5 Surefire Methods To Eliminate Your Internet Addiction

“What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. Whether I’m online or not, my mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” – Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

Every day, more people find themselves ensnared by and addicted to the high amount of stimulatory content available on the Internet.

Internet addiction is a hydra-headed issue with different causes and effects.

Regardless of the causes, we know one thing:

The technology we use now is so incredibly pervasive that many people find themselves unable to lessen their use on social media or various other Internet-related devices.

If you are one of these people, this article will help you moderate your use,

Let’s unravel some threads.

The (Big) Problem of Internet Addiction

Today, 96% percent of adults use the Internet on a regular basis.

As more people connect to the Internet, more people will find themselves hooked on even more alluring stimuli and as a society, we are currently coming to grasps with what Web 2.0 has done and is doing to us on a daily basis.

More and more psychologists, teachers, and government officials are beginning to understand that Internet addiction and social media addiction exist and is dramatically warping our society and interpersonal relations.

Books such as Irresistible, The Shallows, and Digital Minimalism have lifted the wool off of our collective eyes and made us realize the problem is not to be understated or avoided.

4 Reasons Why The Internet is So Alluring (and Why It’s a Big Problem)

To know how/why you are an Internet addict, here’s some reasons why:

Pain/Pleasure Principle

We humans naturally avoid pain and seek pleasure.

The Internet offers unending pleasure and minimal to no pain (or so it seems). Because of this, we humans are naturally drawn to the Internet.

Unlimited Novelty

Humans are wired to seek out and enjoy novelty and new experiences.

Why?

Because our ancestors’ survival relied on them to chase new experiences and surroundings. If that wasn’t the case, only a tiny section of the world would be explored rather than the entire globe.

The Internet takes advantage of novelty with the creation of things like “the news feed”, “clickbait” headlines, or pornography.

Novelty triggers dopamine, the motivation molecule. There will always be new things to do, experience, and see on the Internet; so it is something that constantly keeps us engaged. Anything you want, the Internet can conjure up.

Unfortunately, the brain isn’t the best at filtering out things that serves it no use, so all information (especially in an untrained brain) is tagged as “valuable”.

A young, developing brain is sensitive to novelty because it is trying to get a grasp on the world. Adolescent brains are constantly firing dopamine in an attempt to get them to engage with the world and encounter new experiences.

So, unending novelty is one reason why the Internet is so difficult to step away from.

Lack of Feedback

All species learn through conditioning.

Going back to the pain/pleasure loop, someone will engage in an activity the more immediate (positive) feedback they receive from it and disengage the more negative feedback they receive.

As a child, you may have put your hand on a hot stove.

After getting burned once (or twice), you now associate a hot stove with pain. You realize not to touch it again.

However with experiences such as the Internet – there is no immediate feedback in this regard.

You don’t know how wasting endless hours on TikTok will affect your life a year from now.

You don’t connect all those missed hours with lack of achievement or accomplishment down the line.

As a result of this disconnect in feedback, it is easier to fritter away long-term gains because you didn’t take those hours you spent on aimless Internet browsing and instead redirected them to something more valuable.

Societal Conditioning

The last and arguably most important one has to do with a type of societal enabling.

Everyone and their grandmother (literally) is on a social media platform of some kind.

As digital technology gets to become intertwined with our real lives, the Internet becomes an extension or even replacement of our own physical existences.

On top of that, people will find you “weird” if you aren’t constantly on all the social media platforms or using the Internet constantly 🙄.

Internet Addiction Self-Diagnostic

Ok, so you may be in slight denial at this point.

Maybe you use the Internet a bit too much, but you aren’t “addicted”, right?

Here’s 3 signs you have a problem:

1. You Try to Regulate Your Use But Can’t

This isn’t the first time you’ve tried to cut down on your behavior. Maybe you’ve tried before in the past but you always keep backsliding.
Using the classical definition of addiction:

Addiction is the repeated involvement with a substance or activity, despite the substantial harm it now causes, because that involvement was (and may continue to be) pleasurable and/or valuable.- MentalHelp.net

When most people try to stop, they find out that they can’t. The rewards they get from the Internet are too attractive in comparison to stopping.

And because there is no (immediate) feedback that prevents them from stopping, their use continues indefinitely.

2. Withdrawal-Like Symptoms When Use Is Discontinued

Let’s say you have managed to significantly reduce your time or completely quit using the Internet with the exceptions of necessary obligations. What happens?

Well, for most people, withdrawal-like symptoms will appear similar to when someone quits drugs. Depending on the extremity of your use, some of these may be:

• Irritability
• Anxiety
• Daytime fatigue
• “Brain fog”
• Restlessness

And the list goes on. In fact, researchers have found out that Internet addiction and drug addiction have very similar effects on the brain…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaUBTrzIsaQ

3. Specific Behavioral Traits

Because Internet addiction is largely behavioral, there will be certain traits that one exhibits as an addict.

