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Faroe Islander

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2nd day without internet.

1st day was rough got up late, tried to go outside to meet some people but they weren't at home, ended up wondering the city while dealing with headaches but managed to get by and ge have a nice afternoon with some friends 

2nd was better, the morning was a bit difficult, left for a volunteering program in the city, It helped a lot. I'm anxious about not having done enough work to consider that I spent well the summer and I can feel a bit lonely or lost during the day, hope that with time I can regain a bit of the focus and find ways to deal with cravings stress and feelings of unsatisfaction / feeling like I haven't done enough

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day 1 again 

managed to get away from the internet until like 7 PM then started listening to music which inevitably led to checking other youtube channels for music and eventually getting hooked for 2h ish. If I had to be completely objective I would have to look at this as a victory, I haven't managed to go without internet for 2 days in a row since July and even that was when I had no internet service. I'm just frustrated by the lack of progress and scared by the idea that this week is my best chance to get through the worst of the symptoms in the first days of quitting, after this week I won't have the voluteers course and my social activities, time spent in a "safe space" and entertainment will drop significantly

 

Tomorrow I'll try tho fix the time when I wake up and do something about the night, maybe using a old cell phone is the way

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day 1 

cravings and a bit of confusion in the morning, got through it

went to the volunteers  activities, had a fun time and got to talk for a bit about general stuff with people it feels good to converse with people

studied in the library and did some sport during the late evening and went back home to finish general tasks that I had to accomplish 

 

have to manage a bit better my time to go to bed but apart from that today has been a good day, learned quite a bit about what I was lacking (someone to hear/talk to and doing new exciting activities) 

I hope I get to have another day like this, I'll be cautious for now, there wil be good days and there will be bad days but at least the bad days will be a hopeful shade of bad which at least is something new and better

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day 1 tracked int relapsed for 20 mins + music while doing work 

I'm going to log the amount of hours spent on the internet, a few years ago it was 8/day this year it was something along the lines of 3-4/day with some months going as low as 0 or 1h/ day this summer it jumped to 2-4 my goal is to bring it down to at least 2 with the ultimate goal being to get completely rid of it

Today

Youtube: 1h edit 4h, sad

Music: 1 just doing nothing extra 2 while drawing 

 

Edited by Faroe Islander
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Day 3 1h of internet + 30m of music planted some trees and went to the cinema in the afternoon, horrible day of heat over here 40+ degree's got through it but I got tired and ended up not doing as many physical activities or studying as I would have liked to

Best accomplishment: Managing to say no 3-4 times to staying at home and binging youtube/twitch content I still need a bit of work when it comes to distancing myself completely from social media (youtube...) but this is good progress.

 

For now my current goal is to  get through these hard days of lots of heat and no place to go (library closed) while reducing time spent on the internet as much as posible tomorrow I'll try to be outside as much as posible and aim for a social media free day

Edited by Faroe Islander
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Tried moderation, didn't really work how I expected it to, the first day was fine, just 1h then it went downhill from there, with around 4h days 

I think I struggle because I always carry my phone with me and because over the years I've been constantly telling myself that I can't control it and the only way to quit is cold turkey, I don't think I'll be able to easily change that so the best way would be to sell or hand my phone to someone I trust with specific instructions on how and when to give it to me. Surprisingly I don't have such a bad relationship with my pc and I already have some good tools and unconscious it to deal with my problems so that's should be a way to not end up living under the rock.

I just know that I'm constantly falling behind and I feel a bit pathetic when I talk with friends about big issues they have in life which feel like much more respectable problems and better learning experiences. 

 

From experience I know that my biggest issues will be dealing with boredom, and the cravings it brings with it while not going too fast.

I feel like I have so much to do but when I start I feel like I'm going slow and get overwhelmed so I'll have to learn to deal with that.

I just know that I need to fix my environment a bit and try to recover some of my old hobbies like sports cooking drawing or having good conversations with friends and make new ones like going out or and continuing the courses I started I hope I just don't get overwhelmed and manage to push through this time.

