Very interesting essay. Internet addiction is in my opinion spreading like wildfire, spreading well beyond procrastination as Paul Graham said and actually impacting workspace and home environments extremely negatively - the analogy to alcohol is spot on. You aren't procrastinating, you are the equivalent of drunk.
Introspectively, the problem with my addiction lies in the acceleration of production as well as distribution. There are more movies being produced, more novels being written, and more content in general to consume. Technology has been making producing these mediums easier and easier. Musicians used to have to write down lyrics and notes on paper - now there are programs which can practically generate a whole song for them. News can be written by your friends who just got the latest scoop at a major conference. Producing content has never been easier.
At the same time on the distribution side, the internet has made all this content available at your finger tips instantly. As bandwidth increased, it became almost too easy to spend 10 minutes watching news or entertaining on YouTube or a myriad of other free media streaming sites.
These processes will only get more efficient and more effective. As a corollary, the media which seems highly targeted and interesting to you will become increasingly prevalent.
There are no easy answers, and I for one am taking the issue relatively seriously. Getting away for extended periods of time without internet is vital - which is also why I don't own a smart phone.
IMHO it is not the Internet that's the problem. The constant connectivity is killing productivity.
Every morning I used to start my day with reading HN, on the bus to school I surfed the web. At uni, on every break I used to take out my phone and browse some more. After school I binge-watched TV shows and surfed more. My attention span got so divided that I couldn't concentrate watching a single episode, I constantly switched to a browser to surf more.
I learned a lot about programming, but my personal life suffered.
I couldn't meet deadlines, couldn't study for uni (studying law).
In the end I concluded that I had developed something like an internet addiction.
Furthermore, it wasn't just limited to internet. I stopped changing clothes, stopped keeping my already cluttered room in a somewhat liveable standard, stopped caring for my health, ate a lot of junk food, got hooked to TV-Shows.
Now, instead of constant short bursts of divided internet surfing, I am trying to set out a time for surfing. And outside those hours, I go offline.
It has been a though switch, but I slowly feel that I'm getting my impulse control back.
I recently started reading Deep Work by Cal Newport, I can recommend it to anyone trying to get off the vicious cycle.
You've hit on one of the major reasons why the Internet is worse than TV, as far as time-wasters go. TV gets old after a while and is unfulfilling. The Internet devises new ways of hitting new reward receptors every second, and the possibilities are infinite. Sick of reading? You can write. (Comments, blogs, Wikipedia).
I've often thought of Internet addiction as being more like an overeating problem than a drug problem. You can give up cigarettes or opiates cold turkey, but no one can stop eating. In order to be productive as a programmer, you must daily engage your vice.
I've come to believe that online distractions are legitimately addictive in the same way that gambling is addictive. I.e. a behavior that becomes all-encompassing to the point where it negatively affects the rest of your life.
I say this because I used to think I was a major procrastinator and looked for all manner of tips and tricks to solve the problem. But I was trying to solve the wrong problem. if I turn off the internet entirely, I have no problem at all doing what I want to do during the day.
However, if the internet is on, i can get into states where I not only don't do any of the work I need to do, I don't leave the house, I don't hang out with friends, I forget to eat, etc.
I realized my online behavior was a bigger issue when I started screwing up dates because I was doing something on the internet. Blowing off a boring work task to watch youtube videos is one thing, but when I started missing out on getting laid because I was refreshing HN and getting sucked into a Wikipedia vortex, it realized I had a real problem.
So, maybe you're not really procrastinating, maybe you're addicted to the internet. Maybe not, but it is something to consider.
I thought I was addicted to the internet too yet it turns out I'm addicted to information whether that be short, long, audio or video content.
The insatiable desire to be up to date with current news, happenings in my fields of interest or social circles became unmanageable. Furthermore, the teams of people with doctorates employed by tech companies to make their product even stickier with each iteration made my battle all the more challenging.
By creating hard boundaries that were non-negotiable such as limiting time on the top (n) sites, banning certain apps on the phone and deleting accounts helped me immensely.
Being online is hard to avoid such as banking, portfolio management, booking medical appointments and acquiring entertainment to consume are now ingrained in modern society yet learning the skill (or art of) disconnecting to enjoy non-online or 'outside' activities and controlling my compulsion to surf aimlessly (laptop or mobile) from one site to the next took weeks to get under control.
Training my family and friends to not expect an instant reply to messages also took a long time and surprisingly difficult.
Today was a public holiday where I live and I'm happy to say I spent it offline. I did however listen to the news and the footy on the wireless. Only now in the late evening for 20 minutes am I replying to my messages and 'online'.
An addiction is a habit to stimulation. Like TV, Internet is very powerful stimulator - it holds your attention (some times partial, as it described in comment above) and allows you to forget or to push aside any challenges of so-called real world. In fact, it works the same way as an alcohol - cheap and low-pleasant solution for wasting your time.
All those tweets, blogs, emails and headlines just keeps you loaded, keeps you away from actual tasks or problems, like a popular radio and then TV shows did.
