still having internet as a huge time suck, but I'm not mindlessly refreshing facebook etc every 5 seconds (yes that was my evening at some point)

I'd rather waste my time reading articles of interest than checking things. Been deleting plenty of accounts over the last few months too.

Also cutting back on my regular sites, as well as RSS feeds.

This forum is my new time suck though haha! whoops.

I now go about trying a website and if I consistently keep going back to it and being active on it for like a month or so, then it's a regular site.

Here's what I start up every morning at work:

- Gmail

- Furaffinity.net

- Deviantart.com

- Facebook

- Twitter

- Tumblr

- Wordpress

- Google reader

- Nerd Fitness forum

The moment I'm done on a site I close the tab and am not allowed to go back to that website. (ideally the rest of the day, but at least not till lunch time)

It takes me about 30 minutes to clear out till Google Reader (yes I work in the order stated above as well). The time spend there depends on the new articles from about 10 feeds (if that).

Then there's this forum and I don't seem to be able to close it for the rest of the day 8D

Right now the tabs I have open are NF threads, or articles, or google searches.

As far as video games are concerned. My evenings now go to waste on Skyrim, after not playing it in months.

Video games do funny things with me. I get totally into 1 game and really can't stop playing it. Then either at the end of the game, or when it's a long game, anywhere really, or if I get stuck. I can just drop the game and not think about it for months.

Picked up Skyrim, because everyone was talking about it! LOL.

I get terribly addicted and then suddenly don't play any game for months. So it's not always a problem.

My kitten is very annoyed with my Skyrim playing, unless he's tired and wants to lay down and rest.... on my arms/hands/controller

So I get interrupted and pulled out of "the zone" much more these days.

Something about kitten nails in your arm trying to get your attention when you're just fighting a dragon 8D

Wow... this reply got a lot longer than I thought. Should make a blog post out of this topic instead lol.

[EnygmaEve]

@ Kibcy

I pretty much forced my way into quitting Twitter and Facebook. It's easy if you have friends that are way way way too much into their own drama.

Email: I unsubscribed to 90% of the email subscriptions I had and now I only check mail if my phone beeps to alert me of mail.

Video games: the way my life is structured makes it hard to find a good chunk of time to play. Playing during the week means 100% of the time I will ignore my "Go the F to sleep" alarm on my phone and keep playing. So playtime is reserved for the weekends.

[Siferiax]

That is easy. Twitter and Facebook are less time sucks for me than for others it seems... then again I follow like 28 people on twitter and have only 25 people on Facebook, most are direct family.

So obviously I'm done quite quickly with those. It's usually very quiet.

I'm basically against email subscriptions? So yeah. And indeed after turning off notifications I started unsubscribing from EVERYTHING.

Plus I now have my email account split up... which was mostly due to my ex being a stalker.

That's one option, only on the weekends I tend to get into the "play all day" mode... which isn't very productive.

[EnygmaEve]

That is easy. Twitter and Facebook are less time sucks for me than for others it seems... then again I follow like 28 people on twitter and have only 25 people on Facebook, most are direct family.

So obviously I'm done quite quickly with those. It's usually very quiet.

I'm basically against email subscriptions? So yeah. And indeed after turning off notifications I started unsubscribing from EVERYTHING.

Plus I now have my email account split up... which was mostly due to my ex being a stalker.

That's one option, only on the weekends I tend to get into the "play all day" mode... which isn't very productive.

Well, I usually do a system where if I have something to do on the weekend, I'll set an alarm to go off when I want to accomplish it on my phone. I'll adapt that simple thing to fit what I'm doing. Like last weekend, I'd set a timer, and give myself 1 hour of game time, and when it went off, I'd get up and clean house for 30 minutes. Back and forth. Ideally, it'd be the other way around, but it's the weekend, twice as much play vs. work should be expected

[Siferiax]

Well, I usually do a system where if I have something to do on the weekend, I'll set an alarm to go off when I want to accomplish it on my phone. I'll adapt that simple thing to fit what I'm doing. Like last weekend, I'd set a timer, and give myself 1 hour of game time, and when it went off, I'd get up and clean house for 30 minutes. Back and forth. Ideally, it'd be the other way around, but it's the weekend, twice as much play vs. work should be expected

Wow you got some great mentality there! I have alarms too, but I just ignore them :|

Now made a deal with mom that she reminds me of house chores and I report back to her. Just to get me in a habit of doing what I'm suppose to do!

If I can get that to work on weekdays, I'll have the whole weekend for gaming and what not