I'll try to tell some more people what I'm doing and rely a bit more on them and hope it helps for now I've already planned to visit one friend tomorrow and that's pretty much it I should have enough experience when dealing with the internet to achieve this which is to go on for 90 days and If I can my whole life but here we go.

 

Day 1/90 17 agust 2022 00:01AM

Actions

-Arranged it to meet friend

-planned to go to the library in the morning to study 

-gave phone to relative

-put up cold turkey again 3months for social media(youtube, twitch, tik tok, insta... ) kept a messenger app for communication 1 week for more "useful distractions" like discord/reddit...

 

Feelings

-Not much, pensive maybe, no big emotion, those disappeared  months ago, just calm for now as I know that I'm going to sleep in just a bit 

-Cravings 

-1/1 int

-1/1 p

 

Problems 

-Easy to access phone

-Back pain

-lack of hobbies

 

Sol for tomorrow

-reach out to more friends 

-go to library am

-go to basket pm

-have a talk with friend 

 

Objective

-Create a routine

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Faroe Islander
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On 8/16/2022 at 6:49 PM, Faroe Islander said:

I think I struggle because I always carry my phone with me and because over the years I've been constantly telling myself that I can't control it

Your mindset will make or break you when it comes to an undertaking like this. It's all about what you tell yourself mentally. If you've been telling yourself for years that you can't control it, of course that's what's going to occur. Repeat something to yourself enough times and it becomes truth, no matter how outlandish it may seem. Your mind will find a way to make it happen. What you need to do is change your inner dialogue. Tell yourself that you have complete control over your phone addiction and that using your phone in excess just isn't something that you do. Repeat these things to yourself enough times and they will become truth, guaranteed. I used this strategy to beat a PMO (porn, masturbation, orgasm) addiction. I haven't engaged in that behavior for over a month now. I just told myself that PMO is not something I do, and it worked. Thoughts are so much more powerful than you think. Think about something enough and it will manifest into reality. Try adjusting your inner dialogue and let me know if it works.

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Day 2/90 18 agust 2022 00:01AM

Actions

-Arranged it to meet a group of friends

-Had a long conversation with a friend

-studied in the library and sorted out transportation papers in the morning 

 

 

Feelings

-A bit pensive during the night but overall better than yesterday, had some cravings and intrusive thoughts, specially during the midday but it went well, going to the library with no phone and then enjoying the company and support of a friend definitely helped a lot

-Cravings 

-7 int

-2 p

 

Problems 

-Back pain

-lack of hobbies

-sleep schedule

-intrusive thoughts

 

Sol for tomorrow

-go for a walk am 

-restarting my drawing hobby

-setting up the alarm clock to ring 1h before bedtime

-meditation and paying more attention to thoughts

 

Objective

-Create/reinforce multiple aspects of my daily routine 

 

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Day 3/90 18 agust 2022 11:32 PM

Actions

-Meet a group of friends

-Had a long conversation with a friend about problems she was facing 

-did some house chores

-napped midday (conclusion: not really good for me, it throws off with my sleep schedule and I usually end up wake up more tired and with more cravings that when I started dozing off)

-did some sport pm

-included meditation in night routine

 

Feelings

-Feeling a bit lost and like I'm not really doing anything, I wake up late (8-9AM) and feel like I struggle to get the day moving, and I don't really do anything productive, conceptually I know that I'm improving my social skills and personal relationships which until this point were sorely lacking but I can't really get rid of this though that I haven't done much with my summer vacations

-Cravings 

-12 int today was really rough I had to take my phone with me and struggled in terms of trying to not relapse because of it

-5 p I need to make sure that I don't end up just switching addictions with this one, until now I've been able to keep it under control but when I try to quit the internet this one always get's more problematic in terms of cravings and issues it generates  

 

Problems 

-Back pain (it got a bit better)

-lack of hobbies

-sleep schedule (managed to now go to bed earlier around 12PM but it is still not good enough as I usually was a morning type of person

-intrusive thoughts

-p + midday cravings, tiredness and boredom

 

