Social Media &Technology

Delete all social media. A possibility means a lot of time never. Why dont use the time to go outdoor and enjoy life. 1. You feel better. 2. You actuel meet someone sooner.

 

I'd say to uninstall your social media apps instead of deleting your accounts, try it at least for a month man, there's no need to be focus on that trash every moment, you could do better things with your time.

I'm not against its use, but just leave them for a while, try to do some workout (30 minutes would be enough), read some books, hang out with friends/family if is possible.

 

Unfortunately, this day and age, free time = use technology. If you think this way, stop. Technology use for personal entertainment is not an entitlement, it is not a given. If this is your mentality it will definitely be harder to avoid technology for entertainment. You can entertain yourself by many other means. If you really cut it off mentally you will find that things to do will pop up right away.

On the other hand if you think of technology as a tool, the internet for example as a tool, there is no problem in using it. Technology is meant to be used as a tool, but things went awry, desire got a hold of many people, all kinds of things about supposed freedom entered the technology driven psyche of the society, and so on and so forth. But, I digress,.

So, the mentality I embody that I believe has helped me is that technology is a tool, and I am not entitled to entertainment technology.

 

Well, you realize dating sites is a kind of social media right? Dating is a social activity, and while I'm not that familiar there are sites where I've seen them integrate SM features.

Jaron Lanier ("Father of virtual reality" so someone deep into tech) points out social media is basically a Skinner box - a behaviorist system that works off of operant conditioning statistically, think Pavlovs dogs - except it's with people and with Likes etc. instead of food. So it isn't neutral.

Unfortunately though since people have basically limited themselves in the possible ways they can meet more and more you may have to meet people on a dating site, as much as I hate the situation and hate to admit it. I suppose the old rule of thumb is meet ASAP so it doesn't end up being, well, more social media use. Also think in terms of the usage goal to meet someone rather than continually browse pics to satisfy (which it will never be satisfied) the inner Coolidge effect.

Part of what I've tried to do is intermittent media fasting, so on most days I lock away the access to the internet fairly early. If you need it for work you can always do that selectively depending, I don't have to worry about it since I don't work from home. But the point of that is internet use at certain times is just virtually impossible to act out on because I'm in a different state of mind at 5am than I am at 11pm. (and I try not to be even awake at 11) Aside from that, as it relates to the Coolidge effect and novelty seeking I basically try to translate that to conceptual stuff, learning new things rather than "new" sexual stimuli. Not to dissuade you but personally the "not really newness" is also why I am not inclined to use dating sites. Yeah you may get a nice pic and maybe stuff they wrote on the profile sounds okay, but at this point I gotta be realistic about what I know of human beings. Hey we may be PMO addicts, but that cute girl may have other kinds of baggage. None of it is any picnic.

 

Have worked from home for the past (does calculation) 15 years, and have systems in-place in recovery where I am in a sustainable lifestyle. My situation is different than yours (have family and children and a dog underfoot), but take what you can from this.

• Several APs that I check in with daily, weekly phone calls
• Weekly 12-step meeting, if you haven't give PAA a try.
  
• CovenantEyes subscription and installed on all devices
• Inner circle, middle circle and outer circle behaviors clearly written out (link if you don't know about this)
• Daily journal writing, daily reading (currently reading the Green Book), all screens shut off at 9pm ("Amish Hour")
• Daily listening to Porn Free Radio podcasts (now up to episode 179)
  
• Written monthly plans (free PDF from Porn Free Radio is here)
• Clear reward after 30 days, 60 days, 90 days porn- and in my case masturbation-free

Social media is a problem; there is a multi-Trillion-dollar industry monetizing attention, and these apps and services are designed to keep you coming back for more. I read Cal Newport's excellent Digital Minimalism a few years ago, and it may be worth a look. Minimizing use of screens - especially social media and mindless browsing - is a great thing. For me I have 'Amish Hour' one hour before bed (often 1.5 or 2 hours) and it feels great to shut everything down and have one of three things to do - think, read, or write. A fourth thing would be to chat with someone (in your case you could use that time for phone calls).

I have to use social media professionally (I'm a senior marketing person FWIW) so there's that, however there's a big difference between minimizing use of social media personally and using social for work purposes. Thus I have not deleted accounts, just steered clear of using these platforms.

Here's a list of tools I put together some while back. Wish you the best.