How to break internet addiction + My own experience doing so

Gadgets. We all use them daily. Smartphones, tablets, laptops and many many more. And oh my, how addictive they can be!

More often than never it gets in the way of getting things done. If sometimes you catch yourself being on your phone instead of doing your job, homework, house chores, etc. then you have a problem. And the first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one.

Try your best to count exactly how many hours you’ve spent online last week.

This includes all the videos watched, all the chats you had in instant messengers, all the pointless surfing, all the funny pictures, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter – count it all. And then face the number. If it left you speechless than it is the time to take some action. Here and now, no postponing.

It’s going to be difficult – breaking any addiction is, so you need to take tiny baby steps towards your end goal.

Try something easy first, like dropping just one thing (and I mean delete it from your phone)

– I dropped Reddit when I first realized I had a problem. It was a small thing, I wasn’t super into it but still it took a chunk of my time, I would spend about half an hour checking out my favorite subreddits in the morning.

Go a few days without that one thing you stopped using.

Get comfortable. Then, eliminate another one.

If you’re feeling ballsy, drop a few things at once. That will make the process slightly quicker, but a little tougher.

As you stop using more and more apps/websites/games, you’ll notice, that there are some of them you find hard, almost impossible to ditch. For me that was YouTube, I just couldn’t get away from it. It’s okay. You don’t have to get rid of those completely – I suggest using time restrictions for them.

Set some boundaries.

Give yourself an hour per day when you can be on your favorite apps. But be strong, if the hour is over, put your phone down, go get a cup of tea or a glass of water, distract yourself somehow. Doesn’t mean you should go binge watch shows on Netflix instead though 🙂

Leave your phone at home when you’re going out.

I challenge you, go grocery shopping without it. Meet up with friends while it’s lying on your night stand. When you will be able to do this without feeling anxious about not having a phone with you, you’ll know – YOU NAILED IT.

Before going to sleep read a book instead of scrolling Instagram.

In the morning have a little workout instead of checking out Twitter feed.

On the walk enjoy what’s surrounding you, don’t you dare posting on Snapchat.

When you’re with your friends, actually be with them, not with your smartphone.

How I left excessive and compulsive internet use behind

One night I couldn’t sleep. I was rolling in my bed and having flashbacks of cringiest moments of my past. Thoughts flying through my head one by one. And a certain question grabbed my full attention to the point I knew I wouldn’t be falling asleep anytime soon.

“Am I addicted to the internet?”

I watched crap ton of YouTube, played at least four different games on a daily basis, read some shitty articles that weren’t any good for me and looked through dozens of pages with memes. Not even super funny ones. That had to come to an end. I counted how many hours I’ve wasted that week.

Whooping thirty. At least 30 hours doing worthless stuff. At least. This is more than a whole day spent on nothing.

Can you imagine spending one day out of seven in a week pointlessly? Basically just throwing 1/7 of your life in the garbage. It is sad. It is scary. It is so unnecessary and wasteful, so crazy, it’s blowing my mind how someone can willingly put themselves in that position. I did. And this is probably one of my biggest regrets.

My ultimate goal was to cut the time I wasted drastically. One hour per day tops.

So I did what I desperately needed to do. I started with deleting Reddit and almost all of the games I had on my phone leaving just one that didn’t take up a lot of time and that I was kinda fond of. Pretty weird being fond of a game, huh?

I replaced most of my internet activities with reading and taking proper care of myself. I’m proud of what I’ve achieved in a relatively short amount of time (Just three weeks!) and don’t really want to go back to black 🙂

Of course I slip up here and there, after all I’m just a human with all my flaws. Mostly I can say that I succeeded. Now I allow myself to watch only two YouTube videos per day or an episode of my favorite TV show, but certainly not both haha.

Are you addicted to the internet? Feel free to contact me and tell me your story!

xo Lee