Sol for tomorrow

-long bike ride in these next days

-doing a bit more drawing this time trying to consciously rely on it when boredom appears

-setting up the alarm clock to ring 1h before bedtime

-meditation and paying more attention to thoughts

-looking for a block app for the phone and giving it to a relative again 

 

Objective

-Manage to enjoy the trip and use this time to distance myself from the internet while learning to deal with having to carry my phone with me without indulging in copious amounts of social media content consumption

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Actions

-Traveled

-Tried to study during the trip (unsuccessful)

-Organised things upon arrival 

-Studied for like 1h

 

Feelings

-More or less calm today was easier than yesterday I think this in a great part due to me not carrying my phone with me and instead just using my computer for everything. I know I could have done more but right now I feel that somehow today was just fine maybe that is just because of how tired I ended up from traveling all day but I'll take it

-Cravings 

-4 int definitely better that yesterday, let's see what happens in the next days, for me they always used to peak around the 5th and 10th day of quitting so I'll be cautious

-3 p not bad, managed to deal with them well maybe because it was in general a calmer day 

 

Problems 

-Back pain (I don't know how this one will be after what I had to deal with today, I'll just stretch and wish for the best)

-lack of hobbies

-sleep schedule (today I hope to bring it back to 23:00 so that's great)

-intrusive thoughts (not so bad today)

-p + midday cravings, tiredness and boredom (not so bad today)

 

Sol for tomorrow

-long bike ride in these next days

-doing a bit more drawing this time trying to consciously rely on it when boredom appears

-setting up the alarm clock to ring 1h before bedtime

-meditation and paying more attention to thoughts

 

Objective

-Manage to enjoy the trip and use this time to distance myself from the internet while learning to deal with having to carry my phone with me without indulging in copious amounts of social media content consumption

 

Summary 

Calm day, still have some issues with the internet, sleep schedules, habits and lack of hobbies it is slowly getting better and removing my smart phone from my environment definitely helped, normal tasks like daily chores or studying are becoming more enjoyable or at least less tedious/hard to start which is great. A tiring but otherwise calm day 

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Day 5/90 

-Spent most of the day following my family around, got really bored and had to deal with lots of intrusive thoughts and cravings, still don't know if it was a good thing or not, it helped me stay outside but also lead to lots of boredom and difficulties it was definitely a learning experience to know what I'm missing and what I should do to not have as many problems

-My main concerns right now are to not take any rush/stupid actions and to not have caused issues to my relatives, I just spent the whole day kind of distant, nervous and on the edge, hope tomorrow will be better 

-For now I'm just happy it is done my objective hasn't changed, I still have to deal with all that is causing these issues, like a lack of hobbies, times where I just let it go, little or no passions and a rusty social life but with time and the adjustments I've been making over the years this should start to get sorted out

Still have to watch out for the tv today I just ended up staying up an extra 2h because I could manage to cut it 

Edited by Faroe Islander
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Day 6/90

-Spent most of the day outside, saw some plays and did some kayaking it was pretty fun being outside, this probably helped with withdrawals as I didn't really have many. I should try to find similar activities that can be done in my non-vacation days

-Didn't do much in terms of work apart from 1 ir 2 h but it felt good,  a nice and calm day 

-I have to be careful with memes though they have caused me much trouble on other runs and in a way they are similar to the time waste that I want to distance myself from

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Day 7/90

-Spent most of the day traveling, a calm day overall I'm still having thoughts about wanting to play, what it could feel like, what I could do in those games or what It could help me model/use to learn about statistics or cs. Of course I know that every time I've done it until now I just ended up playing but I still have the irrational urge to just play.

-For now I'm going to continue with the "internet fast" as I still want to reevaluate my relationship with games+social media content, I know that right now it is taking way to much time away from me and stopping me from trying to do many things I had wanted to do previously. I'm not against using the internet to do research/study but I don't think that using it for entertainment purposes will get me anywhere.

