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Nicolás Bost
Nicolás Bost

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Dealing with internet addiction

Guten Morgen.

Kitty stretchs

Wish I could know who drew the cover image. It's very well done. Would suggest you to check out their work, but sadly not even I know.

Moving on, I wanted to write about what I'm going through. This is by no means an exhaustive research made alongside a mental health professional, and I'm not looking for anything that will be written here to be of any utility to anybody. It doesn't pretend to be that. It's merely a blog post of someone who wishes to start 2025 in good spirits, avoiding the pitfalls, so that it becomes the professional it seeks to be.

I'm going through what the title describes. Internet addiction. Research has been picking up since I've looked up for any information about this disease back in 2015. Some screenshots of search results for "internet addiction":

Search results on Bing

Search results on Google

The world has advanced quite a bit since 2015. And in all that time, research on this must have grown exponentially. But the most comprehensive briefing of it is this paper. And it goes up until pre-COVID-19. One could only assume internet addiction developed even more. It's not surprising to spend 6 hours or more a day on the phone for an average person. We addicts might have 16 or more hours per day. And it's not even coding.

Being an aspiring dev, this is a hindrance. You are supposed to chase after your passion. But what if your passion is not as strong as your compulsion?

As far as research goes, this type of disease seems to be behavioral. Rewards are triggered for the wrong reasons. So what can you do to fight back? Cut down the rewards for the compulsory behaviors, and increase the rewards for your passion.

Oh, if only it was that easy...

Nuclear option

So, the guy above went with the nuclear option. Destroy the screen. Keep that for a period of time and that will definitely help you touch more grass. Somewhere, someone wrote that habits stick permanently after 90 days, but destroying PCs and phones and go back to writing letters so that your friends know you exist doesn't seem to be that easy nowadays. So is there an alternative?

Yeah. Write something. Drink hot water. Stay 10 minutes in the library. Do 1 pushup. Talk to one person about anything that crosses your mind. Sleep if you feel tired. Repeat.

Do easy, achievable tasks. Something completely different than the screen you are used to. Allow yourself to feel bored.

Code something easy and unrelated when you are in front of the screen. Games can elevate you. And it's important to know how to go back down. Every plane needs to land eventually.

So, I think that's it. You will find your peace. Talk to you soon. Hope to see you better in the future

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Top comments (1)

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canro91 profile image
Cesar Aguirre

I have an alarm in my phone to remind me to do anything outside of screens for one hour one day a week. The only rule is nothing about work in front of screens.

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