Primmulla

I have both a laptop and an old PC, and I do not keep the laptop on my desk (where it is placed when I work on it, I love having it in my room as can concentrate better here as it is much quieter), when I am done with whatever I was using the laptop for, I turn it off completely (not into a sleep mode), unplug and put it in my bookcase, there to sit until it is needed again. The laptop on the desk is very cumbersome as it takes up most of the desk ( I don't know how much space is left on your desk with the laptop on it), and so when I read or write (my university days are over, so no studying in a "school" sense with homework and stuff, of course everyone should be a lifelong learner, especially writers) I like to have the laptop away, it definitely helps to focus. And I am more creative away from the computer. If you need dictionaries, maybe you could use a smartphone? definitely smaller than a notebook. What about traditional dictionaries on paper? For concentrated learning, I definitely recommend being as far away from computers as possible. If you have notes on your computer which can be printed, print them out and study from "hard copies". Research has shown that learning from paper is much more effective than from computer screen. Good luck with your studies You can always write me a pm in Polish if you want, I am currently rather busy but I would try to help you.

Congratulations on completing your detox Are you going back to playing moderately, or are you done with games forever? I like what you wrote about discovering things outside such as birds singing, these are really beautiful things. I love listening to the birds singing outside my window in the afternoon, birds are generally great as they can be observed through the window and as could not leave the house much due to my allergy, I could watch them through the windows and they inspired many a poem Though the thing which helped me to appreciate and rediscover the world outside was the book on creative writing by Barbara Baig and the freewriting and observation exercises she included. Are you interested in creative writing too? I recall that you have a blog?

A terribly stressful day, I was just finishing a translation when a huge thunderstorm came, and I had to turn off the computer without completing this text. Ugh I hate this stormy weather when nothing is certain, I need to hurry up with all kinds of work that has to be done on the computer, as once a thunderstorm starts, it may last for hours on end, I remember one which took an entire night and a part of the morning. Luckily, the storm is now gone and I managed to finish the translation as well as do Duolingo and the rest. For now. But my marvellous learning streak on Duo is constantly in danger due to these thunderstorms. Since the storms are gone now, I may attempt to write something longer, Falky's post about completing his detox encouraged me to reflect on my own gaming detox. It did not really make much difference in my life, but thanks to this forum which enabled me to read very honest and open accounts of other people, I discovered that I was not really addicted to games, or rather, the game LotRO. Gaming entered my life relatively late, in my thirties and I was fascinated by something which was so totally different from anything I experienced in my life before. My first experience with a computer game was when I was a teen, when I got my first computer ever, it was "constructed" by a colleague of my Dad's, and it had a preinstalled game Jazz Jackrabbit, and I grew to hate this game above anything else, since I failed abysmally whenever I tried to play it. It was the first computer game that I laid my eyes upon, so I came to the conclusion that all games are so horrible, and definitely not for me. Some of you would perhaps say that this bad experience with games saved me from becoming addicted to them, and maybe it did, or maybe not, we would never know what would happen in an alternative world It does not mean that I never played anything else in my life, I recall some car racing game in which I competed against my Dad, Tetrises and other logical games, but these were always on the periphery on my life so much that I had to think about it to remember what I played. I enjoyed the demo of Syberia, but I never went on to buy the game, or any other game, my domain was books. From time to time I played some games which were free on CD attached to computer magazines which I started to read because of having problems with computer classes at school. But I never considered buying myself a game and today I also think it is a waste of money to spend it on games, if I can buy an interesting book (or perhaps many books, taking into account the prices of some new games) for the same amount of money. Why should I waste money on something I did not enjoy? With LotrO it was different, as it was free, and it was finally a game in which I learnt how to move my character about Initially, I was playing quite a lot, I loved being immersed in the world of Middle-Earth I knew from Tolkien's books. And this is how I came to the conclusion that I was addicted to the game, but after reading many accounts on this forum and comparing my experiences against what other users here did and how they felt, I learnt how a real addiction to games looks like. I wrote about my "addiction" on other forums for game addicts, and I did not get any answers, now I know why, they probably thought I was making fun of them. I did the detox though, because I was convinced that I was cheating myself that I was not addicted when in fact I was. My Mum did not share my opinions about my being addicted, but of course I knew better This was partly because I assume the worst things about myself, while being more forgiving towards other people (which may be actually a good thing). So I believed that because I play a game, and games are addictive, then I must be addicted, logical, isn't it? Now my perception of the game is changed, maybe it is a result of the detox, or maybe I simply got used to it and so its newness and attraction disappeared. I play it from time to time, but there are tons of more interesting things to do than gaming, writing and reading sharing the first place. I noticed that the game is very repetitive, because in a game there are only two kinds of task a character can do, either killing something or picking something up/collecting something. I guess this is because no other actions can be programmed in the computer, but it makes games very boring entertainment, which can be enjoyed but in small doses and not very often. However, the thing which really changed my life in the way the detox did not is, is the book on creative writing by Barbara Baig, thanks to it I started writing again without any fears that I am only wasting my time doing it, and recently I have been very creative. I no longer feel guilty about my writing, whether about the time I devote to it or its quality, which is perhaps very low (do not expect much from first drafts!). This writing course is the thing which changed my approach to life, which made me look at the world in a different way, and finally, it lead me to re-discover and appreciate the world outside. This is what Falky discovered through his detox, and he inspired me to write this entry - thanks I discovered it thanks to the book by Baig. I was never particularly interesting in my surroundings and never observed people around me as Baig advises to do, as during my school/university days I was focused primarily on learning the school subjects, to such an extent that I often did not recall what my friends were wearing on a given day at the university when I came back home. I also hated anything which could take my away from my studies, e.g. a sudden visit of an aunt etc. Remember, it had nothing to do with games, I was rather "addicted" to good grades, some may say it is a "good" addiction but I am not so sure Now I know that everything in life may be a great opportunity for a writer, may provide inspiration, ideas, material which you can later use in a story. Everything can be a writing material, even doing the chores, and sitting and waiting in a queue at the doctor's can be a great moment to do some observation practice. Before, I hated these moments when there was seemingly 'nothing to do,' I always had to have a book with me so that I would not "waste time." But now I grew to love these peaceful moment, when nothing happens, apart from ideas slowly germinating in my subconscious

