Phone addiction

[HMD]

One of the primary reasons for my habitual phone usage is the need to distract myself from my internal dialogues, particularly those related to financial stressors. This compulsion arises from a lack of control and mindfulness regarding my thoughts, making it challenging to pause and simply exist in the moment.

I often find myself fixating on a limited set of concerns, leading to a desire to disengage cognitively and achieve a state of peace something that proves to be significantly challenging. To counteract this, I turn to stimuli that can effectively divert my attention platforms engineered to capture engagement and interest. The foremost example of this is social media.

Platforms leveraging short-form video content, such as reels, epitomize this form of distraction. They facilitate a detachment from my ruminative thoughts, replacing them with a rapid succession of novel stimuli that elicit dopamine release. These systems employ sophisticated algorithms designed to analyze user behavior, thereby curating personalized content that resonates with individual preferences.

 Social media functions as a finely-tuned mechanism that caters to our inherent need for distraction, effectively positioning itself as a tool for cognitive engagement. I see social media as an intelligent and live parasite adapting to its host's behavioral patterns to optimize its own survival and profitability.

[Hojo]

1 compulsion 1 problem

1 compulsion and a mind that makes it into a negative, 2 problems.

Do it and enjoy it. The way you view reality is determined by you.

Edited March 13 by Hojo

[The Renaissance Man]

@HMD Bro install an app blocker. Then it will be impossible for you to use social media, literally. You've got to find an alternative though, or you'll go crazy. At least that's how it was for me. My alternative has been reading novels.

And @Hojo is right, you risk doubling the problem for nothing. All these self-help youtubers (that don't have much more experience than you often) try to create drama around every little thing just to make some views. "Blue light in the evening?? You're going to die!!" kind of shit. If you feel you're wasting your life on social media, install an app blocker and find a healthier alternative. It's that easy. People make a phone addiction appear the same as heroin addiction lol observe your experience and you'll see that's bullshit made for views.

[Hojo]

The negativity towards the compulsion is the next step of attachment the second you demonize what you are doing you become more attached not less, sort of like you attach by liking it then you dont de attach and demonize it, that adds another layer of attachment. You must like it then stop, or like it and keep liking it. I notice I do this all the time. People on their phones at work not talking, I think the phones must be satan. Thats making them worse in the dream literally, the answer is get on your phone and dont talk or sit there and dont talk not to demonize God.

Its important to see that God is real time creating your life frame by frame and you are like a schizophrenic man in heaven making up the next steps by putting together what you see and hear into narratives. You arent addicted you just like it alot. Reframe all of these scientific demonizational terms. In order to gain more control you need to prove to yourself that you are actually in control of your body. Do it by stopping the action or just tell yourself you want to do it. These words and terms to demonize the self, that somehow or someway you have decided that what you are doing is not good need to be put to rest.  Just agree with the body and say this is good I love this and I will be able to do this forever and you will now see you are in control and can quit.

If you demonize something its like you as God saying it hates itself. God cant do that it loves everything, the phone will become metaphysically hurt that you dont like it, the same way you would be if God didnt like you.

 

Edited March 13 by Hojo

[HMD]

@The Renaissance Man I’m swapping it out for reading, and it's been highly effective. And social media platforms are far more dangerous than heroin. You have billion-dollar investments backing them, all working to make their products more irresistible. They study your deepest cravings and understand what you desire. This system is dynamic and constantly evolving. Plus, it gives off an illusion of safety, which is why it ensnares far more people than heroin ever could.

@Hojo I don’t think it's a compulsion from within. I think it's manipulation. You are being compelled to do something, yet it's not a natural compulsion (For instance the compulsion to have sex). 

You can argue that accepting being manipulated as an act of God (The devil is also God), but you can’t forget that you are a human being too that needs protection from manipulators or else your life goes to shit. It's like you have a leech on your arm, you recognize that it is God, you love it, but you have to get rid of it. And to get rid of it you have to see the harm it is causing. 

 

 

[The Renaissance Man]

18 hours ago, HMD said:

I’m swapping it out for reading, and it's been highly effective

Awesome  

[Aaron p]

Solved

[cjoseph90]

Good post, reminder to self. 

[Princess Arabia]

On 3/12/2025 at 10:06 PM, HMD said:

 Social media functions as a finely-tuned mechanism that caters to our inherent need for distraction, effectively positioning itself as a tool for cognitive engagement. I see social media as an intelligent and live parasite adapting to its host's behavioral patterns to optimize its own survival and profitability.

