Spending too much time on passive activities (TV/ Web browsing). How can I change this?

[senn 0]

Hello, thank you for clicking on my post. I was wondering if anyone could guide me in the right direction; I have successfully manged to eliminate my gaming addiction but I have replaced it with something equally as wasteful of my time: mindless web browsing and hours of TV watching.

[nstreiter 2]

Perhaps you can view your browsing and TV watching as a step down while you were eliminating gaming. Now that you recognize that behavior is equally wasteful you can actively seek to reduce it as well. If you really struggle with this you might ask yourself "what needs is it fulfilling for me and where else /how else can I get them met?" Or am I trying to escape from something I'd rather not confront? 

[LordFederickRamsay 24]

Gaming was at the epicentre of our lives, we'd invest lots of time, consciously (dream) think about it, unconsciously think about it etc. So giving up gaming is a huge achievement for people like us. But it is also a process. When I stopped the first time, I began doing what you're doing, filling my time with equally as vacuous hobbies as gaming. But...we both know that watching TV and web browsing is not nearly as detrimental as playing games. However, this doesn't excuse it. Clearly, you've gained foresight because you can see that watching TV and web browsing is not what you want to spend your time doing.

But treat yourself with compassion by reminding yourself of what you've achieved (giving up games in the first place). Now to address the problem at hand, I've recently had a revelation. You do not need to entertain every urge, thought or feeling in regards to whatever, it may be; gaming, wanking, watching TV, web-browsing etc. These things are non-reflective of your (moral) principles, opinions and self.

Personally, I created a few rules regarding hobbies such as TV and web-browsing to ensure I wasn't wasting my time. These included only watching TV shows that are the following; educational, interesting (to me), informative etc. The same goes for web-browsing. The moment I feel myself falling down the all too familiar rabbit hole of looking at memes, I step away from my thoughts and apply objectivity. To suggest more immediate, practical anecdotes to your problem, I'd suggest downloading 'Block Site' and adding your most visited sites to it. It's kind of a flawed application because you're in complete control of what websites you can or can't visit. But, I believe that someone who is as strong-willed as you (proven by your strength in giving up gaming), will be able to resist the temptation of visiting 'banned' sites. 

Edited August 23 by LordFederickRamsay

[Adminiculum 42]

Did you try a detox for electronic stuff in general(non productive stuff)?

you need alternatives which are healthy. Its not good stop gaming without non-electronic hobby alternatives

[Roste1 5]

For web browsing I highly recommend installing ColdTurkey (getcoldturkey.com) because if you set your own parameters strict enough (i.e. don't fool yourself and put in all the websites that you consider as time wasters), it's very hard to beat (unless you completely de-install it). It helps me a lot because I most of those sites (sports pages, youtube, etc...) I go to almost instinctively without being an active choice - ColdTurkey confronts me with that (if banned) or limits the time I can spend on them. For my phone I installed equally time limits on all entertainment or browsing apps. 

Main effect for me is that it's a first of all a constant confrontation and alert on the time waisted already on a day, second effect is that by blocking out all easy go-to distractions, I'm forcing myself to really do something else, because my go-to's are not available anymore. Will power is great, but there are plenty tools to help a little. 

  

[creationlist 6]

It always helped me to set a timelimit. Like 1 hour a day for enternainment.

It is hard, becouse you get to miss all the good stuff at first.

But after a while I did stop to rate entertainment as important as before.

I realized I miss something all day. But the stuff I do for myselve is more liberating than watching a show etc.