I agree with the above, "90 days game free" sounds definitely more positive.

Another rather busy day, I haven't managed to do the writing exercise yet, and as for these entries, I would really have to reduce them into weekly recaps. On the plus side, today I reached a hundred-day streak on Khan Academy

Another stormy and "unreliable" day, hot weather which does not make one particularly productive. The writing practice was the highlight of the day again, I managed to write another scene from my fantasy story, earlier in the plot that the one with wolves. I downloaded a pomodoro app to my smartphone so that I can easily write on paper without having to check my watch every minute or so, but it does not work very well (e.g. it does not give me a sound signal when the 10 minutes are up), so I usually write through the "break" which makes a total of about 20 minutes. When I have some ideas, I don't stop writing as soon as 10 minutes are over, of course, but note down everything what comes to my mind at the time. Today, it went better than yesterday with the story, the weather is not making me very productive, but I did not have any translations to complete, so I could work on the story in peace, without any stress. I am wondering what to do with the Sanderson book, whether I should continue reading it since some elements there are reminiscent of GoT. I did not browse any GoT websites, of course, but I checked which episode will be aired this Sunday, and so how many of them still remain. I guess that when the series is over, there would be less news about it on general websites devoted to fantasy, and I would no longer be blocked from Tor.com, I need to go back to using this website as it publishes fantasy short stories on which I can model my writing. But I would have to avoid it until after the end of the series. This is a bit problematic as many articles on writing fantasy mention George R.R. Martin or GoT

I guess I would have to switch to weekly recaps with my journal here The weather is Poland is quite stormy now, and I have quite a lot to do as far as translation is concerned. I cannot neglect translations, language lessons and my writing in order to post new entries here. I am not addicted to games and the reason I am still posting here and checking the forum for new posts is that I started to like the people on this forum and to care for you guys So it is like a community of friends for me now, and I feel a bit guilty when I am not posting any updates. I am glad that I did a longer writing practice yesterday, as today turned out quite busy, but at the same time, it is a bit problematic, as I noted down everything I came up with and now I am a bit stuck with my fantasy story and I don't know what happens next in it I guess I would have to think more about it, for the time being I can write the beginning of the story, as what I wrote yesterday was an important event in its middle. Or maybe I would write about something totally unrelated to this story. It really does not matter, the important thing is to keep writing.

