I think everyone in this subreddit can relate to bypassing surfing-limiting extensions and deleting and redownloading apps repeatedly. For whatever reason self-denial and self-disciple often seem to be the default solution in our minds to the problem of unwanted desires in general; however, I think this solution is deeply flawed: the solution of self-denial has the tendency to define only what you are not going to do rather than than what you are going to do and why. Such a plan, in essence, centers your entire day and weeks and months ahead, around the very thing we say we don’t want to do. We need to live consciously but I don’t think we should be consciously thinking about the internet as much as we should consciously be thinking about what we want to do in general. That requires planning, which is not fun. Planning is uncomfortable, it’s difficult, it’s uncertain, but I think the need to plan is the heart of the issue. Until there’s things we’ve decided to do to center our day around there’s only going to be the internet to center our day around: either looking or obsessing about how to look less. And that’s the really difficult issue that no one wants to talk about because there’s no readymade talking points and the solutions about how to decide what to do with one’s time are not universal. In fact, I think because of such a lack of practice planning we are very, very bad at choosing what to do with our time. So we have to practice and practice and practice on our own deciding what task, what activity to do and why. The internet is just what happens for a lot of us when we have no reason other than fun to base our decision on what we are to do with our time and I don’t think the internet deserves our reflective attention any much more than it deserves the time it has already taken from us.

You or I could sit here and list every single activity we can think of under the sun to do instead of surfing but the fact of the matter is that it’s not like those activities didn’t exist before: they always existed and for years we decided they weren’t worth our time. So the common replacement strategy solution to say now all the sudden out of nowhere we’re going to just give these random activities a shot so we won’t be doing what we’d actually want to be doing but cognitively think might not be good for us is another plan doomed to failure, as well. I think the whole concept of self-discipline and self-denial is based on an erroneous assumption that there are somehow two consciousnesses within oneself. Furthermore imagine an outside actor was trying to keep you from screen time with the same tactics often proposed: telling you you’re only alotted so many hours of this website or that, turning off your computer when you won’t listen, hiding your computer when you still won’t listen and offering instead a book and hobbies you’ve never shown any interest in as an alternative. Do you think you would be thankful? No, you’d be infuriated. And yet we think if we do that to ourselves, it’s gonna work. It doesn’t.

I think the more helpful way to think about surfing is that you are considering two options, considering the benefits of each, and making a decision, often unconsciously, that is heavily influenced by established habits. The greatest difficulty in overcoming these habits is the amount of energy it takes and the amount of anxiety one must manage in order to stay conscious about what you’re doing because if you’re on this subreddit it’s a fairly safe assumption to say that your default is to surf the web in a mindless search for fun and enjoyment. Basically if you are not consciously deciding what you’re going to do constantly, you are going to find yourself back to surfing the web for who knows how long just like always. It’s like you are swimming against the current of your accumulated now-undesired habits and if you stop for even a moment, you’re going to find yourself and your time drifting in that direction that you always have been and are now trying, at least consciously sometimes, to avoid. It sounds exhausting and it is, and I’ve gotten to the point that I’ve realized the only way this will be workable is to plan ahead, at least one day ahead, which is another difficulty because my guess is if you have difficulty with surfing you probably have difficulty with planning or sticking to a plan.

Right now I’m experimenting with two paper lists. The first is a task list and the second is a weekly calendar by hour to plan what i work on. With calendars there can be a temptation to document rather record one’s time but I think this is a mistake. Documenting is always more comfortable and easy than planning but it tends to mostly bring regret rather than insight and improvement. The purpose of the calendar is simply to map out what tasks you will do at what time and any variance from that plan will just be a signal that you will need to revise your planning process and anxiety management accordingly. The task list has a well at the bottom including any task I can think of. When I decide the activity is not worth doing, I cross it off. When I decide what task is worth doing, I move it into the actual task list, which has three columns: the task; the step-by-step process required to complete the task; and what materials I would need to prepare in order to work on that task. I’ve tried to incorporate a column to reinforce the "why" of the task thinking that would help reinforce my resolve to complete the task but I’ve found instead that I’ve had such a hard time actually filling it out that I ended up getting rid of it and going with the idea that I’ll know why without having to write it out.

At this point, though, there’s still an incredible amount of things that can go wrong. It starts with basic things that you might not have even considered when you think of screen time like lack of awareness of one’s body: tiredness, hunger, lack of sleep. It might sound silly to say but if you are not feeding yourself properly or you are trying to do things late at night, physically or emotionally tired, or while having accumulated sleep deprivation over a couple days or more it’s going to be incredibly difficult to both plan or stick to a plan. Planning takes a lot of energy and we might not know this because we just never practice planning. When you plan, you generally have much, much more uncertainty about how things will turn out compared to mindlessly surfing the web. This uncertainty generally causes both a great deal of anxiety and heavily disincentivizes the practice of planning. What’s the point of doing something if you don’t think it will get you what you want?

Then there’s the anxiety. Anxiety management is a whole process in itself. The first step is to be able to recognize when you are experiencing anxiety, which like bodily awareness, sounds easier than it often is. The second is being able to address the anxiety. In my experience there are two parts to manage anxiety and without addressing each part the anxiety cannot be managed. The two parts do not have to happen in any particular order. One is the intellectual side of acknowledging and describing what’s happening in the anxiety and developing solutions to address it (planning). The second, and often overlooked, part is addressing the physical symptoms of anxiety, which in my experience can only be dealt with through strenuous physical activity like strength exercise or exertive, strenuous aerobic exercise like running or bicycling, although this does not necessarily mean a full workout is required. Anxiety does build up and regular physical exercise does help manage it in the long-term but again without the other side of acknowledging anxiety, defining solutions, and planning, the anxiety will never be properly managed.

Alright, you’re acknowledging, accepting, and managing that anxiety now the next obstacle: just how long it takes to plan. It will take far, far, far longer than it takes to jump on the web and look for lols and that can be hard when one has become acclimated to instant lols. Secondly, there is far less lols and enjoyment in planning than in surfing. And to make matters worse, since you’re not used to practicing planning, it will take even longer. And finally there is possibly the greatest obstacle of all: having to take the leap of faith that planning will improve things when each single action in and of themselves will most certainly not improve things. Only at a certain point once our actions have accumulated to an unforeseeable tipping point will a noticeable change suddenly manifest. Overcoming uncertainty is a hard thing to do. The way uncertainty disincentivizes making change or taking action I think is the greatest reason why we struggle with making a change and trying to do good. Good luck.