The problem lies when we focus on the addicted thing itself and start to blame that thing. Imagine if there was no social media. Whatever year it was introduced to society, before that, there were still addictions. We go around blaming things all the time for our own demise. When something else gets introduced to society, and we get addicted to that too, we will blame that thing. We will continue to find things to be addicted to. It's not the thing that's the problem, it's out own state of being. Get to that root if you want to stop the addiction. 

We continue to look outside of ourselves for happiness and we look outside ourselves for what's causing the pain. Everything for us is on the outside, but we feel it on the inside. It's a tool, and that tool can be used in many ways. You have used it for your own destruction. If a building was wrongly imploded by mistake would you blame the tool that was used to cause the implosion. No, you would blame the people that made the decision to implode it. The problem was in the thought to implode it. 

Same thing with any addiction. The problem is not with the thing, it's in the thought. The generator of that thought. The belief in that thought and the belief that the thing can make the thought go away. It goes away temporarily but when it comes back, we turn to the thing again and the cycle repeats itself. Eradicate social media and the thoughts are still there and the believer in them will find another way to relieve itself from those thoughts. That's how it works. Now you have made social media the enemy with more thoughts. Thoughts battling thoughts. Sounds woo woo, but this is how the me energy operates. This is why we need to know ourselves and try to see how it is us that's the problem to us and not the outside world. You have turned social media into the enemy and called it a parasite when it's the thought you have entertained that's the real parasite.

Edited Sunday at 02:46 PM by Princess Arabia

[HMD]

@Princess Arabia 

I agree with you, Arabia. No matter how powerful the algorithm becomes, it can't affect me if I am in control of my mind.

After I made this post, I realized that my inability to escape from my thoughts or disengaging from them was at the root of my problem. Shifting the blame onto social media wasn’t very helpful.

However, controlling my thoughts takes time. In the meantime, I need to keep everything that preys on this weakness away from me. For that reason, it’s important to acknowledge social media for what it really is.

[Princess Arabia]

30 minutes ago, HMD said:

However, controlling my thoughts takes time.

This is impossible. We cannot control our thoughts. I can tell you're on a quest for control and control is controlling you. Thoughts come and go, it's our attachments to them that's the issue. The need to control them is still an attachment. What's needing to control them is yet another thought. Just let them be. Recognize them for what they are.

The person that found their true love on there doesn't think so or the one using it for a business or career or to make friends or whatever positive effects it has for some.

30 minutes ago, HMD said:

I need to keep everything that preys on this weakness away from me. For that reason, it’s important to acknowledge social media for what it really is.

For what it really is and means to YOU. What it really is is a construct. A societal identity and a means of engaging with each other. Trying to get rid of the addiction is one thing, demonizing it is another. That only perpetuates the addiction. I don't know how to tell you to quit the addiction, but I can help with the way you see it and give you another perspective that might help to give you the appropriate tools to get rid of it. You know what I'm saying or you wouldn't agree, but it's the need to put everything outside of you as the enemy that's controlling the mind. Only thing i can say for now is to not see social media as the culprit because your interpretation of it is a part of the problem. We don't call something an addiction if it's good for us, we only call those things that are not as such, so keep saying it's not a good thing will keep you and it tied together and make it an energetic match for addiction mode - so to speak.

Edited Sunday at 04:03 PM by Princess Arabia

[HMD]

@Princess Arabia So your premise is: demonizing social media will keep me addicted to it. And awakening to social media’s true nature will put me (and then keep me) in a state of higher awareness, which is essentially what one needs to let go of attachments (or addictions). 

The problem is that to awaken to social media’s (or anything for that matter) true nature, one must already be in an elevated state of awareness, consistently. 

And to raise your awarness requires work, time, and effort. Raising your baseline awareness level is difficult. You may argue that  wanting to raise your awareness is an attachment or that enlightenment is right in front of you, but that is a gross oversimplification, just look at people who take psychedelics and don’t do the work. 

Part of that effort and work to raise your awareness is to protect yourself from shit that keeps you in lower states of consciousness. You can say  “there are no lower states of consciousness, everything is infinite love, you just can’t see it”, but again, that’s a gross oversimplification.

Now, do you  think that it's helpful to forcefully try to see social media’s true nature as a construct or as Love, God, or Mind? 

Edited Sunday at 06:56 PM by HMD

[Princess Arabia]

2 minutes ago, HMD said:

So your premise is: demonizing social media will keep me addicted to it. And awakening to social media’s true nature will put me (and then keep me) in a state of higher awareness, which is essentially what one needs to let go of attachments (or addictions). 

