But for real this time: how did you start spending less time online?

May 6, 2023 7:05 PM

During a pretty unhappy breakup, staring at screens went from "thing I do too much" to "self-soothing strategy that is taking over my waking hours." Have you had any luck loosening the internet's grip on your brain?

I mean, you're here reading this, so clearly you're not a luddite, but I feel like I've kind of melted into my computer. I basically don't read anymore unless it's something on my laptop, but the really weird feeling is just that any time I'm at home and not doing anything, I am typing, and can't remember what I would have been doing if I hadn't become a sad cyborg.

-I often am typing while watching something on tv
-If I reach the end of the internet, I just kind of click back and forth between things
-Or I read/answer questions on reddit, which is a strangely masturbatory activity, or worse yet, get in arguments on reddit
-I've gotten rid of some stuff like twitter (which I wasn't a hardcore user of, but still, it was worth trying) and it seems like there's just always something else to click on
-A certain amount of the time I am also texting because I got a mac and the thing I like about that is that I can text on an actual keyboard. I don't resent/feel dread about texting the same way as some of the other stuff because it's an actual conversation.

I don't know, are there twelve step groups for being one with the internet? (There are not. I have googled. While sitting at my computer.)

I tended to think that once my life was better, I'd do less of it, but my life IS better, and I'm doing a ton of it.

Help me, people of the thing I am trying to separate myself from!

[I am, on preview, reading an old question from someone on here about this problem but I'd still love fresh input.]

posted by less-of-course to Computers & Internet (17 answers total)

It’s really hard.

I encourage you to check out “How to Break Up With your Phone” - there’s a book and a website and I even purchased and worked though the workbook with some friends.

A good companion read is “How to Do Nothing.”

I impulsively installed an app on my phone called ScreenZen and I’m finding it very helpful. It has a few settings you can adjust. I have it set to have a wait screen for my most pernicious time wasters and it’s been pretty successful. It makes me hit a button that says “yes, I really want to do this” and then it’s time limited and the number of hits during the designated time are limited. These settings can be as onerous or as forgiving as you like.
posted by amanda at 7:25 PM on May 6, 2023 [3 favorites]

Are there any hobbies or other activities you can cultivate (either things you used to do and would like to pick back up, or things you’ve wanted to try) that are less screen intensive? Physical activities, arts or crafts, musical instruments, cooking or baking, even organizing or cleaning your home- all of those would fill in some of the time you otherwise spend scrolling or typing.

I find pulling myself away is easier when I have something else to do, and doing something in the physical world helps me escape that cyborg feeling you describe.
posted by MadamM at 7:59 PM on May 6, 2023 [3 favorites]

I go through phases where I install Freedom on all of my devices to limit my internet access. Nothing severe, I just bring it down to three or four hours a day. I find that having a screen pop up telling me I'm done gives me the push I need to engage in offline life.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:03 PM on May 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

I subscribed to the Sunday Times. On Sunday morning, I don’t pick up my phone. I just read the paper.
posted by TrarNoir at 8:37 PM on May 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I have only made progress on this, not cured it, but the key to the progress I've made has been paying attention to my emotions. It is definitely a self-soothing activity for me, but also not a very effective one. I can compare it to the way taking Xanax feels for me--yes, I feel soothed in the moment, but ultimately it results in rebound anxiety.

I have started to think of it in terms of having "screen poisoning" when I overindulge, similar to drinking too much. This is a helpful concept to me because I am able to regulate my use of alcohol and prescription drugs just fine by looking objectively at their effect on my life in the big picture.

I also have put a lot of effort into figuring out what else is soothing to me. Reading library books is soothing. Taking my dog for a long walk is soothing. But it's honestly hard to find anything as absorbing and soothing in the moment as losing myself in the internet. It's a powerful drug.

So these things have helped me to get somewhat of a grip, but the unsolved problem is what to do about my randomly-occurring burning curiosity about various things that can be solved with a quick Google consult--one that inevitably turns into a two-hour zombified net surf no matter how resolved I was not to let that happen. I think maybe I need to start thinking of this as "compulsive shopping." I'm a very frugal person, it's easy for me to not buy things even when I really want them, because I realize that if I just postpone buying it I will lose the burning desire to have it, and that owning it rarely does anything to improve the quality of my life. I think the same is probably true of my burning desire to know the answers to my brain's trivia questions. Just let it go, and if you still want it in x amount of time then consider buying it (looking it up) then.

