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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?

#651

Post by Metalbourne »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #202
haliskerbas wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thought this was just me and it’s so refreshing to hear. I can never eat just part of a bag of chips. Or save the really good sandwhich for later. Or not drink another coffee because I already had one. Etc. etc Do lots of other folks experience this? I seem to only have self control when it hurts my job or income, and even then, barely.

An easy way to have self control is to switch to a keto-like diet. You don't even have to count calories and carbs in most cases. There's a variant called lazy keto, where you just stick to approved foods and don't need to count. It's surprisingly hard to overeat on things like cauliflower and pork chops. Be wary however of the more "extreme" advice on keto-like diets. You don't have to stuff yourself with fats, or p…

Yeah, you absolutely don't need to overthink keto once you have a good idea of what foods provide the ideal set of nutrients that you need. You just have to keep those foods stocked, and eat whatever you have on hand when you're hungry, until you stop being hungry. As for avoiding junk food, just STAY OUT OF THE JUNK FOOD AISLE. Don't walk through there, don't daydream about chocolate, make a conscious effort to keep it out of sight, and it will be out of mind. That part takes some self-discipline, but once you make the conscious decision to keep it out of sight, your mind will go wander to some other distraction or stimulus and you will forget about it, and it will become a habit soon.

The truly hardest part of all of this in general is finding a suitable form of substitute stimulus that keeps you from being driven to seek your default vices. The unfortunate part is that there are not a lot of accessible/healthy things in life that provide the adequate stimulus that we seek/need in order to feel "okay". We're drawn towards drugs and junk food and etc because it's easy to acquire and satisfies our needs for stimulus in the short term.

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

#652

Post by Metalbourne »

Dave_TRS wrote: post #53
Apreche wrote: post #17

Just speaking for myself, I've noticed that my habit is to eat what is in front of me, and clean my plate. I mean this both literally and figuratively. If I have dessert in the house, like a bag of chocolate, then I eat one after dinner. If I don't have it in the house, then I just don't eat dessert. If I have a social media feed full of content, then I'll scroll through all of it until there's nothing else that's ne…

I'm the same way, keep me away from buffets, cupboards containing sweets, and any newsfeed. One thing I've founds success with was getting a digital Economist subscription (confession, just a shared password). Having a steady stream of high quality content without paywall nonsense helped me replace my regular trolling around internet with something more useful and less addictive. Perhaps paying a bit for something hi…

I've always looked at paywall sites as obnoxious cash grabs that try to reel you in with small samples of quality content... But this makes me look at them differently now. Perhaps the fact that you gave them money allows them to forego excessive advertising and clickbait and provide you with quality content that is actually worth reading because they can focus on creating good content rather than pulling people in with free clickbait and just do anything possible to keep us scrolling and watching ads. The unfortunate part is that it doesn't really make sense to pay money to subscribe to every single website individually... Maybe if google had a quality version of google news... lol

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

#653

Post by hiptobecubic »

comboy wrote: post #577
jholman wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's some value in most of what you're saying. Your overall proposal, etc etc. But when you say "You could say you are suffering addiction withdrawal when you are away from somebody or some place you love", you demonstrate that you have no idea what addiction is. No idea. With respect, I strongly advise you to not say things like that. It's super wrong (which is okay but sub-optimal), you look dumb (which…

I have seen some forms of addiction up close, but I think the term is more general and we shouldnt taboo every with which some people have extremely bad emotional association with. IMO I should be able to say I was forced to do some work even if I wasnt in a concentration camp myslef. Or that it bugs me that something is messy even if I dont have extreme OCD. Internet addiction is a normalized term and I think withdr…

It sounds like you're mixing up the casual, colloquial use of addiction ("I'm addicted to key lime pie") with the medical term ("i suffer from addiction"). The latter is not just a failure of willpower and is qualitatively different from the former.

You can use either, but if people think you mean the latter and you start arguing points that only apply to the former, expect pushback.

