Day 1: 

My first day was fine. I had a lot of studying to do which gave me some stress. I did spend some time on youtube (around 2 hours), but no games. If anyone has any suggestions to help me reduce my time on youtube, I'll be glad to hear it!

🙂

Edited November 8, 20205 yr by Mr. Ém

From my experience, I either had to change what I was watching on YT, or cut it out entirely. Youtube and gaming went very hand in hand for me. If you're still watching gaming videos on YT, it will make detoxing a lot harder. But changing the content, to something educational or related to constructive hobbies, helped me cut down since I'm less likely to binge on such content.

Good luck with engineering. It's very difficult. All engineering students have my respect.

Day 2:

As you said JSmith, I noticed that watching videos related to gaming makes it harder. It doesn't help that when I watch videos related to gaming, I obviously get suggestions for more videos of that kind. I decided to delete all my search history and video history so that I don't get more of these suggested to me. Let's see how that goes!

The good thing is that I didn't play games today! 🙂 Still, I need to invest my time in better ways that watching videos.

 

(I swear, I do things other than recommend browser extensions. Please don't ban me, forums.)

I think a lot of us tend to hit youtube (and the internet in general!) pretty hard when we first quit. Just looking for stuff to fill the time! If you use chrome, there's an extension called 'Youtube Rabbit Hole' that gets rid of all the suggestions / recommendation bits of youtube, and essentially just turns it into something where you have to search for a particular video to find it.

I stumbled across it about a week in, and found that getting rid of that constant barrage of suggestions got rid of my lengthy youtube dives. Might help!

Day 3: 

Yesterday, I deleted all my history on youtube and I don't have any suggestions of gaming videos yet. In order to prevent that, I try as much as I can not to browse anything gaming related. I feel some stress not playing games, but it must be withdrawal symptoms. 

Still, I didn't play games today 🙂

 

Welcome @Mr. Ém!

I second what @Commissarsaid, having an app that blocks those recommended videos makes it MUCH easier to reduce YouTube time. It makes it just slightly harder to go into a binge, which is sometimes just enough. I downloaded something similar, DF Tube (Distraction Free), and that worked really well for me.

Another thing to keep in mind is that for the most part habits stick with us forever, or for a very long time. Oftentimes too, the habit fills a need that your brain is craving. You can try and fight the cravings for the basic needs your brain has, but that can take a lot of time and effort. Another thing you can do is try to replace the habit with something healthier, but still fulfills whatever that core need is.

As a personal example, I spend a lot of time on YouTube and the internet in general, myself. I tend to go on for much longer when I'm tired or lonely, and YouTube gives me this kind of low-grade stimulation to keep me awake or numb. Realizing I need either sleep or connection, I'll sometimes just turn my laptop off for 5 minutes and do nothing. If I'm tired, I fall asleep, and when I wake up I don't have the same urge to just go back on my computer. If I'm lonely, I will either a) text someone, or b) do something productive and improve myself, which makes me feel better about me, and doesn't make me feel as lonely. 

The key is to really understand what's driving you to use YouTube the way you do, and make a plan on how you are going subvert it.

Day 4: 

I didn't play games today, but I did feel some stress during the afternoon. I decided to go run outside, which helped me clear my mind. In terms of youtube, things are going good for now!

:)

Day 5:

Today was a hard day. I spent too much time watching videos on youtube and i didn't do as much work as I wanted to. I feel like it's hard to keep my mind away from videos games. Blocking gaming videos on youtube can only do so much. I need something that would help me put my focus elsewhere.

I still didn't play games, but there is a lot of work to do.

Just gotta get through those early days. Grind it out, even if it isn't pretty. Got any books to read, or any genre you're interested in? I also found myself just replacing games with YT, reddit, etc. Channeling it into a book, and an audiobook, and basically reading/listening until I couldn't read/listen anymore got me through.

On 11/8/2020 at 10:26 AM, JSmith said:

From my experience, I either had to change what I was watching on YT, or cut it out entirely. Youtube and gaming went very hand in hand for me. If you're still watching gaming videos on YT, it will make detoxing a lot harder.

I wish I knew that earlier. It seemed so innocent but it was all I needed to slowly get seduced to playing. Not that I ended up playing a lot, but it's still playing. The worst part is when you combine it with social media and you mindlessly ending up scrolling Reddit chasing karma and kittens.

Edited November 14, 20205 yr by BornAgain40

1 hour ago, BornAgain40 said:

The worst part is when you combine it with social media and you mindlessly ending up scrolling Reddit chasing karma and kittens.

It's all dopamine in the end, tricky little hormone in our technology filled world.

Days 6 to 9:

The last days were not easy, but I managed to put myself back on track. However, for the 6th and 7th days, I watched a lot of livestreams on youtube, which is pretty bad. I guess it's a good thing that I don't have any console anymore since this prevents me from playing games. The 8th and 9th days were better! I spent all my time working on a project for one of my classes and it helped me put my focus elsewhere. The best thing is that I didn't watch gaming videos today!

Tomorrow marks my 10th day without playing games. Although it's not a huge milestone, those days helped me learn a bit more about the addictive nature of video games. Now, I want to give myself another challenge that I'll do alongside the one I'm doing at the moment, which is going throught 90 days without watching anything gaming related.

Wish me luck! 🙂

Days w/o gaming: 9

Days w/o browsing gaming related content: 1

Good luck! 🍀💪

Day 10:

Today was a good day! I spent most of my time cooking and studying, which prevented me from going on the internet. I feel satisfied 🙂

Days w/o gaming: 10

Days w/o browsing gaming related content: 2

Edited November 17, 20205 yr by Mr. Ém

November 21st: Back to day 1

Simply put, I believed that I could stay away from games without any console to play. I was so wrong. I began playing games and watching streams on my laptop. I need to be careful about this in the future.

It's a shame, but I'll try again.

Days w/o gaming: 1

Days w/o browsing gaming related content: 1

 

Nov 22nd, 2020:

This day has been easier. I don't have much to say for now.

Days w/o gaming: 2

Days w/o browsing gaming content: 2

Nov 23, 2020:

I didn't play games, yet I still struggle not browsing content. Do you guys have any book you could recommend?

Days w/o gaming: 3

Days w/o browsing gaming content: 1