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Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

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Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#501

Post by PKop »

mrmuagi wrote: post #431
drpotato wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mate, if you haven’t already, go talk with a therapist. I’ve struggled with avoidance my entire adult life – avoiding awkwardness, pain, risk, “bad”emotions, difficult conversations, conflict – and talking with a professional has really helped me.

Any tips on what type of therapist (psychologist, therapist, counsellor, etc.) and/or treatment you found effective? Sounds like talk therapy -- but did you go through other stuff as well?

Lift weights, run, get more sunlight/vitamin D, and go on walks in nature.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#502

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #427
JackFr wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I think you misunderstand. When you tell people there is nothing transcendent, that life is indeed meaningless - sometimes they believe you.

Isn't it best to tell people life is meaningless if that's where the evidence leads? After a few decades pursuing 'god' and sacrificing to ascend I think teaching false hope (with or without strings attached) is worse.

Telling anyone that life is meaningless is utterly different from telling them that you believe that there is no external agent or agency that provides a meaning for our lives. Asserting that life is meaningless is completely different from asserting that its meaning is personal and must be discovered by each of us.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#503

Post by scaramanga »

JackFr wrote: post #458
paulryanrogers wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it best to tell people life is meaningless if that's where the evidence leads? After a few decades pursuing 'god' and sacrificing to ascend I think teaching false hope (with or without strings attached) is worse.

If it’s meaningless what does it matter? Think about it.

Spoiler alert.

It means the statement that "it's meaningless" is, in itself, meaningless. That liberates you to construct any system of meaning that you like. But that freedom can also be quite frightening and anxiety inducing.

If that is the case, then you have a couple of choices (broadly speaking):

1. Soothe the anxiety away with opium, doom scrolling, religion, career, keto, multi-level marketing, or whatever. After all you are probably struggling to survive and assert ones own existence, against a backdrop of other fears which are much more realistic than abstract concerns about meaning (eg. losing one's job, income, looks, etc).

2. Rely on a social fabric of emotionally supportive family, friends, significant relations in a context of peace, freedom, financial and job security, your own physical fitness, and other stabilising, fear minimizing, forces which free up your emotional resources to let you focus on not just finding your own meaning but to create a collective meaning in connection with others who are, themselves, meaningful to you.

To be clear, I am not dissing, opium, religion, careers, or even keto per se :) I think those things are all fine if enjoyed in the proper context.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#504

Post by safog »

dcchambers wrote: post #21

My completely unprofessional opinion is that almost everyone that uses the internet throughout the day has developed some form of undiagnosed ADD/ADHD. The modern internet has broken our slowly evolved brains. We are not built to cope with these types of attention destroying activities and media. At least 20 years ago you had to sit down at a specific place and use a chunky computer. Smartphones have made it 1000x wo…

I spoke to a fairly well respected psychologist about exactly the issue OP was describing. He felt that the issue was really poor impulse control and suggested introducing delays between action -> reward.

He thought it wasn't ADHD because I don't otherwise get distracted if I'm engaged (watching a movie in a theater, cooking etc) and can generally see the task through to the end.

Note: watching a movie in a theater is, for me, a totally different experience to watching it at home. At home there's always an option to pick up the phone in the middle or walk away and do something else whereas at the theater I don't have that option. I can very easily watch a full movie at the theater but it's been a fairly long time since I was able to watch a full movie at home in one go.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#505

Post by evanmoran »

scaramanga wrote: post #503
JackFr wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s meaningless what does it matter? Think about it.

Spoiler alert. It means the statement that "it's meaningless" is, in itself, meaningless. That liberates you to construct any system of meaning that you like. But that freedom can also be quite frightening and anxiety inducing. If that is the case, then you have a couple of choices (broadly speaking): 1. Soothe the anxiety away with opium, doom scrolling, religion, career, keto, multi-level marketing, or whatever. Af…

Your point is beautifully made, but I think keto is probably on the wrong side of the ledger. Diets are the hard work that pays off into that better fitness and some of that fancy “stabilizing, fear minimizing” stuff you speak of.