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

#654

Post by Metalbourne »

rootusrootus wrote: post #452
JackFr wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a philosophical perspective that Wikipedia article covers a lot. I truly want to do A, but I do B instead. How is that possible? The Wikipedia article offers a couple of classical and modern takes on the problem but I'd offer one more. That we misunderstand our own intentions. When I say “I’d like learn to speak Italian” that’s not what I mean at all. What I mean is “I’d like to be able to speak Italian.” and I…

I love hearing things like this. It's not like it tells me something I didn't already know, but just saying it in a new way that gives me hope I may eventually find a strategy that works better. In my case it's carrying too much weight around. Even though I know objectively how much better it feels to be lighter, how much better I feel all around. I want to be thinner, and I want that even at the exact moment I'm eat…

It sounds like food provides you stimulus that you are craving. You can substitute that with fat burner supplements. There's a misconception that they alone are supposed to help you, but their direct thermogenic effects aren't what makes them effective. The thing that makes them effective (and any other caffeine-like supplement) is that they spike your adrenaline which takes your appetite away, essentially distracting you from eating.

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

#655

Post by ChrisFoster »

ativzzz wrote: post #520
ChrisFoster wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ADHD is a developmental condition which is highly genetic and relates to neurotransmitter brain chemistry (Dopamine / Norepinephrine). People with ADHD have it their whole life, it's not something you can develop in adulthood. However, people can be (commonly are) diagnosed in adulthood, especially for the inattentive subtype which has less outward symptoms. What can change or develop over time is the life circumstan…

> it's not something you can develop in adulthood I disagree, from my own personal experience. According to the CDC/DSM-5, people with ADHD simply have enough of the described ADHD symptoms, and most importantly "interferes with functioning or development." We don't yet know enough about the brain besides that people have different brain makeups and respond to different stimuli differently. We don't quite know what c…

I'm not sure we're disagreeing here? As I understand it, some people have a certain kind of distractable brain and there's an underlying brain chemistry implicated here which isn't something you develop in adulthood.

However, having this brain chemistry doesn't necessarily mean a person suffers impairments in daily life: impairments are highly situational.

I suppose - to the extent that the DSM-5 requires a fair level of impariment for someone to be diagnosed with ADHD - that it's technically correct to say people can develop this in adulthood: there it passes from a syndrome to an disorder. (Personally I feel it's kind of absurd not to have a name for the syndrome if it occurs in the absence of impariment due to life circumstances! Perhaps this will be "fixed" one day as psychology slowly becomes more quantitative.)

Thanks for the book suggestion!

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

#658

Post by hawksprite »

hussainbilal wrote: post #645
hawksprite wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like a methodology I’d like to try. I’ve not heard of it before. Do you have any suggested Haitian musicians or artists? Thank you for sharing.

You've probably heard of this: atomic habits. The idea of an atomic habit is that there is no disconnect between a habit and the objective you're aiming for. So in this case, the habit was not to learn a new language, but just consistently and constantly engaging with French. When I hit a wall, I doubled down my atomic habit to a simpler macro-french where all my past knowledge would still be applicable due to the et…

I have. Didn’t realize that it encompassed this. Thank you.

I’ll give that a shot for sure. It’s always been difficult to be sure if you were learning the right form or vernacular when messing around with language apps.

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

#660

Post by overgrownzygote »

Daishiman wrote: post #304
pugets wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe that’s true, but it doesn’t provide me with any comfort. I’m only going to live once. When I’m old and bound to a chair (hopefully due to frailty and not because a psychiatrist strapped me to it), I want to feel like I achieved something more than a passive human existence. All these hours spent consuming forgettable garbage on Reddit, YouTube, Facebook, and in video games… these are hours not spent learning re…

> All these hours spent consuming forgettable garbage on Reddit, YouTube, Facebook, and in video games… these are hours not spent learning recipes, making music, writing programs, lifting weights, or practicing Spanish. If I could channel my energy towards these things, then the long-term payoff would be much more enriching. Not only that, but I’d probably be a happier person if I was disconnected from whatever daily…

This is such a key insight. For me at least, “time management” is really about managing my energy levels more than anything.
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