Not saying it will necessarily keep you addicted to it, but it doesn't help. Your addiction will fall away on it's own just like it appeared on it's own. What i'm referring to is a response. You've responded to it in a demonizing way and it's just not the best approach. Other than it being a construct, there's no real true nature to it. It's a matter of perspective and perception. It's an abstract object that one cannot really put their hands on and will be seen through the lens of whose looking. How can it have a concrete true nature, other than a conceptual one.

You keep referring to the outside as in "awakening to social media's true nature". How about awakening to yours. Social media has no ground to stand on other than you. It doesn't exist apart from you. So inventing a "true nature" for social media is saying without your awareness of it, it exists; it doesn't. Try being aware of social media without being aware of social media. Also be aware that so-called enlightened masters and mystics can also have addictions with their heightened awareness.

15 minutes ago, HMD said:

The problem is that to awaken to social media’s (or anything for that matter) true nature, one must already be in an elevated state of awareness, consistently. 

Awareness doesn't need an elevated state of awareness to be aware. It's effortless to be aware. It's like saying an orange needs to maintain it's "orangeness", consistently or it will turn into an apple. One only needs to awaken to their true nature not the outside world's true nature. Awareness cannot be elevated only consciousness. More conscious or less conscious. Awareness doesn't have a state. It's either you're aware or you're not. Whatever is aware of that so-called heightened state of awareness that you invented is also awareness. 

 

20 minutes ago, HMD said:

 

And to raise your awarness requires work, time, and effort. Raising your baseline awareness level is difficult. You may argue that  wanting to raise your awareness is an attachment or that enlightenment is right in front of you, but that is a gross oversimplification, just look at people who take psychedelics and don’t do the work. 

Based on what I've said about awareness, you're referring to consciousness levels. Yes, enlightenment is already the case, which most will disagree with, but if you thoroughly investigate that, it will become clear. It's just it's not the case for the individual that seeks it. Can't look for a purse if the purse doesn't already exist somewhere. Space and time are illusions and an invention of thought, so enlightenment is already here. It's the thought that seeks to enlighten itself. Let's not debate this, though, as it's a matter of personal perspective and I'm not here to change that part.

 

27 minutes ago, HMD said:

Part of that effort and work to raise your awareness is to protect yourself from shit that keeps you in lower states of consciousness. You can say  “there are no lower states of consciousness, everything is infinite love, you just can’t see it”, but again, that’s a gross oversimplification.

Now, do you  think that it's helpful to forcefully try to see social media’s true nature as a construct or as Love, God, or Mind? 

I'm trying to be as practical as I can be but the quest to protect yourself is a part of the problem. Not referring to practically protecting yourself from bears and tigers and diseases, etc, but to protect yourself from being in lower states of consciousness. Those higher and lower states will happen all on it's own. Did you ever wake up and say, I'm going to put myself in a lower state? Well, the same thing goes for higher states. One can be in a club with a high state of consciousness and be a meditator and remain in a lower state. The difference is your perception. How you see things. There's nothing keeping you in lower states but your perceptions. Seeing dogshit can be gross or not, depending on your perception of it. Seeing yourself as an addict can be bad or good depending on how you look at it. Addict to change or addict to say whoa is me. Difference of perception and elevated consciousness. All within. Main thing is loosen up a bit and stop giving so much of your attention to the outside world. It will drive you crazy. Stop placing so much effort into trying to solve life and let life take it's course. This is not a weakness but a strength. It's because we feel weak and powerless why we feel the need for power and control and effort. The power is not in social media, it's the energy you give it; and in this case, by calling it a parasite and demonizing it. Now, you are forced to respond as such because that's the energetic match. No need to label it, just see it as social media. Figure out ways to not pick up the phone or whatever you need to do without bringing in awareness and consciousness into this. Those are also you labeling your being. High level, low level, who cares. Social media doesn't.

 

[Flowerfaeiry]

ClearSpace app was reallyy helpful for me. It makes you do an activity like take a deep breath or pushups before going on your apps and then you choose a time limit. The free version gives you one app so if you find you’re really addicted to tik tok for example you can set it to that one otherwise the paid version you get more.

[Chadders]

@HMD best technique is simply keep it out of sight. Same principle that applies to having cookies in a jar at home. It’s just easier to not have cookies there so you do not have to resist the temptation 

Leave your phone at home and go for a walk/bike ride