Today, I was quite successful with my writing, though I started my practice later than usually. It is a holiday in Poland today, the feast of Corpus Christi, so I've been to the church. And today's freewriting went quite well, too, in fact I wrote longer than 10 minutes, as I had a lot of ideas about my fantasy story and I managed to write an entire scene, inspired by a writing prompt I read in one of my newsletters. I thought it may be good to do more writing today, as I may have less free time tomorrow. Today, it is also Mother's Day in Poland, and this time I could give my Mum a lot of poems, I always try and write her some haiku, as she enjoys these, but I did not managed to write much for her birthday earlier this month. Now I was successful and she was happy about the present. This also motivates me to work harder on my writing. A couple of days ago I finished reading the blog by Barbara Baig, and I continue to study her book on writing, which includes more exercises for writers. I started watching lectures by Brandon Sanderson, who is a fantasy author as it is a genre I want to write in, too. But I have not read anything by this writer before, so I checked his website and it turned out that he made an entire novel available for free on this website. It is quite useful for aspiring writers, as each chapter has annotations in which the author explains how he came up with ideas for this particular chapter. The only drawback is that it has to be read on the computer, and cannot be downloaded to my Kindle, but maybe that is why it is free. I try to abstain from gaming but also films and TV series, as Baig wrote that these can destroy imagination, so I am afraid of "scaring" my story ideas away. Though I have some doubts about this theory, as one day I accidentally came across a short documentary about history on TV, and it occurred to me that what was shown in the film may be a good setting for my fantasy story. Other ideas for the story sprung from this source, I am not sure whether I would be writing this story at all, if I was not "inspired" by the film. I don't really know what to think about it, though I would definitely follow the exercises described in Barbara Baig's book. And I am not going to give up writing again

Writing-wise, the day was OK, I made my first freewriting practice in which I tried to work on my fantasy story rather than note down random thoughts. It seems it is time to start on some more advanced exercises, at least I am bored by freewriting about just anything.(Freewriting on a given subject is called focused freewriting - we still have to care more about contents than grammar and choosing the "right" word, but we have to write within a particular (freely chosen by us!) subject matter. I am not sure whether I would be able to write an entry today, the weather in Poland is very stormy today, and I would have to turn the computer off when there is a thunderstorm to prevent it from breaking down. I have much more important things to do on the computer than writing posts here, no matter how enjoyable it is, such as my translations and Duolingo et consortes. Hope I will be able to write more soon

I've been thinking about why so many people return to gaming other successfully completing their detox. And I guess that we are trying to deal with the gaming addiction from the wrong side. In some cases, when people are not really addicted, detox generally helps and enables them to distance themselves from games and discover or re-discover some other, healthier activities. In these cases, the people are not really addicted, rather obsessed with games, and giving up gaming for some time allows them to re-asses their behaviour. But for some others, who are more heavily addicted, it is easy to start playing again after detox, or even count the days to the last day of the detox. Why is that? I have been wondering about it and it occurred to me that by removing games, we may be "curing" the symptoms rather than resolving the problems which lead this person to seek solace in games in the first place. Like the cures for common cold that treat symptoms and not underlying causes of the disease. The same case may be with excessive gaming, if someone games a lot to escape their problems, be they psychological, physical, any kind, when they stop gaming, the problems are still there, and most often, gaming is the only coping mechanism this person knows, that is why relapses happen so frequently. If we start curing the underlying reasons of excessive gaming, e.g. lack of self-worth, there are much higher chances of success, since as the problem which causes the person to game is gone, they no longer have any reason to engage in gaming. If the problems subsist, people can of course refrain from gaming for some time such as a detox, but since their underlying issues continue to trouble them, they relapse. Of course, learning a healthier way to cope with problems is important, but resolving them is even more crucial. For this allows us to get rid of games for good.

So, you have problems with fan fiction? what fandom do you particularly enjoy reading? You are worried about the poor quality of fanfiction works you are reading, is that the problem? If you read something which is trash you can always stop, I agree that there is a lot of kitschy fanfic, though there are also many stories which could be publishable if they were not fanfiction. It also depends on the fandom, e.g there is quite a lot of quailty fanfic in Tolkien fandom, especially on websites devoted only to Tolkien fanfic such as Silmarillion Writers' Guild. Do you have some moral qualms about the content of the stories, e.g. erotica or slash? if this is the case, I guess you should stop reading them, though I do not understand your problems with fiction. You read bad quality stories, and you want to stop it, is that right? Honestly, I have idea how one can become addicted to poorly written texts, only well-crafted stories are addictive If you are concerned about the quality of your reading, you can always choose printed books which go through editing process and should be better. If you do not know what to write about, try freewriting exercise: simply write whatever comes to your mind, without censoring yourself or correcting your grammar, typos etc. Do it for 10 minutes (or longer, if you like, but 10 minutes is the minimum). It helps you focus and understand your emotions and thoughts, and what is the best about it is that you do not have to show it to anyone, you can even throw it away or even tear it apart after you're done with the exercise.

