Internet Routine Problems

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For a few years now I've been spending way too much time on the internet, and it's usually just me visiting the same sites over and over again. I go on one site for a while or a little while, go to the next site, and then repeat. It's not in any order. My therapist said it isn't an addiction. This excessive internet use is really getting in the way of my life and my goals. I have been very sleep deprived lately. (I can get to bed on time around others, but if I'm back in college in my dorm I really don't get enough sleep.) I don't get my work done quickly enough because I'm so easily sidetracked by the internet, and even my biggest interest, writing, is being effected. I don't get much done on my story ideas because I'm not disciplined with the internet, and I end up thinking of the story idea I'm on so much (without actually working on it) that I lose my excitement for it.

Can you alter your routines?

Just start trimming down. I've trimmed my internet time down to something more practical.

^^^ Great advice from Ezra. The internet can be a big black hole that sucks you in and burns up all your time. I used to have a certain number of sites I had to visit each and every day and slowly was able to trim them down to just a few- and now if I go a few days without being online I really don't mind. (that's why you'll see gaps in my presence here on WorngPlanet).

Life's short - the internet can wait. There's a whole lot of other fun things to do.

I could have written every word of that post myself. In the early 2000s I was in an even worse state: I was spending up to 15 hours a day on just one site: AudioGalaxy. It's been gone for years, but back then it was a crazily active site with 1000s of subforums and groups. Unlike the bland FB clones of today, this was also a website with a distinct design: but in a good way, not a bad one. It didn't blind you with acres of white, but had a lovely deep blue background.

Anyway, I think I was actually addicted to AG in a rather destructive manner. Nowadays the internet is like a bad habit, but not an addiction: I could go away for a week and not miss being online at all. In 2011/12 I was hospitalised several times, with the average stay lasting a week. My local hospital is far too primitive to have wifi in its wards, so there was basically no way of accessing the internet.

Not only didn't I miss it, I found it rather refreshing. I got more reading done. I rarely felt bored. However, I have never tried imposing a week's break on myself: breaks have always been enforced from the outside. It's probably someting I ought to at least give a go. Imagine it: no posts on WP from me for a whole 7 days - won't that make people glad, er, I mean sad?! :p

I'd be sad!

Would you miss me, too?

If you use Firefox or Chrome, you could download an extension to automatically block websites that you spend too much time on. I had to do this a few months back, and I regret nothing.

I have a program that shuts off the internet entirely for a specified amount of time, and another one that does the same thing except it blocks certain websites. The problem is I just want to check the replies on a question I answered, or I want to check on the news or listen to a song that I can only find on youtube, and then I do a bunch of other things. Either that, or I want to read my email or write a response to an email, but I'm nervous about reading or sending it, so I want to listen to a few songs first and I end up spending much more time. I have a hard time sensing how much time is passing sometimes.