Thanks for asking this question. I think we all struggle with this and even though the question keeps getting asked, we're all still trying to find the answers, so it's important to keep asking it.
posted by HotToddy at 8:47 PM on May 6, 2023 [34 favorites]

Best answer: I feel you, I'm really prone to this problem too. I go for walks without my phone, or put on podcasts and do physical tasks. And I force myself to try to read a print book every month or so.

Oh and when I'm stuck online, rather than trying to get offline and away from the laptop as a single action, I start by just moving my eyes away from the screen. Without closing any screen windows or moving my body, I look out the real window and count to 20 and breathe. That can help break the spell.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 9:15 PM on May 6, 2023 [10 favorites]

Ultimately the only thing that got me way more offline was constant dread about what I would find there, which isn't something I could recommend or help you replicate. But a second thing that helped is keeping a ton of books on my phone and getting into the habit of reading on my phone all the time. (This was easy for me because I like old books and they're all free.)

There's a Walker Percy quote along the lines of "under the circumstances in which a man gets bored, a dog goes to sleep." I think about that a lot, especially now that I have kids—if there's nothing dramatically more interesting going on, and we'll let them, our little kids (3-ish) will watch an endless amount of TV. They think they love TV more than basically all other activities, they will choose it unless we push them out of their couch-in-the-living-room equilibrium, but on days where they watch a lot of it they are shiftless and cranky and unsettled.

I feel awful when I let them get like that because I'm tired or enthralled with some stupid online thing, because obviously it's my fault and not theirs. They still don't know you have to point the remote at the TV to make it work. Usually I'll attempt to rouse myself and take them outside or to the grocery store or whatever—anything that breaks the spell—and they'll complain for a bit and then they'll be happy. They'll be happier afterward, too.

It's easier to see that you owe something to your kids than that you owe it to yourself.

But you really do just have to find anything else to do (anything at all) and make yourself do it, or go take a nap. At permanently high levels of meaningless stimulation you and I are no less cranky and unsettled than the median YouTube-watching three-year-old. But it's really hard.
posted by Polycarp at 9:33 PM on May 6, 2023 [7 favorites]

As others have said, having other things to do helps. And even if you have to force yourself to, say, spend one hour per day reading a book or watercolor painting or whatever, it helps break the habit and reminds you that there are other things in the world.

I also find it really useful to have a weekly internet sabbath. Decide it's not available to you that day and do other stuff instead. It also helps break the habit and for me, having a strict rule to follow is easier than half measures.
posted by metasarah at 10:02 PM on May 6, 2023 [4 favorites]

Read “Amusing Ourselves to Death”.

Read “Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World”

Walk, an hour out, an hour back.

Ask friends to have an actual voice conversation. This I’m partially successful at, but I’ll keep trying.
posted by at at 3:50 AM on May 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

I spend way too much time online, it's basically the default state for me if I don't have anything else going on. Which is mostly.

The only way I can reliably make myself get off of it is to have something else engaging to do. For me that is often an art project of some sort. Sometimes I just make the art and think my thoughts, or I might listen to music or an audiobook or a podcast while I create. Other times I will listen to one of the above while exercising or doing chores.

My ADHD also really likes it when I alternate between activities so if I have a something I want to accomplish at home (like cleaning the kitchen, or organizing a closet) I will use one activity (being online) to take a break from the other (working on the chore) and go back and forth like that over the course of a few hours. You could set a timer if necessary so you're doing a set amount of online and a set amount of offline activity and just keep switching.

Personally, I'm not trying to "cure my internet addiction" or anything like that. I enjoy my online time. I learn a lot, I'm entertained, I get a bit of social interaction, it helps me relax. I just need to make sure I take breaks and do other things sometimes, and the above helps me to do that.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 7:11 AM on May 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

From experience, I know that I find almost all leisure time activities more satisfying, meaningful and regenerative than spending time online (very much in the manner you describe). And yet the latter is what I often choose to do, if left to my own devices.

I suspect that I do this for the following reasons:

1) Alternative leisure time activities require more attention span, and I've already used all of mine for this day for paid labor. This usually gets better if I have a better work life balance. But really, doing less paid labour is my main idea how to adress this. Or you know, invest less cognitive energy in it. Sometimes I can get away with going a bit on autopilot in my daily routines, and then I have more energy for leisure activities other than vegging out in front of a screen. Often, however, this is not possible, and then I just have to cut myself some slack, accept that I'll spend my free time in a less than optimal way and hope for better days.

