The other day my phone wasn’t charging for some reason and I had it off all day. I felt better and got more done and spent time with my family. No joke.
All I use it for is scrolling reddit, scrolling hexbear, listening to podcasts, and occasionally getting a text or phone call. Scrolling reddit in partucular is bad because i pretty much hate everything i see there, I dont know whats wrong with me. I can’t just get rid of it because I like podcasts and need to get phone calls.
What do?
Sounds like the main thing you want to do is read Reddit less. Basically you just need to break a habit. If you use an app, you could uninstall it. If you use a browser, you could use one of those habit-changer apps to remind you to not use Reddit every, set to 15 minutes or something, so that if you catch yourself using it you can stop.
Im waiting on getting diagnoses and medication for add, I really just use it to push back my thoughts and feelings for a while. So I wouldn’t say I’m addicted to reddit and hexbear specifically, but its definitely addiction to something. I’m also only 7 months alcohol free so there’s displacement from the thing I used to do to push down my brain. At the very least its not AS bad a coping mechanism than alcohol. 7 months seems like a long time but its still generally considered early sobriety, and it was my go to self medication for like 12 years.
Looking at your phone is definitely healthier than alcohol! ADD/ADHD dovetails with constant phone checking, that would be super typical. Also it makes the habit changing I described more difficult because the brain actually gets something out of it that it otherwise wouldn’t - to be sustainable it may take much more time than seems reasonable, it may work better with a substitute, or it may be a time to tackle a “root cause” via a approach recommended by a pro, which might be medication or might be trying out behavioral practices until you find one that works (e.g. silent fidget device or something). Trying to not to be overly prescriptive, I just know that workarounds and actually lifehacks can work for many folks for many situations.
What’s the main goal you have? What things would you like to do less or more of?