-I don't know if I want to leave open the possibility of ever returning to games as it could be dangerous, I can't shear that I'll leave it forever but I'll try to at least for 90 days if I should try to leave it for ever I still don't know I'll see it as I go forward

-Spent 30m-1h watching memes + quite a bit of music it is not completely losing but if I keep this up I will end up just having to call this a relapse

Edited by Faroe Islander
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back from a trip more or less

it was a good and more or less tough experience , I finally got to try out new things and go forward with plans that I hadn't dare to try out.

Most importantly it gave me time to think about what I want to do moving forward specially on where I want to go with my studies and career, It also gave me  the opportunity to have a few good discussions with friends through text messaging and see them deal with tough situations and grow as a result and also learn about my own flaws and things I want to correct.

In the end when I got back home I did end up binging a bit of internet for 2h more or less which shows me that I still have lots of work to do but somehow I feel like I have finally made a bit of a breakthrough. For a long time I have not been enjoying social media (youtube, twitch...) it was more like a distraction or temporary relief rather than an actual fun activity which I can fondly look back upon this hasn't changed the only thing that has is that I'm starting to see other possibilities about where I could go and what I could do.

Surprisingly I don't feel bad about these past 2 or so hours, I do fear or at least respect the big problem they represent (getting sucked back into a self hating circle of  addiction) they have just slipped by me one at a time starting with small music videos/memes and then growing into actually watching the shows I had wanted to avoid, but in return it has just been solidifying the idea that I don't really enjoy them and that I can do other things instead of them.

I don't know if I should restart the counter or keep it as it was. Maybe I should try just an average h/week kind of counter although those do not have the same amount of emphasis on quitting. I think that for now my best bet is to just keep cementing the idea that I'm not into social media anymore and that I have better things to do with my life.

For now I'll just keep it the way it was, not counting days just having a general idea of week averages and habits while taking a big emphasis on staying away from the internet as much as possible.

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Have you deleted the apps you want to avoid? I deleted YouTube off my phone and I haven't touched it since, even on my laptop. I did the same with all social media. Just creating that barrier between you and what you want to avoid, no matter how small, works wonders for dropping bad habits.

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22 hours ago, Paul A. said:

Have you deleted the apps you want to avoid? I deleted YouTube off my phone and I haven't touched it since, even on my laptop. I did the same with all social media. Just creating that barrier between you and what you want to avoid, no matter how small, works wonders for dropping bad habits.

Yes I have tried some blocking apps, they are one of the main reasons why I'm able to stay on the computer and actually get work done. One of the things that is still troubling me is finding a reliable blocking app for the smart phone and then deciding wether it is a good idea to have it and there are some devices which I can't significantly block since I share them with my relatives

Right now I find myself constantly debating wether using lots of blockers is a good idea. For the computer sure, I want it to be as easy as posible to slip into the state of mind required for not getting distracted and being productive but on the phone I keep having this thought that maybe if I leave it, it be a tool for me to learn some self control which sometimes works and other times just ends up throwing me back into the spiral of content consumption

My problem is that through the years I have just learned ways to get around them and they have slowly pushed myself to the extremes even leading to me completely reseting the phone so I could use them again or just finding another app that does exactly the same so sometimes I feel like I'm stuck in a bit of a limbo not knowing whether getting more blockers will help or just fuel the problem long term

These latest days of just traveling I was always exposed to the internet and sometimes I managed to say no but other times it got me with the it's just a meme that your friend sent you it isn't that bad plus it would be rude to not see it and react. I tried some of the strategies with mindfulness and telling myself + acting in the way I wanted to finally be (saying I don't need it, closing the app and moving on) and it has definitely helped a bit, it is just that sometimes I'm very distracted by nature and I do things without realising  or thinking it though, or I just completely forget about them and just end up feeling like "We'll I messed up already so I guess there is no point in holding out any longer" and start binging for 1-3 days

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Relapse again, it started well with me keeping exclusively to music or learning related content but ended up spiraling out of control for a few hours and I didn't get to do much in the morning. The afternoon was only saved by the single reason that I had important appointments, but I'm not confident on how the day would have ended if I hadn't had those.