Today is the fourth day and the writing exercise has already become the highlight of my day, I started to count the days in Chains.cc, not in order to add daily writing practice to my "chores" (Baig warned against it), but to track how long I am doing this. It is not long, but it seems like something I have been doing for ages The fact is, I loved writing and it was my favourite pastime, apart from reading, before the dawn of computers and the Internet. Now, thanks to the book by Barbara Baig, I rediscovered the joy of writing and came to the conclusion that it may not be such a waste of time, as I believed it to be in my earliest post on writing here. Now it has taken precedence over other activities and changed my attitude to computers and the Net much more than the detox did. Baig states that overuse of media (not only Internet but "traditional" media like TV) makes us less imaginative, which is detrimental for writing. I discovered that I do not need the Internet as much as I used to, of course I did not stop to use it. Maybe my Internet use has not really decreased as far as time is concerned, but I use it in a much more productive way, reading the blog by Barbara Baig and other writing advice. Soon I would start to read stories again, writers need to read a lot and analyse the works of other writers to learn writing techniques. At least, I would not have to feel guilty about reading too much I definitely find abstaining from all kinds of pop culture news websites very good thing. I am much calmer and peaceful and I try to find inspiration within myself and the outside world, instead of being bombarded by stimuli from various websites. I read the book on writing using my Kindle, and I love the minimalist interface of this device, only letters and me, full concentration. I wish Internet looked like this. It seems that I am getting tired by the Internet and its plethora of pictures, films, floating adds, even its very colourfulness. It does not help focus or introspection. Instead, we are constantly over-stimulated. As with the case of pop culture news sites such as Hypable or Tor, I was bombarded with news about "must see" series and tempted to try and catch up with the episodes if they are so good. Now that I do not follow these sites, I have no temptation to download the series (and anyway, watching TV series is not very beneficial for writers, as these use images and do not teach how to construct characters on the page). I am dreaming about digital detox or some kind of "writer's sabbatical" when I can fully concentrate on my writing and do not have to keep any translation deadlines and the only electronic device I use is the Kindle with books on writing. I started to enjoy just doing nothing in particular and observing either the surroundings or my thoughts and feelings. Online courses are great, but now they seem to me a hindrance keeping me from writing, as I need to meet certain deadlines in the courses and would have to study them on the computer as they contain videos (and anyway, I try not to print things unless they are really necessary, printer ink is rather expensive in Poland). Also, Duolingo, Memrise and Khan Academy have become obstacles rather than help, mainly due to their "streak" mechanism. It is definitely a motivator, and encourages to keep on learning even on days when you do not feel like doing it, which is very important in language learning, as it has to be consistent to be effective. However, recently I feel that these services are a crippling influence in such as way as they create a kind of "leash" binding me to the Internet. On days when I do not really need to use the computer, I have to turn it on in order to complete the lessons and avoid losing my streak. I have almost a year-long streak on Duolingo and it would be a pity to lose it, so I feel "forced" to turn the computer on, the lesson may be short, but later I may be tempted to browse some websites and waste much more time. So let's end this post and get back to reading and writing Four days may not be long, but I already got some ideas about a fantasy story, of course, as it is pointed out in the blog by Baig, there is a lot of work between the first idea and finished text, but I was not able to have any new ideas for quite a long time, so this is definitely a good sight and it shows that the exercises are working.