That said, if you mean doom scrolling r/loseit and r/keto and not actually doing it then you are totally right :)

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#506

Post by hstan4 »

ryandrake wrote: post #389
organsnyder wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The community of my church is probably keeping me there more than my faith is.

I'd probably be more into church if it was just a social club and didn't come with that expectation that you'd be worshiping an invisible sky daddy, adopting questionable morality/philosophies, and attending what's basically a Republican political rally every Sunday. My wife goes to hers and it's nice, socially for her, that it comes prepackaged with a ready-made group of friends, but as soon as the Bibles and Trump…

It’s sad to hear someone’s view of church be similar to that of a political rally because that’s far from the truth of all the churches I’ve been to. Of course, we do read the Bible and worship God, but this social club that comes with “prepackaged” friends that you refer to can’t exist unless the people going agree on some ideas of morality and philosophies of why we’re here on Earth.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#507

Post by ehnto »

boppo1 wrote: post #485
ehnto wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have found that people who grew up on the internet tend to have a "third place" that's online, which it sounds like for you is discord. That kind of makes that your priority over a real-life third place like a pub or something, since it's where all the people you are super familiar with are it's easier just to stick around that. For me all my online third places disappeared (specific IRC chats and forums), and I ne…

Third place? What are the first two?

Home and work, the third place is somewhere you go regularly which helps form strong relationships with the people there. As some other people mentioned, church often played that role. University can be a third place, community centers, your local pub, sports clubs and so on.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#508

Post by RSchaeffer »

30944836 wrote: post #300
dcchambers wrote: post #21

My completely unprofessional opinion is that almost everyone that uses the internet throughout the day has developed some form of undiagnosed ADD/ADHD. The modern internet has broken our slowly evolved brains. We are not built to cope with these types of attention destroying activities and media. At least 20 years ago you had to sit down at a specific place and use a chunky computer. Smartphones have made it 1000x wo…

I found Newport's book to be so surface level for anyone with even a passing familiarity with the problem that it wasn't worth my time. What really helped me was these two books: (1) The Attention Merchants by Tim Wu (2) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshanna Zuboff and the nextdns.io installed on all my devices. I literally blocked Reddit, et al to break the cycle of "I just woke up so I'mm scroll until I'm…

Can you share more about the habits you built to break that cycle of scrolling for an hour in the morning?

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#509

Post by bigDinosaur »

30944836 wrote: post #392
muwtyhg wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What movies are these? An average shot length of less than 2 seconds sounds like it would give me a massive headache.

Here's a list I stole from Quora: https://www.quora.com/What-films-have-the-lowest-average-sho... ASL 1.55 - Doomsday (2008) : 4052 shots over 105 minutes ASL 1.72 - Transporter 3 (2008) : 3360 shots over 96 minutes ASL 1.73 - Domino (2005) : 4046 shots over 116 minutes ASL 1.83 - Quantum of Solace (2008) : 3198 shots over 98 minutes ASL 1.84 - Crank: High Voltage (2009) : 2718 shots over 84 minutes ASL 1.92 - Transp…

I'd expect that some films, at least, have an uneven distribution of cuts. Action scenes will have more cuts than non-action scenes etc. Still, it's interesting to watch these films with the shot length in mind, it can definitely be unnecessarily frenetic.

Re: Why do you waste so much time on the internet?

#510

Post by bigDinosaur »

motoboi wrote: post #288
chefandy wrote: post #214

This sounds like a major depressive episode. A very experienced psychologist recently told me that even folks with no hint of mental health trouble started having a hard time with motivation and mood in the pandemic, but many with existing tendencies towards depressive states were plunged straight into oblivion. Talk therapy and medication can be a big help, but CBT exercises can also help if you're against using med…

For those who didn't get the memo: Be warned, folks! Depression is not about sadness, but about not being able to do things. If you are feeling incapable of doing things, like physically siting in front of the computer and not being able to do any work, you are probably depressed. Sometimes you'll sit in front of the computer, try to start some task but somehow end opening hackeer news, digg, youtube. Seek help as so…

Also burnout. Burnout shares a lot with depression though (and may even basically be a type of depression), but with the difference that it can usually be fixed with sufficient rest and holidays and lifestyle changes.
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