Of course it is much easy and even pleasant to read tens or even hundreds of short, primitive, mostly meaningless posts and comments than to do something useful.
In this illusion it seems like you're getting new facts, accumulating knowledge in various areas and it raises your self-esteem, but actually you're just switching channels from one advertisement to another.
I have to disagree with this. After many years of trying to ween myself off the internet, I've come to realise that it isn't solely certain services that are addicting - the internet itself is. Some things can amplify this addiction, but the common denominator (for me) is access to _limitless_ information.
Things that have amplified my internet addiction I think are access to unfiltered internet, online games, social media and porn at a very young age (since around 6 years old - I am gen Z for reference, so I've grown up with normalised smartphone/social media/gaming addiction), as well as how normal it is to be addicted to these things. The fact that I now (subconsciously) associate using a computer with the aforementioned vices means that I have come to _expect_ the dopamine hit when I use them makes doing actual work (because my job is mostly computer based) even harder.
It has got to the point to where I now do not have internet in my house because if I do, I'll just use it all day (despite having various commitments). I now only use the internet in public spaces, on public wireless. This combined with planning my days/weeks/quarter (this is essential for overcoming internet addiction IMO) seems to have solved my addiction. I still have a dumb phone for receiving calls and texts (SIM card is super-glued in) and a smartphone without a SIM card for navigation - the point is, access to information is limited.
I've been thinking about this lately, too. A long time ago, I spent almost no time on the internet, because there wasn't really much of an internet to speak of. Instead, I wrote code. Lots, and lots, and lots of code. Some of it in assembly; some of it, even, in hex, with tons of printed pages of processor instructions in front of me.
Feats like that required a level of concentration that I find almost impossible to achieve today. I've developed a tic: write a line of code, check a news site; write another line of code, check email; write another line of code, check a social site.
I can't even call it procrastination anymore. It's something far more insidious. I'm fighting it, but the fight itself requires a nearly exhausting amount of effort.
It's got all the hallmarks of an addiction -- a psychological one, rather than a chemical one, maybe. The trouble is, with many addictive substances, completely avoiding them is a reasonable solution. With the internet, looking up a function reference or even testing and uploading a piece of code can lead too easily to diversions; it's difficult to separate necessary things from distractions and impractical to avoid it altogether.
I hate it. I've tried many of the tricks that people suggest, but the simple fact is, a significant part of my personality would rather mindlessly browse the internet instead of focusing intently for a long enough period of time to do something productive.
> This leads me to believe that the ideas we have reflect the kind of world we live in.
I think this is insightful. I somehow never managed to lose track of my childhood dreams, but instead I'm constantly preventing myself from accomplishing them.
Good luck on your internet diet. If you manage to stick with it for a full month, you're a better person than I am.
But... but... I need the internet for online gaming and aimless browsing!
It's true. This stuff is addictive, and I've known that for over two decades now. And I've been addicted ever since my older brother told me about the Internet when he went to university. I don't fool myself that I can stop anytime; I clearly can't. I don't want to. But it's true that it's sucking up way too much time.
I don't read books anymore because I read HN and Google+. I have trouble of focusing on boring administrative chores because there's always this info-driven dopamine boost within reach.
I would say I don’t have a addiction. Sorry if it came across that way. By most common standards I am already a outlier I feel. I don’t do social media, news or mindlessly browsing in general. I don’t watch tv either. I mostly read some books and may be an economist article here and there during a week. Online consumption might be 2-3 hours per week at the most in extreme cases. Mostly is 5-10 mins a day.
I guess for me I feel I dont produce anything (at work ) or in personal life. Personal life is mostly playing a what seems like a perpetual catch-up on “life chores”.
In that sense may be I am in a rut and need to do something “productive” (for myself). Like literally and metaphorically. :)
In "The Acceleration of Addictiveness," Paul Graham posits why things are becoming more addictive, and that if you want to be productive, you need to learn how to deal with or avoid addictive technologies (like TV, for example).
Yea, I think the other aspect is this isn't just internet. When I was younger, going on the internet meant going to the upstairs bedroom, turning on the computer, waiting for it to boot up, then waiting for AOL to connect, then chatting with people. It would take like 5 minutes of effort. Now, most of the time when I go out, for fun, I just look how many people are hunched over staring and scrolling at their stupid rectangle in their hand all day everyday. It's usually at least 80% of people. It's the social, the algorithm, and the fact that the addiction is sitting in people's hands at all moments of the day and night.
I have a theory that media addictions happen in large part because screens are more shiny and colorful than reality. If that's true, e-ink only phones and laptops could be a big help against procrastination. (But also probably lead to fewer ad clicks, so beware of incentives for manufacturers!)
This is way different though. The internet is a powerful tool and we need it: forums and media are not things we need. I doubt you’re addicted to the productive spheres of the internet (although I am addicted to discovering new domains and improving my mathematical knowledge: that may be considered “productive.”)