Writing-wise, today was rather a productive day, I completed my freewriting practice (on paper), and read one full chapter from the book on writing. The author emphasises the importance of collecting, that is, writing down anything that we find interesting, for instance, something we observed, a conversation we overheard, an idea that comes to our mind. And this has to be written down, because otherwise we will most certainly forget what we noticed. It happened a lot of time to me, when I had almost a complete short poem in my mind and I did not write it down - of course I forgot it and never been able to recover the poem. It was so stupid of me. I needn't have lost all these poems in such a silly way. They should have survived We can also collect material from previous freewriting sessions, copying or writing down a sentence etc. that particularly strikes us. I do not have enough written to do it yet, though. Another exercise was to reflect on our writing practice, and instinctively I have already been doing it before I read about it (in fact, my journal posts may become just that: reflections on writing practice). Today I was doing my practice on paper, and it was much more effective and more pleasant. The only problem is timing, I do not want to keep looking at the clock when I am writing, which would doubtlessly derail me from writing. I downloaded an app which is supposed to help in Pomodoro technique, but it took me some time to set it up and in spite of that, it did not give me a sound when the time was up. I want to buy a Pomodoro timer, so that I would not have use technology to time my writing. So far, I am not writing anything particularly creative, only random things about myself and my life, what happened in my family etc. but today I was describing my dream writing practice. I definitely prefer to use pen and paper for my creative work, I guess it is safer this way because paper would not crash and destroy my work When I began writing this, my laptop froze for a couple of minutes and I was nervous that I may lose what I had already written, as well as angry at not being able to write on I don't trust computers with something as important as writing, particularly since my PC ate a chapter of my master thesis, I took every possible precaution such as autosaving the file as I was working on it, using online backup and so on, and in spite of all this, the file was irretrievable. I had to rewrite it from memory, I just began this chapter when the PC devoured it, so it was not much, but I had had difficult time with finding ideas for the chapter and when I finally did know what to write, the computer destroyed it. I continued to write the rest of the thesis on paper and to type it onto the computer afterwards. During the practice today, I noticed that my hands hurt again, as I wanted to write as much as possible during these ten minutes. Now I think it was wrong, because it is not a competition to write as many words as possible in ten minutes I also put too much emphasis on not stopping moving my hands even for a moment, which also contributed to their hurting. When I was reading the book on writing today, the author says that the most important thing is to concentrate on the content of what we are writing and not about grammar or spelling or finding "right” words to express it, and the fact of stopping writing for a few seconds to take a breath should not be a great crime against this exercise It is becoming more and more pleasant as I keep to it (it is only a third day), and I would definitely recommend it to everyone even if they do not want to be writers, it really helps in introspection and examining our feelings and thoughts, which definitely aids understanding ourselves and what we want from our lives. It also strengthens our focus, in the same way as concentrated reading does, because we have to think about what to put on the page and not let our mind wander. So, two good qualities for all who are recovering from gaming Try it out and you would not regret it. You don't have to show your writing to anyone, so in this way you could use it to give vent to some negative emotions as well. You can even throw the page away after writing it all down. And let the bad feelings disappear with it.

I am still wondering whether to use the freewriting sessions to create posts for this forum. Yesterday, I finally found the time to read the chapter in the book on writing, where the exercise is described in more detail. It turns out that I broke a lot of rules I was not supposed to correct my mistakes as I was writing, yet I could not really resist going back and correcting typos, I could not bear to see these little wiggly snakes under words. I also stopped to think what to write next, and during the freewriting exercise one is not allowed to stop writing even for a moment. You may write totally stupid sentences, but you have to keep writing. And it is also not advisable to look at what you have already written. I have made all these mistakes In part because I wanted to be able to post it here on the forum without having to do much editing, and mainly because I am really critical of what I write. Baig would say that my critical faculty is much stronger than my creative faculty, and the exercise is intended to free the creative faculty from the constant control of the critical one. The problem is I am very critical of what I do, particularly of what I am supposed to be good at. I am not so judgemental towards other people, which is perhaps a good thing But this makes me very critical towards my own writing, also because of my studies, as I studied to be an English teacher and so I am conditioned to look for errors and mistakes in my own writings and these of others. Today freewriting session did not go well, I was rather in a hurry as I was waiting for the broadcast of the Pope's Angelus Domini, and my computer booted very slowly. So I was worried that I would have to interrupt my freewriting in order to go and watch the broadcast. I was writing so fast that my hands hurt, I wanted to cram as many words as possible in this short period of time and also to express all my feelings and reflections I had after reading the book yesterday. I tried not to look at the screen and made a terrible amount of typos, some of them would prevent others from understanding the text if it was to be "published" as it was. I wrote very nervously and it was not a very pleasant experience. I guess the problem is with writing on the computer, I type much slower than I write by hand, hence the frequent typos when I wanted to write very quickly. So perhaps the best solution will be to switch to pen and paper, it would be much faster and I would not have to worry about typos since it is impossible to do them when you are writing by hand I usually did most of my creative writing on paper, so maybe writing the computer is blocking some of my ideas and inspirations. For me, computers are not the Muse's best friends, and I guess I will stick to that. This may mean fewer posts here, because now the writing practice is a priority for me. I am not very happy today because I planned chilling out with a book and working on my writing, and had to do a translation instead Now I would like to turn the computer off, but I still have my Duolingo etc. to complete. I noticed also that I could not concentrate on my translation today, I made frequent breaks and could not work consistently, whereas yesterday I had a razor sharp focus and finished the text very quickly. Maybe it is because I stayed late last night to read the writing book, or maybe because I planned rest and relaxation for today and could not implement it. Also, the computer could not recognise my favourite mouse and I had to use a different mouse instead, I had problems with it since when I wanted to select a text, it selected either part of it or some random letters However, I connected the old mouse to another USB port and now it works like a charm. I guess the problems with the mouse made me really nervous, since I cannot work quickly with the laptop's touchpad and I had a lot to do today. I managed to finish the translation though, and now I am dreaming about reading and practising my writing As for GoT, I thought it was all over, but I had a nightmare about it last night My Mum watched a programme in which they said that nightmares express our deepest fears, which is true in my case, since I am really afraid of relapsing to GoT. It was only a dream, I did not do anything bad, though it seems to me that it might have contributed to my mood today.

