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Need help: Youtube and Netflix instead of gaming??


Boltuschkin

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Hey guys, 

so I have been trying to quit gaming but instead of improving my life I find myself binge watching YouTube or Netflix time after time. I just can't seem to be able to quit everything at once especially since it's a lot of fun to watch a couple of videos or a movie. 

Any advice? 

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My boat as well. I thought I was doing pretty good for myself on the whole quitting gaming, that is until I actually evaluated how I was spending my time, at which point I was hit by the train of truth, that truth being that the time I spent mindlessly watching YouTube videos wasn't any more productive than the time I would spend gaming. Thus for the past three days I have quit YouTube entirely in addition to quitting gaming. Hasn't been easy, but I've found telling myself constantly that it will get easier with time has helped. Additionally I know exactly why I want to quit gaming and YouTube, which I use as a motivator any time I feel like I'm about to flop; by that I mean, before making a rash decision to quickly navigate to YouTube for a quick video binge session, I take a minute to remind myself why I am doing this after which I generally find the willpower to steer clear of that treacherous swamp of instant gratification and intellectually crippling balderdash.

Otherwise advice that might help: Go outside and get away from your devices, turn off; sell or get rid of your devices, block those websites using blockers, find alternative hobbies and if you fall... get back up, always keep moving forward.

Alternatively get yourself arrested and put into solitary confinement. (I don't advocate this and I am not responsible if you or anyone takes this route, but I mean it is technically an option for breaking bad habits...)

 

I hope to hear of your triumphs in the future!

 

 

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On 1/27/2020 at 12:42 PM, Boltuschkin said:

Any advice? 

There are different approaches:

Do other activities like take a walk. The more easy the activity, the more it will help you to stop thinking about media.

Set a time limit how long you are allowed to consume any sort of media a day (I set myselve 1 Hour once, slowly it was easier to turn off Movies even in the middle, until I did not watch any media for a while).

Try mediation i. e. nothing electronic to reach for x amount of minutes.

Do you watch nonsense media or real educational videos? Becouse there are tons of educationional videos for any topic at youtube (gardening, music, crafting, camping, you name it), for free. I think it's the better wikipedia (becouse you can listen to it while doing other stuff). It's sad that the most dump videos got the most clicks. But I would consider still doing a time limit on that. Becouse all the theory in the world is not as good as practice. Maybe those videos help you to find your next hobby.

If you really want to learn something new however, there is nothing better than a good book. Try visit a library or a book store(they sometimes allow you to read for free).

Edited by creationlist
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33 minutes ago, creationlist said:

There are different approaches:

Do other activities like take a walk. The more easy the activity, the more it will help you to stop about thinking of media.

Set a time limit how long you are allowed to consume any sort of media a day (I set myselve 1 Hour once, slowly it was easier to turn off Movies even in the middle, until I did not watch any media for a while).

Try mediation i. e. nothing electronic to reach for x amount of minutes.

Do you watch nonsense media or real educational videos? Becouse there are tons of educationional videos for any topic at youtube (gardening, music, crafting, camping, you name it), for free. I think it's the better wikipedia (becouse you can listen to it while doing other stuff). It's sad that the most dump videos got the most clicks. But I would consider still doing a time limit on that. Becouse all the theory in the world is not as good as practice. Maybe those videos help you to find your next hobby.

If you really want to learn something new however, there is nothing better than a good book. Try visit a library or a book store(they sometimes allow you to read for free).

Thanks for the reply and the advice!

The problem is that I feel useless, like I am wasting time when I do nothing like taking a walk or lying in bed to chill. I feel like I should be doing something productive. 

Yeah I watch a lot of self development videos, but there is a line where it just gets to much which I cross often enough. I really don't seem to be able to adhere to the rules I set myself and when I break them I just feel like shit lol. For the last couple of days I only opened youtube if I knew what I was going to watch beforehand, so no more browsing which works good enough for now I guess. 

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7 hours ago, Southern Northerner said:

My boat as well. I thought I was doing pretty good for myself on the whole quitting gaming, that is until I actually evaluated how I was spending my time, at which point I was hit by the train of truth, that truth being that the time I spent mindlessly watching YouTube videos wasn't any more productive than the time I would spend gaming. Thus for the past three days I have quit YouTube entirely in addition to quitting gaming. Hasn't been easy, but I've found telling myself constantly that it will get easier with time has helped. Additionally I know exactly why I want to quit gaming and YouTube, which I use as a motivator any time I feel like I'm about to flop; by that I mean, before making a rash decision to quickly navigate to YouTube for a quick video binge session, I take a minute to remind myself why I am doing this after which I generally find the willpower to steer clear of that treacherous swamp of instant gratification and intellectually crippling balderdash.

Otherwise advice that might help: Go outside and get away from your devices, turn off; sell or get rid of your devices, block those websites using blockers, find alternative hobbies and if you fall... get back up, always keep moving forward.

Alternatively get yourself arrested and put into solitary confinement. (I don't advocate this and I am not responsible if you or anyone takes this route, but I mean it is technically an option for breaking bad habits...)

