Something I've found about myself is that I'm always addicted to some kind of screen-based media.

So, for example, I used to be really into mobile idle games. Then when I forced myself to give that up, I found myself scrolling through social media for hours at a time. When I force myself to give that up, I find myself playing mindless puzzle games on my computer for hours at a time.

Whenever I give up one addiction, I end up picking up another. This suggests to me that there is a deeper need here that is going unaddressed. It suggests that simple techniques to get rid of a habit (e.g. "Try deleting the game from your phone!") aren't sufficient in the long term. But I'm not sure what to do about that.

Ideally, I would like to be able to talk to a therapist about this. But since I'm back on a waitlist to see a therapist, I don't think that's going to happen for quite a while. I've been attempting to do other things for my mental health (meditation, journaling, exercise) but I find that the problem of my screen addiction continues to persists.

Every so often, in discussions about mental health, I see people recommending workbooks as an alternative for people unable to access therapy. I've been skeptical about this, but on reflection, it seems like that might be the right amount of structure for me. Meditation and journaling and exercise aren't really directed towards a specific problem the way a converation with a therapist can be, and if there are workbooks or similar resources that would help me work through this problem, I think it's worth a shot.

My ideal situation would be an interactive online or physical workbook that give me prompts for writing and reflection within a structure, e.g. I don't just want a book or series of YouTube videos I can passively read or watch (I can easily find those -- HealthyGamerGG is a well known resource on YouTube) but I also don't want to be told to just generically journal about my life (I'm already doing that).

If anyone knows about such a resource, please let me know.

  • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]M
    ·
    6 months ago

    It's extremely difficult to get rid of a habit, I find. It's much easier (that is, still fairly challenging but achieveable) to replace one habit with another. So it makes total sense that if you just delete a game, then your brain will just be bored doing nothing and you'll eventually break and do something else that's equally bad, though you might fool yourself into thinking you've made "progress" by shifting towards a different activity. Well, I suppose there's progress there in a sense (proving that you can switch between two bad activites, which implies that you could switch from a bad to a good activity) but it can't be the only thing or you're just going around in circles.

    There are ways to decrease screen time - forcibly - if that's your thing. Like Cold Turkey, which I use quite a lot of the time. The problem is that this will work on your computer, sure, but you then have to have the discipline to not shift to your phone, or tablet, etc etc. I haven't found any particularly good ways to forcibly limit phone time that couldn't potentially cause problems. There are those phone containers where you can lock them for a certain amount of time, and those definitely can work, but with the right tools you can break them open. Also, I'm just uneasy about limiting phone time if an emergency happens. A good middle ground is turning your phone grayscale, or an app (which requires payment, of course, god damn it) that turns your phone basically into one of those un-entertaining bricks from a couple decades ago, without all the fun app icons and notifications and such.

    And again, all of that is nice and useful and all, but without something to fill that time, it's probably not gonna work. So I would try and ask, and solve, the question of "What do I want to do instead of looking at screens all day," instead of just "Looking at screens all day is unhealthy and I should probably stop."

    • WhatAnOddUsername [any]
      ·
      6 months ago

      So I would try and ask, and solve, the question of "What do I want to do instead of looking at screens all day,"

      So, that's kind of the conclusion I came to, which is why I wrote all those words up there -- to give context for why I'm asking the question I'm asking. From my original post:

      Whenever I give up one addiction, I end up picking up another. This suggests to me that there is a deeper need here that is going unaddressed. It suggests that simple techniques to get rid of a habit (e.g. "Try deleting the game from your phone!") aren't sufficient in the long term. But I'm not sure what to do about that.

      What I am looking for, if it exists and if anyone can attest that they've found it useful, is a structured workbook or similar resource that would help me to work through the nontrivial question of what deeper need I have to address.