Hello Sashiku, what allergies do you have? I am also allergic, mostly to pollen of various plants, particularly birches, and I cannot enjoy this beautiful spring like people with no allergies, so I understand what you are going though and how you feel, having to miss an interesting event because of allergy I take all my meds and yet the allergy subsists, though I do not have runny nose but rather cough terribly whenever I want to say something, it is such a choking cough. I can watch the garden with its plants growing only from my window Luckily I can work from home or things might have been worse.

Hello guys and girls, it seems that I would be able to keep posting to my journal, after all. I have just read what the first writing exercise is about, and it is freewriting, I simply have to write for ten minutes. It does not specify whether it has to be fiction writing such as a short story or a poem, so I guess posts in this journal may do as well. I remember we used to do a similar exercise at the university in which we had to write a daily journal, though this was more of an exercise in the use of English than freewriting. The similarity was that subject matter was not important, but grammatical correctness and vocabulary etc. counted, unlike in freewriting where it is OK to make a lot of mistakes and correct them later. I am not following this rule very closely;) It also says one is not going to show the writing to anyone, but I interpreted this rule in such as way that it is not obligatory to show it to someone, but the author can do it if they want to. So maybe these exercises can form a basis of my journal posts here. I am not very happy with what I did yesterday, I did not read any chapters from the writing book, though I read the author’s blog and other writing-related articles. But I did not write anything, apart from the posts on the forum here. It is so addictive to write here, when I log on the forum I cannot resist checking all the new posts to find out if the people whom I follow posted anything or whether I can help someone with their problems. I had a terrible nightmare yesterday (nothing games or GoT related, though), and it really helped me when I started to read the forum and look for solutions to other people’s troubles. I guess it made me understand my own issues are not so great, after all. Cam, thanks for asking about cravings, I guess it is not difficult to have few cravings if you are not really addicted in the first place The ones related to GoT have almost totally disappeared, now I feel I am OK with never knowing how the series is going to end, which was my main problem since this desire made me return to it again and again in spite of problems caused by doing this. Maybe it helped a bit that I deleted a small 12 megabytes folder with things I gathered about the series, these included some scans of newspaper articles I made for my pen pal, a scholarly article, a song and some colouring pages Now I feel like I reached some kind of closure with the series, since I no longer have these materials. But I did think a bit about the books' author in connection with his skill of building convincing characters, which is undoubted, but all the same not enough to justify breaking the detox and losing my progress As far as games are concerned, I play sometimes, though due to the repetitive nature of the gameplay I am usually quickly bored, and I consider many other activities (such as MOOC courses, Italian lessons, writing exercises etc.) much more interesting and worthwhile than gaming. There is no "ban" on games as such, unlike in the case of GoT, and I am "allowed" to play if I want, but I actually do not want very often So games are now reserved for days when I feel bad such as when I am sick or having a period and it is hard to do anything productive anyway. I do my Duolingo, Memrise and Khan Academy everyday, so it is no longer anything I have to struggle to do, now I am looking for new challenges and maybe the writing exercises would prove to be so. Today I was rather productive, as I got a text to translate, so work and I managed to do it faster than usually, I use a software called Focus Booster to motivate me, so that I turn it on when I start the translation, and when the FB is on, I concentrate on the translation and do not browse any websites not directly related to the translation task, even productive one such as Duolingo. The timer in FB is set up as 25 minutes, and this is what I use for translation, but I changed it to 10 minutes for freewriting. I also completed the quiz on the legal course and got all answers correct on the first try. It seems to me that detoxing from GoT made me more productive and focused, because I do not spend time checking the blogs and various websites to find out the recaps and reviews of the episodes. I generally avoid pop culture news sites, which I used to frequent before, most of them are blocked by my Leechblock anyway, as they contain the forbidden GoT keyword. I had to add this forum to exceptions to be able to write here at all. Anyway, I do not have Leechblock on my other computer (a slow PC), and I am not tempted to check the GoT related websites there even though it is technically possible. So I guess I am slowly getting cured of this obsession. And I am very strongly motivated to abstain from it. No idea why the above is in italics, I copied and pasted a part of it from a Word document I used for my freewriting. It is strange because I did not use italics in Word. And it suddenly disappeared when I began this paragraph but not when I started others. Here is the blog post by Barbara Baig about the freewriting exercise, if someone is interested: http://www.wherewriterslearn.com/blog.htm?post=956182

