Smartphone addiction

MartinMcFlyy · 2017-07-31T01:47:02+00:00

Find a hobby. I went to a car show yesterday. It interests me. Find a passion and pursue it. As cliche as that sounds. Your life needs more substance than work, lift, eat, social media.

Frigzy · 2017-07-31T09:00:04+00:00

You're addicted to the dopamine shot of new information. The problem is that -as with all sources of informaton- there's no guarantee of value. Often you'll be browsing or searching but not finding. You spend hours upon hours doing this while you may only find something of worth occasionally.

It's the same process as the Skinner box. You get hooked by the possibility of valuable information. However, in general it's a very ineffective way of doing so.

I think plenty more people struggle with this that don't admit it. For me personally, I've noticed that I'm constantly looking for information that is of value to me personally, preferably as high as it can get. So I browse subreddits that align with my preferences, I'm active on online dating apps from time to time, I watch youtube channels, read blogs, even browse online stores for anything that could be remotely valuable to me.

The big issue here is though that there's no method to the madness. Far from it. Nothing is planned and everything is possible. I'm not really looking for specific info to grow in a specific area which I've preplanned in a larger path to my goal. No. There is no goal. The only hidden goal is the dopamine hit from new -at least moderately valuable- information.

The alternative is to realize this and to double down on your actual goals. One of the key concepts I've been interested in for a while now is described in the Japanese book called Hagakure: Ichinen, or single minded purpose. Simply said, sort your life in a way that allows you to devote your full cognitive and physiological potential to each consecutive action.

I find it easier when doing physical activity because I am naturally occupied. It becomes harder the more the activity involves information, such as learning or reading. The threshold becomes a lot lower and I catch myself pushing the damn lever more often than I would like to.

And that's the tricky part, you're facing a road of cognitive deconditioning which takes months of dedication. The outcome however is that your discipline, productivity, focus and self worth will rise significantly.

In fact I can't believe I haven't started working this out and applying this properly yet.

Last pro-tip: physically remove yourself from the devices/newspapers/sources of random information potential while you want to be productive. I've noticed that there's no winning from this urge when it's too easy and that trying to do so will only burn you out.

remember_that_girl · 2017-07-31T01:59:40+00:00

My current job isn't bad

If you're not spending time improving yourself, you are degrading.

You'll be fired from your job after they figure out you didn't learn anything new in the past few years.

Title	Smartphone addiction
Author	empatheticapathetic
Upvotes	3
Comments	3
Date	July 31, 2017 1:26 AM UTC (9 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/askTRP
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/asktrp/comments/6qlap6/smartphone_addiction/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/askTRP/smartphone-addiction.94982 https://theredarchive.com/post/94982

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