I also try to find leisure time activities that also don't demand much in terms of attention span, but are still more rewarding than screen time, like going for a walk. But then I still often run into my second problem:

2) Time constraints. I only want to take a very short break, or I want to go to sleep early, and I fear that the more rewarding leisure time activity will be too engrossing, too stimulating, and tempt me to spend more time on it than I planned. This is the most stupid reason, because in fact, I always, always end up spending more time online than I planned! Which makes total sense! You're more likely to overeat if you eat junk food too. But yeah, when I feel like I don't actually have a lot of time and need to set myself an alarm, I just don't want to start something that I would hate to interrupt. I have a problem with transitions and just hate to switch gears at the drop of a a hat. I always think it will be easier for me, when I engage with something with only half a heart/brain.

Strategies I have found, that sometimes work, a little:
I'm a teacher, and I could do all my lesson planning, grading, etc. at home. I often prefer to stay at school longer though and I do it in the company of my colleague, because chatting with my colleague is my ideal short-break-activity. More rewarding than screen time, but less likely to take longer than planned, because my colleague also has work to do, and is much more disciplined than I am.

Another short-break activity I find slightly better than screen-time is folding origami figures or colouring mandalas or doing a sudoko or playing a short piece on the piano. Something I feel I can be a bit stop and go about.

Mostly, I'm too much online when I'm procrastinating. I try to remind myself that my problem is usually not the work, but the transition. You don't mind the task, you just mind starting it. This works every fifth time or so.
posted by sohalt at 7:29 AM on May 7, 2023 [7 favorites]

One thing that helped me greatly with alcohol was noticing. Spend a week noting down every time you want to open your phone. What is going on at that time? Did you just wake up, are you on the toilet, are you watching tv? How do you feel? You don't need to change your behavior at this point, just notice it. It might help you to be more serious about it if you write it down each time.

It shouldn't be long before you see the patterns and triggers. If you know that watching tv is a trigger, then as you start to turn on the tv, you will think "oh yeah, I am going into this rut again." And since you will be conscious of it, you can choose to do something else if you want, like go for a walk.

I agree with people who said above that you will need a replacement hobby, but I would suggest thinking of ones that make using a phone inconvenient. If you are watercoloring, the phone is probably nearby. If your new hobby is swimming, though, it will naturally be harder to grab the phone.
posted by tofu_crouton at 7:31 AM on May 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

I already have quite a few hobbies, so my internet-time-wasting tendencies tend to strike in between doing other things or in dead time right after work. For me, redirection to small things is more successful than trying to do something big like set up to paint or some other in depth hobby. Playing with the dog. Doing dishes. Reading a book instead of scrolling is probably the most successful thing.
posted by ambulanceambiance at 9:15 AM on May 7, 2023

I took up knitting. I hoped that having my hands occupied would stop me from reaching for my phone, and it worked.
posted by kelper at 9:44 AM on May 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

I agree with the above posters that having some non-screen hobbies really helps (for me it's guitar and knitting).

Something else that has helped: burying the apps that are the worst for me in a bunch of folders. Even that small hurdle of having to click through keeps me from opening them 90% of the time. I also put apps that are a little less awful (Apple News, flashcard app for my Chinese language learning, some e-books, Knotwords, etc.) at the front so that if I REALLY have a craving to look at my screen I'll tend to open up one of those apps instead.
posted by thebots at 10:51 AM on May 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

I, too, am trying to cut back on my internet usage.

A few things that have worked for me are physically going to the library and browsing the aisles for books. Find something that catches my eye and thumb through it. This helps make the idea of physical book more appealing.

I also have started writing a list of all the things I tell myself I don't have enough time to do (chores, plans, activities, whatever) and pair them up with internet time. 30 minutes on Twitter? Ok, but first you have to clean the bedroom closet or take a walk. Often that time off my phone leads me to stay off it and I get motivated to get more things done.
posted by Twicketface at 6:05 AM on May 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

In 2019 I took the drastic step to ditch my android for a semi-stupid phone, a Nokia 800 Tough which is a Nokia that has a couple features, namely Whatsapp, Podcasts, and Google Maps. I have read so many more books, played more piano, and spent time daydreaming when waiting for people to meet up with.

I have to say, I am very much still happily connected online but I use my computer, so I am not connected when I am having meals, in the bathroom, on the road, etc. It frees up SO MUCH time, resets you to the world pre-2007 which was still very online but in a less invasive way.

I wouldn't go back!
posted by maca at 9:26 AM on May 8, 2023