I see. In my times we wrote our assignments by hand... oh, I sound like an old grandmother What kind of tasks are these? At the university, the lecturers demanded that the essays should be typed on the computer, but of course I could write it first on paper and then type it onto my machine. Do you have to use special computer software to do your homework? Maybe there is a way to prepare for doing the homework beforehand, e.g. by studying relevant chapters in the textbook so that you have a grasp of the material and can do the homework faster? Maybe you should try to talk to your parents again and explain to them how important making music is to you?

You can use the time without computer to do your homework, so later you would have more free time to devote to your music.

Maybe you should talk to your dad about these limits? Ask him to remove them and explain why they are a problem. Why were these limits introduced in the first place? Is there any other way you could work on your music without using a computer?

Happy birthday, Piotr This is the first game-free birthday in your life, but there are many more to come, wish you beautiful future without games, but with your dreams fulfilled.

I am an avid reader and no stranger to losing a bit of sleep over an interesting book, if a book is hard to put down and full of cliff-hangers, it is normal to read until you know how it ends, there is nothing wrong with it. What exactly are the problems reading causes in your life? It may be you are over-reacting as I was with my supposed addiction to games. Books are not interactive and I do not think they can make you addicted the same way games may, generally reading is something good and nobody recommends quitting it, in fact teachers, librarians and educators are constantly looking for new ways to get young people interested in reading. I don't think you should quench your love for reading. Think what are specific problems reading causes in your life, and maybe share them here so others can decide whether you are not too harsh on yourself. And anyway, there is no point in trying to quit reading and gaming at the same time, what you would do for relaxation? Human beings need relaxing activities to unwind and so to be able to work more effectively. I do not think it is a good idea to quit reading at all, it is a much better than gaming, since it may teach you a lot, from vocabulary and grammar which you can use in your own writing, to understanding human behaviour, having more empathy towards others because in books you can come across with people and events very different from your own immediate environment. Which genres do you like? Are you still at school? From the mention of exams I guess you are. There is nothing wrong with reading books before exams, provided you have been studying your school subjects during the school year and have done your revisions. In fact, it is even advisable to read a book or go to the cinema a day before the exam to alleviate stress and to stop worrying about the exam, take your thoughts elsewhere. I believe that the benefits of reading far outweigh the possible disadvantages. I would like to give you some advice but I have to know more about your problem with books. If you not comfortable with writing on a public forum, you can send me a private message. The only thing that comes to my mind now is to couple your reading experience with learning a foreign language: read in a language you are learning on such a level that you can understand written text in this language without checking every word in a dictionary. You can write down any new words you encounter in a book, and you would remember them better because of seeing them in context.