 

I hope to hear of your triumphs in the future!

 

 

Thanks for the kind words Mr.! 

Yeah the idea of reminding yourself what you are doing all of this for sound pretty good tbh 🤔  But don't you feel that you miss out on new information and don't you miss the feeling of just mindlessly chilling for bit by quitting YouTube completly?

Good luck on your journey too my friend 💪🏼

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9 hours ago, Boltuschkin said:

The problem is that I feel useless, like I am wasting time when I do nothing like taking a walk or lying in bed to chill. I feel like I should be doing something productive. 

That is the whole point of wasting time, in a meditating manner. For me, wasting time with media did not have the effect of feeling like "a bummer". However when I just sit there thinking about something without any form of electronics arround, I get motivated really fast and take action.

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On 1/28/2020 at 12:43 AM, Boltuschkin said:

Thanks for the kind words Mr.! 

Yeah the idea of reminding yourself what you are doing all of this for sound pretty good tbh 🤔  But don't you feel that you miss out on new information and don't you miss the feeling of just mindlessly chilling for bit by quitting YouTube completly?

Good luck on your journey too my friend 💪🏼

I do indeed feel like I miss out on new information especially since about half of the YouTube videos I would typically watch would be more on the educational side. But what I came to realize was the key difference between knowing / being familiar with a topic and actually understanding a topic. And most of the videos I would watch on YouTube would inform me of the topic to the point where I felt like I knew it, but if someone actually asked me to explain something in depth, I would not be able to. The other kind of information I would receive from YouTube is news and updates on what's going on in the world which I feel like I'm missing out on now, but I've also come to realize that most of the things I am informed of on YouTube are negative and since I can't do anything about them, it ends up causing pointless stress. I have also realized that really knowing and being up to date on all this information, really doesn't positively benefit my life in any meaningful way.

The other half of content I consume on YouTube can only be described as entertainment and nothing more. And since most of the videos in this half fall into the gaming category, I find other than just wasting my time, it also contributes to having more cravings towards video games.

 

What I have found helps me greatly is to look really critically at your habits and really establish for yourself why they are bad. Our brains are constantly trying to trick us into justifying our addictive behaviors, sometimes to the point where we convince ourselves we don't have a problem when we actually do. To find examples of this, just look around you at the many people who will tell you they don't have a problem with using their phone, gaming, with abusing alcohol, drugs etc; even though they, to an outside observer, obviously do. I believe many people fail their journey into quitting games simply because at some point they manage to justify gaming in their lives and thus no longer believe they have a problem. And this is where making it really clear to yourself from the start, why these habits are harmful in as much detail as possible allows you to fight back when your brain starts attempting to justify these habits again.

 

Regarding mindless chilling on YouTube, I defiantly miss it... I miss it a lot actually... Now that I don't mindlessly chill on YouTube, I'm finally actually realizing how many problems I have in my life: Mental, Emotional, Health, etc. And now I can't ignore them, which is really scary since I'm so used to running away from the challenges in my life. What effect having to face all these things are going to have on my life is yet to be determined, but surly facing my problems and not running away from them will, in time, have a positive effect on my life.

 

Don't know if this helps or applies to you but this is what I've experienced thus far and I thought I would share.

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It seems you are trying to find a gaming replacement and the easiest and most comfortable way out for you is watching streams, videos or series.

Try finding some activities which you have to do outside of your comfortable homey nest. You could try finding a sports club or go visit nearby attractions. Get a calendar or note book in which you plan what activities you want to do beforehand, write them down and then focus on doing them day by day.

I'd also suggest you to avoid your computer completely for some time. Put away your keyboard. Put it into a locker for example and see if it helps you to start doing other things that are more healthy and fulfilling.

 

I'm personally not only addicted to gaming, I'm also addicted to computer usage. I'm in the same boat and I'm working with my psychotherapist on this at full speed atm.

YouTube takes up a good chunk of my daily time. I'd say I've become addicted to YouTube & Twitch as much as I am addicted to gaming. I can sit for hours in front of my PC and it doesn't really matter what I do, just sitting in front of it gives me a calm and good feeling, which is incredibly treacherous as it ruins our lifes in the long run as we all know. Weighing ourselves into such false comfort is one of the components which makes addiction so dangerous. Therefore one might easily think, it feels so good,  how could sitting here ever have a negative effect on me? - because I feel good, so it must do me good right?

I like to think in the analogy of a person eating each day, without exception, a big fat pizza with triple the amount of cheese + 3 cream cakes - because it tastes so good, but they lack the understanding that their behavior will most likely affect their health negatively in a big way. We understand that, but while we are addicted, we struggle to understand the negative impacts that are to come (or are already here) when it comes to games (and computer usage).

The people who come to this forum have already seen through this deception and understand that games are affecting them in very negative ways. Congratulations, you are here too. This is a very important and groundbreaking step into a more fulfilling and addiction free life of yours.

Edited by Silent3d
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