Any one else have an addiction to the internet on the phone/desktop

I'm similar but I don't even like a lot of books. I just feel an obligation to read because I'm worried ill be called a pleb otherwise

Get some self control, OP. Jesus christ.

>>8974331
Man I know, its kinda frightening me...I've this unstoppable urge for worthless information. Like I have this internal block against drinking and drugs but on some level I think the internet is fine.

This describes my past self from a year ago to a tee, down to the expensive, underutilised gaming computer. I have no real advice for you though, I just suddenly got incredibly bored with all the shit I was consuming, and started filling my free hours with books instead. It was like a switch flipped. I still visit 4chan and some subreddits occasionally, but I get bored quickly, and it's like books have become the distraction rather than my phone.

>>8974416
What changed for you?

I'm trying to get off it cold turkey. People might find it funny. But I genuinely get antsy without a phone to be doing something...it sounds ridiculous as I type it. But they say addictions are patterns of behaviour that effect your life negatively and well.. its a textbook case

any tips or insight you can offer

>>8974485
Nah it's not ridiculous, I think a lot of people struggle with internet addictions these days - instant gratification is appealing.

I can't pinpoint one specific thing, but it was a pretty crap time for me, my ex had left me, I lost my job, my grades were in the shitter, and I think I just reached a turning point where I either changed something about my life or ended it. Breaking my addiction to the internet was kinda part of that - one morning I decided I was going to read a book and I did, I spent the whole day reading, and I liked it and wanted more. Sometimes I think I just replaced one addiction with another, but it feels more productive and I actually have the attention span and motivation to do well at uni these days, rather than just obsessively opening my browser after writing a single sentence of an essay for example.

I don't really know how to advise you since I don't entirely know what prompted me to change aside from being so miserable with my life.

Maybe you could turn your router off for a week or so? You're right, it's about habit formation, you gotta do something to break that. Also don't feel like you have to read something of actual literary merit all the time, read that trashy horror novel or that shitty romance in between your middlemarches and your greek memes if it fills the need for more instant gratification for you - at least you're still paying sustained attention to a novel (I read Joe hill's horns the other day and it was fucking fun).

Probably a load of drivel but maybe there's something encouraging in there, I dunno, good luck man.

>>8974309
iunno man, lately i've just been putting my nose to the grindstone and taking caffeine pills, and burning through bout two hundred to one fifty pages a day, if not more. my new years resolution was to read more, and after a bit of fucking around, i've pushed myself and read five books this last week. after i finish this book tonight, i will have read fifteen hundred pages this week.

>>8974625
Good shit. I'll have to muster up some inner will soon. Can't waste my life behind a screen. I think no novelist has really captured this facet of life, since it's a very passive boring part of life. Internet really is an amazingly addictive medium. Nearly more so than tv

>>8974637
Good shit. That's seriously impressive. I used to do that, not to that level though. I'd have a few books on the boil. A few light reading ones and some heavier stuff. Stopped doing it because I enjoy devoting all my mental energies to one book. Get more of a kick out of it. What are you reading at the moment

Try sitting outside without your phone, either in nature or in a public place like a shopping center. You will get bored at first, but then you start noticing small things, and you focus on them for a longer period of time because you have nothing else to look at.

Get off of social media (including this place), only check the internet for news like once a week, if something really important happens you will hear about it through word of mouth.

>>8974309
>on the phone
Fuck off

>>8974625
>Also don't feel like you have to read something of actual literary merit all the time, read that trashy horror novel or that shitty romance in between your middlemarches and your greek memes if it fills the need for more instant gratification for you - at least you're still paying sustained attention to a novel (I read Joe hill's horns the other day and it was fucking fun
You were making good points until this. You're just a plebeian fucking troglodyte

>>8974309
has anybody that has cut back on their internet and their phone usage noticed being more tired for the first few weeks and also having really vivid dreams? i feel like my brain is re-calibrating itself.

>>8974309
I'm going through the same anon. I've started to read in my kitchen (while my phone is in another room) to avoid distractions.

1 minute reading , 10 minutes refreshing

>>8974309

I've just came back from a two weeks holiday and the only way I could use the internet is if I wanted to go to a bar not far from my house. I found it was a great way to be engaged in a book, film or TV series since I don't have the internet in my apartment to distract me. You're right in the sense it is a massive hindrance.

I could easily knock off 200 pages a day here but there I just didn't feel pressure or anything to browse and I was reading more. Managed to finish 2666 in around 5 days or so.