How to kill a Cyber Addiction

A quick read and toolkit for understanding and overcoming a cyber addiction.

Who holds the chains, which keep me down?

Alcoholism, smoking, and drug addictions are all well known by the public, but by large the most widespread addiction in the West is thought of as harmless time passing activity. Cyber addictions are plaguing  our youth, especially young men. When we participate in digital entertainment, we trade our attentive energy and raw potential for a fleeting escape from boredom and our own feelings.

When I use the term “cyber addiction” I am referring to video games, TV and social media specifically, but there are likely other examples. These are designed to capture our attention and keep us hooked for as long as possible – our attention makes the industry its money. For instance, social media profits by displaying advertisements to its users. Marketers pay for ads on a cost-per-click, lead generation, or quantity of impressions basis. The more ads Facebook, YouTube, Google or Instagram can show you, the more money they make. Regardless of the particular medium, the end goal is to entise you to trade your attention, time, and energy for an escape from reality.

Sound like a waste of time?

Many people don´t have this issue (or think they do not). Others may not see it as a problem. However, if this is ringing a bell, then you are the person I am trying to reach. If you feel shame after trading your finite time in reality for time in a digital world, you are who I want to reach. Your feelings hold the truth.

I was in the exact same situation. My cyber addiction was so deep that it took me years to overcome, and I would like to offer you this brief reflection of how I got out.

The Dopamine Minefield

When it comes to a cyber addiction, the battlefield is dopamine – the feel good chemical of the brain. In the modern world, we´re completely surrounded by easy-reach dopamine. Cigarettes, beer, movies, porn, shopping malls, video games, drugs and hot running water. To be exceptional in this day and age, we must find the discipline within ourselves to re-negotiate our relationship with dopamine. It is like navigating through a minefield of distractions.

Electronic entertainment is designed to trigger dopamine production with very little work. The result is a quick but fleeting feel-good sensation which hits hard, but the over-stimulation leaves a void. With each repetition, it takes a little more to feel satisfied. As a teenager, this self-destructive cycle brought me so low that I had skin as white as paper, a school attendance rate of 55%, and a typical day of 12 hours or more gaming. It is a slippery slope, and I did not consider it to be an addiction until I stumbled across a YouTube video in which the speaker explained his video game addiction and what it did to his life. I was years into wasting my potential before I finally saw things from this new angle.

The name of the game is renegotiation. To defeat a cyber addiction, you have to remap your relationship with dopamine. It´s all about getting addicted to activities which are challenging and satisfying. Such activities may include building a business, working out, nurturing a fruitful relationship, or simply sitting still and meditating. Dopamine, in the natural sense, is among our greatest allies.

Here are some suggestions to get it back on your side:

1. Take cold showers. The Spartans identified that warm water made their warriors lazy.

2. Get your house in order. Clean your room. Clean your house. Clean your garden.

3. Go jogging. Simple and easy way to get a hit of good dopamine.

4. Join a martial arts club.  It is a community of discipline. Jujitsu is especially good.

5. Write a to-do list for the next day at the end of the day, and stick to it.

6. Reduce and eventually eliminate video game use.

7. Stop watching television. It´s called a TV program for a reason.

8. Nerd exercises. Even if you don´t have the confidence to go to the gym yet, you can do push-ups at home. You can do push-ups between loading screens if you’re still playing games. You may find that they make you feel better than the game itself.

9. Go to the gym and focus on basic compound exercises. Lift a safe amount of weight to get the workout you need. You´re not competing with anyone else.

10. Read a book. Trade out phone time for reading time.

11. Buddy up with someone who will hold you accountable.

12. Renegotiate relationships with gamer friends. You will be the average of the people you most associate with.

13. Go swimming! It´s basically meditation in water.

14. Cooking your own food is healthier and cheaper, a great skill to have, and extremely satisfying.

15. Set your own goal, make a plan, and make it happen.

16. Go for a walk and greet the people you pass.

17. Refit your kit. Linux computers and GrapheneOS phones have all the benefits of modern tech, without the trackers and ads.

I hold the chains, which keep me down.