With digital literacy occurring at earlier and earlier ages, it is more common to find someone with an internet addiction than someone who doesn’t use the internet at all. You may even notice that your own digital habits surrounding the use of the internet have greatly shaped your daily life in ways you never planned for. Digital habits are hard to break since these technologies are designed to capture and maintain your attention. If you want to escape this potentially detrimental digital trap, here’s what you can do.
Decide Which Behaviors Distract from Your Goals
The internet was designed as a tool and remains a valuable one to this day. It is up to the individual to determine which of their interactions with the internet are damaging to their overall wellbeing and which are not. For example, you may need to be online regularly for work. Separating this necessity from the unhealthy habit of staring at your phone every night before bed can be hard since using the internet for legitimate and meaningful purposes can easily slide into absent-minded scrolling. Pick out the occasions you find yourself turning to a digital device or unimportant app with no real reason and use these to work out your plan to cut back the excess.
Be More Digitally Efficient
Preparing your digital setups to be more efficient will allow you to spend less time online than absolutely necessary. Part of this means ensuring your devices are fully functional and that your internet is high-speed. Look for services like Gateway Fiber Internet to deliver high-speed connection, which is exactly what you will need for using the internet without wasting time. It is easier to get distracted when loading times are slow since you are given the opportunity to be bored. Set out a purpose for using a website, software, or app and stick to it, even if you are painfully tempted to linger online just to fill time.
Make Using Devices Less Enjoyable
Phones, tablets, and computers are all designed to keep the user interested. The bright colors and dynamic shapes on the screen captivate a primal part of the human brain, making it difficult to tear yourself away. To avoid this, you can limit the capabilities of your devices to make them less of an attractive option for curing boredom. Switching to black and white, deleting unnecessary apps, and logging out of social media are all effective methods.
Try Going Cold Turkey
Attempting to give up your most attractive vices can seem like too big of a step, especially if you haven’t tried other, smaller steps to begin with. However, going cold turkey and completely preventing yourself from using the digital devices, websites, or apps that have the strongest grip on you can be the most direct method of becoming more mindful of how you interact with the internet.
It is a challenge to avoid using the internet now that so much of everyday life is intertwined with it. This doesn’t mean that you are condemned to a life of being ensnared by your devices against your will. Use the techniques discussed here to break down your unhealthy relationship with the internet and become more mindful of how it can serve you best.