Each of these traits on their own are not enough to prove a distinct diagnosis, but together they form of a picture of someone’s level of activity with the Internet.

• Low mental resilience
• Lack of long-term focus
• Some form of pornography addiction
• Loss of interest in real-world activities
• Low-moderate to high amounts of social anxiety
• Incessant desire to constantly use the Internet
• Constantly checking news sites, infotainment websites, or any website that matter for “new content”

Again, all of these things may be issues in and of themselves, but if some or most of these resonated with you – it’s time to turn an inquisitive eye towards your Internet use.

How to Beat Internet Addiction

So after reading this, you’re now aware of the effect that Internet addiction is having on you or will eventually have on you.. It’s stealing your time, stealing your energy, and stealing your focus.

You now want to stop.

These tactics will help you get started, but the real work begins after you read this. It’s up to you to change your habit patterns and eventually substitute healthier ways of being in place of your Internet addiction.

1. Quantify How Much You Have Lost

If you think of time as money (which it very well can be), the amount of money you have wasted (literally and figuratively)…is staggering.

Many people hate wasting money, yet that is what millions of people do when they spend excessive time on the Internet.

And it’s reasonable to ask:

“How many collective hours have I wasted on the Internet in general?”

Like sit down and really calculate it. It is staggering, to be honest.

In addition, think about things you may have missed out on by being an addict.

I know several people back when I was younger who missed out on things like:

• Healthy relationships
• Learning how to drive
• Getting into and finishing college
• Learning how to regulate impulse control and self-management

All because they were Internet addicts.

If you’re younger (say under 25), these things may not have caught with you yet, but as you continue on down your track of life – these things will add up.

Eventually, you may look back on your life and have little to nothing to show for it. The emotions that are triggered from this is enough to push you further back into the dopamine loop of using the Internet compulsively, further tightening the grip around you.

And you don’t want that.

Action Step: Practice the Stoic technique of negative visualization. Bring future negative consequences into the present where you can feel/touch/taste them.

Do everything you can to make sure that doesn’t happen.

2. Time Your Use

Before you hop online, set a timer.

Say you will only use the Internet from this time to this time. Stick to it.

If that’s too hard for you to do, get an Internet blocker.

I recommend Freedom.

Freedom is a great choice for anyone who seriously wants to increase their productivity and peace of mind.

Action Step: Start setting a timer every time you get on the Internet. If that doesn’t work, get an Internet blocker to block certain sites. Soon, it will become a habit not to go on those sites.

3. Embrace Boredom

Boredom is one of the most painful things any human being can experience because it’s hard to be alone with yourself or your thoughts.

Untrained, the mind is like a wild dog that won’t stop barking. At its worst, it is like a merciless judge who only seeks to condemn.

In order to hopscotch past the rigorous process of disciplining the mind, many people turn to distraction. In this case, the Internet.

Action Step: Practice meditation. It will teach you how to be alone with your own thoughts.

4. Engage Offline

As I said before, the best way to not develop a habit is to lessen engagement or not engage in the first place.

When you do “offline” activities, you take away time that would normally be used for Internet browsing.

Contrary to what many people (especially Generation Z) think, there’s many things that you can do offline that are much better than doing them online.

You can go biking, swimming, meet people in a Meetup, read physical books, go to a park, talk to someone, etc.

There’s just so much stuff out there to do.

Finding an engaging hobby and becoming better at it just might be the thing that breaks your Internet addiction.

Action Step: Find something that speaks to you and throw yourself into it.

5. Start the Dopamine Detox

This last one is a bit controversial and that’s ok. I don’t expect everyone to do it. In the past couple of years, many people in various self-improvement niches have been calling for and pushing for a concept known as the “dopamine detox” or “dopamine fast”. This is a mode and state of being where you limit or completely eliminate sources that stimulate an unnatural dopamine response.

Of course, this is a lot of things that involve the Internet in some way such as social media, gaming, or mindless Internet browsing.

The real purpose of this is to get you motivated and get you hooked on things that don’t involve this stimulation. This is how people in the past lived and how they were motivated to do things in the real world.

I’ve written a deep dive into the dopamine detox, check it out if that interests you.

Conclusion + Wrapping Up

As the world becomes smaller and more connected, many people turn towards the Internet to connect, play, and discover information.

However, the Internet has a massive dark side.

The Internet stimulates almost all of our desires in endless ways, meaning that addiction is an inevitability for many people.

Internet addiction exists on a spectrum of behavior, with mild to severe effects.

However, even a mild Internet addiction can produce disproportionate negative lifestyle effects.

In order to beat, overcome, or prevent an Internet addiction you need a custom combination of time away from the Internet, blocks of time where you do not use the Internet at all, and removing similar bad habits that coincide with Internet use.

That will give you the best shot to use the Internet responsibly and make it your servant rather than your master.

Do you have an Internet addiction? What are you doing to beat it? Let me know in the comments.