 

Today I'm restarting the counter and trying to make this last streak memorable so that I don't feel like it was for nothing and I keep in mind the progress that I have made. Apart from that I'm going to start a book on dopamine, put more effort into mindfulness and keep getting responsibilities and support from friends.

 

Here to hopefully another good run Day 1 hour 0 Monday 29/8 22:33

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Hello. Your journal is good. I use blockers too. I think it is cool practise

On 8/28/2022 at 2:47 AM, Faroe Islander said:

Right now I find myself constantly debating wether using lots of blockers is a good idea

Through years of using them I realised it is actually good. Think by yourself. Almost every app on computers ans phones has its distractions. Unlimited number intentionally designed to earn money by distracting you. Is it humanly possible to control all of them? 90%+ of people will tell you "No". So we actually may need some sort of automatic protection

Another thing I realised recently, blockers only work if you also pay attention to your whole life: friends, love, work, health.  For me, the more I do, the less blocks I need and vice versa if I dont, I`m prone to breaking my blocks.

Maybe if you try doing things you are getting distracted by in real life, you have less desire to get distracted by them in virtual life. At least it is my theory, whats your opinion?



 

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12 hours ago, chillenger said:

Hello. Your journal is good. I use blockers too. I think it is cool practise

Through years of using them I realised it is actually good. Think by yourself. Almost every app on computers ans phones has its distractions. Unlimited number intentionally designed to earn money by distracting you. Is it humanly possible to control all of them? 90%+ of people will tell you "No". So we actually may need some sort of automatic protection

Another thing I realised recently, blockers only work if you also pay attention to your whole life: friends, love, work, health.  For me, the more I do, the less blocks I need and vice versa if I dont, I`m prone to breaking my blocks.

Maybe if you try doing things you are getting distracted by in real life, you have less desire to get distracted by them in virtual life. At least it is my theory, whats your opinion?

 

Hi chillinger, thanks for the input.

I agree with you on the matter of blockers, right now I think they are quite useful if not necessary the modern lifestyle. My issue lately has been with worrying about what might happen in the future if the blocker fails or I have to change my device.

I worry that by just using a blocker to get rid of most of the temptations I will just delay the issue of having to break my internet habit. Many friends books and videos I've watch also strongly recommend using the so I don't know maybe it's just my addiction making up / exaggerating problems to preserve itself. Right now I'm going to switch to an old mobile phone that my grandpa gave me a few weeks ago, on the computer I already have a good and reliable blocker to deal with the problems.

 

On the topic of paying attention to my whole life I would also agree with you, right now I'm not performing well on those areas, nearly 5-6 years of reclusion due to excessive game use and social media consumption paired with my introverted tendencies have left me with some regrets and little social skills. This latest year I have improved a bit on this regard, I'm no where near what I think other people my age should be but the improvements have already shown their worth as my "sober streaks" now tend to last longer.

Right now my main issue is that the sheer amount of things to is so large that it becomes daunting and paralyzing. Most of the time I feel like I'm not making substancial progress or that I will never get there in time which just makes me want to go back into gaming because it is what I've always known and it is easier to try and recreate/fake this in the virtual world rather than having to come to terms with the scale of some of my ambitions, the possibility that they might fail and the effort + time they would take to even be started.

 

These upcoming days I'm just going to focus on my habits and on making a big poster with all my goals in it + then deciding with friends and family which of them are more or less realistic and more important, hopefully this will help me not lose track as I always start some project, get caught up in the moment, develops 5 different plans and end up forgetting every single one of them.

 

 

Edited by Faroe Islander
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Day 1 

On and off relationship with the internet, better than yesterday as I did socialice and work a couple more hours than but it is not yet at the level where I could call it a sober day though it is a good start 

As previously stated I'm going to focus on habits and making a system to consolidate and remember goals as to not end up overextending myself and just forgetting about them entirely. Hopefully cardboard, some amounts of insight from friends and summer vacation coming to an end will do the trick though I still expect to struggle with my day to day life for a while

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