Hello Nick, I have been reading through your journal and I managed to reach the latest post I would like to comment on the issue with losing friends, I am not doing a gaming detox (I've completed it this January), but I am detoxing myself from "Game of Thrones," as you can see in my journal, and since I began the detox last Sunday, I cannot really write back to my pen friend, with whom I used to discuss the series. I do not want to lose the friendship but I am at a loss how to explain it to her and what to write about, I feel as if I was "detoxing" myself from my friend too, which is sad because I value our relationship very much But anyway it is nice to discover that I am not the only one who experiences this. Good luck with your gaming detox

Hello Danni, it is nice to hear from you, and I am glad to read that my posts might have helped someone on this forum. This is one of the reason I am not very consistent with my own journal, I consider it more worthwhile to try and give some advice to other people who are struggling more than I ever did than to concentrate on writing about myself. I am not as addicted as other people, perhaps I am not really addicted as I have never spent 10 hours a day playing games (and I cannot really imagine how it is possible to play for so long), so I guess if I can help other people on the forums with something I was good at, such as study methods, it is a better thing to do that to try and write something in the journal. Anyway, yesterday I devoted more time to my writing, I am happy because I wrote two new poems for my Mum to give her on Mother's Day, and I also quite spontaneously enrolled in a fiction writing course (while my main focus is poetry). I also reflected on my attitude to my own writing and concluded that I consider it so worthless that I do not spend time on it, though I could easily find the time if I wanted. The problem is I believe I have no talent and so time spent writing will be wasted, because I would never achieve any high level no matter how long I write. I also perceived writing as self-indulgent activity, because in writing I express my own thoughts, emotions etc. and in this way this is an activity concentrated on myself. And whereas forum posts may indeed help someone, this is not the case with a short story or a poem, where there is no easy, direct correlation between the written text and helping another person, it might be of some aid to someone, but not to the extent that "physical" help such as cooking or cleaning a house are. So it seemed to me that by writing I am not doing something for other people, but rather concentrate on myself and my own sense of self. And because I was sure that I have no talent, I believed that by devoting time to writing I would be self-indulgent and without the hope of creating quality content. Yesterday, I was browsing my Kindle library for books on creative writing, I remembered that I downloaded some when there was a promotion on Writer's Digest and the books were available for free. I opened each of them and read through the table of contents and first chapters to find out which one may be the right one for me at the moment. I came across one by Barbara Baig, in which the author claims that you do not need to have some mysterious quality called "talent" to write, you only need to practice the skills a writer needs to use, such as coming up with the ideas to write about and connecting to your readers, which she calls "content skills," and these can be acquired by systematic practice of writing exercises. I have not reached the part of the book with the actual exercises yet, and I am still sceptical, but I do agree with some of the author's notions. For instance, I guess she is right in that at school we do not really learn how to write, and as all our writing is to be assessed and graded by teachers, writing is actually a source of stress since everyone wants to do well and get the best grade, and as the writer says, stress is not good for the learning process and can in fact hinder the acquisition of knowledge and skill. She uses the comparison with pianists who practice a lot before they even attempt to perform in public, so writers should practice doing writing exercises before they try and write a piece they want to share with others (a publishable story or a poem is the writer's equivalent of a public performance). So far, it seems convincing, but I haven't read about the exercises yet I guess it may be boring for other people on the forum, so it is time to end this post. Or maybe someone has already tried this method? Here is a link to a booklet that explains this technique, if someone is interested: http://www.wherewriterslearn.com/files/BaigMastery_Path.pdf I am writing about it because I am not sure whether I would continue to keep this journal, I would like to concentrate on reading this book and doing the writing exercises, so perhaps it would not be possible to post here every day if I want to do the writing practice. I guess it is a different kind of writing than here on the forum, and preparing such posts may not qualify as writing practice so I may not be able to post here on busy days. Though I may share some interesting insights I get from the book and elsewhere. As for GoT, I see a lot of improvement as I do not really have any cravings and the dreams about the series ceased ( I hope for good), and I am less and less curious about what happens in a new episode, which makes me close to attaining my goal of losing interest in the franchise (so that I would not have to avoid GoT because I would simply be indifferent to it). The only problem is that I still haven't written back to my friend with whom I was discussing the series. Any advice on that?

Hello, Miharu, I've been browsing through your diary and noticed that one of your plans was to stop reading fiction, I wonder why you want to do it? I have always been an avid reader and I believe that literature is a great replacement when you want to quit gaming. Why do you want to stop reading fiction? On some moral grounds? I believe there is nothing wrong with fiction, in fact, enjoying stories in embedded in human nature, and storytelling was present in human life from pre-historical times, here is an article I once found when I was researching why we humans enjoy and need fictional stories so much: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-storytelling-animal/201205/fiction-addiction

Good luck Paulo I am sure you will make it, you are certainly a talented person. Would you like to share your works here on the forum? Maybe it would motivate you more if you had audience waiting impatiently for a new artwork of yours?