Okay, this might get downvoted, but posts like this are exactly why my co-founder wrote a big series on addiction in general and Internet addiction in particular.
It seems like nowadays, we wring our hands about the effects of constant access to the internet on a near-daily basis. And isn't it kind of odd that the people working on these products in an 'individual contributor' capacity are often the same ones encouraging others to stay away from their platforms?
Maybe that should tell us something. Anecdotally, most of the things that this article recommends are things that I wholeheartedly enjoyed several years ago, but tellingly no longer have time for despite a similar schedule.
Reading for pleasure took the biggest hit - I can just listen to an audiobook or podcast during the commute, right? But it does also feel like I've gotten worse at persisting in tedious tasks after being interrupted, exercise feels more like wasted time, and even my breathing exercises are getting shallow and rapid these days.
What is going on? It's not that thumbing through the news feels like an accomplishment, and I know that I'll look back on these years and shake my head at how terribly I'm wasting my time - it's already happening - but this is a comfortable lifestyle and I just keep on doing it. That does sound like an addiction, right?
I don't know. But I do know that I've had enough, and I'm coping with it by planning to spend a couple of years on the road in the hopes that things blow over and the people of 202x will have this all figured out. And hey, maybe I'll feel better after forcing myself to be bored for several months.
Because these issues seem so massive and unapproachable that I can't think of anything to do besides throwing up my hands and leaving. I can't even talk to other people about it because everybody's noses are in their phones everywhere. Is that weird?
Probably, but at the same time (and the article touches upon this a bit) the Internet is somewhat of an all encompassing medium the increasing use of which is not necessarily a sign of negative addiction.
I use the Internet a lot, but that is because the Internet has grown to encompass some amount of nearly every aspect of my life, not (in my non-professional opinion) because I have an addictive tendency toward it.
I'm a software developer, so clearly Internet use for research/testing/etc is very common; I'm a movie/tv watcher and all of my at-home movie/tv watching has migrated to the Internet; I'm a reader and most of my reading has migrated to the Internet (at the very least for delivery to my Kindle); I'm a gamer and most of the games I play have at least some Internet-based multiplayer component; I'm a hobbyist at various things like photography, quadcopter building/flying, and 3D printing and the Internet is a spectacular way to communicate with like-minded hobbyists, so I do; I'm someone who lives across the country from most of my extended family, and we keep in contact via the Internet (in addition to occasional phone calls and visits, but the contact via the Internet is much more consistent due to the easy time-shifting of leaving messages).
I spend hours and hours and hours a day on the Internet, but OTOH I can easily go camping for a week or two and live completely without it with no ill effects. I have IRL friends I spend time with on a weekly basis, I "get out" and do plenty of things not related to the Internet, etc. So while I use it very often on a regular basis, that in and of itself does not signify an addiction, as far as I understand it (again, in my non-professional opinion).
Wow, I didn't expect my first submission to hit the front page. Should have done that third edit I decided to forego.
There are some good replies here. The only point I want to make is that the people accusing me of lacking self-control are 100% correct.
I disconnected my internet not because I see no value in it (far from it), but rather because unfettered access was taking too much time away from other things that I value.
Lest you get the wrong idea, I'm quite capable of avoiding the internet. I wrote ~350,000 (profitable) words last year. I got lots of other things done, too.
But, I had to use up willpower at all times to avoid the easy pleasure of surfing the web. It was unpleasant.
Most of my work is on the computer - I'm no technophobe. It's so much easier to use my computer now that it mostly does work related things unless I'm in a cafe.
I readily admit that some people may have no trouble with the internet and self-control. That's great - you have all the advantages of limitless information, and none of the disadvantages of distraction.
Many people, unfortunately, are more like me. The internet is valuable for us, but a potential pitfall. I'm hardly the first to point this out, pg had an essay on point.
For a long time I thought that my constant internet use was a symptom of my disinterest in other things, but more recently I've come to realize that it is, in fact, the sole cause of said disinterest. The quick dopamine hits you get on the internet have subconsciously convinced your brain that the internet is what matters, and that everything else (i.e. your life) is simply a distraction.
Don't take my word for it. You can test this hypothesis in ~2 hours. Hide and/or turn off all of your electronics, and wait. You'll sit on the couch, you'll eat a snack, you'll find that your phone has magically appeared in your hand (how?!?), but just put it back down. As you try to go 2 hours without any passive entertainment, and I can almost guarantee that you'll discover that your mind will begin to show interest in things like hobbies/reading. If you can't get online, a book sounds pretty nice.
There's the rub--if getting online is an option, it's always the best option. The only way to do other stuff is to carve out time where getting online (or, for me, passive entertainment of any kind) is not an option.
Fun fact: If you can forego passive entertainment for the week, you will see all of that junk for what it really is, to your horror and eternal benefit.
Introspectively, the problem with my addiction lies in the acceleration of production as well as distribution. There are more movies being produced, more novels being written, and more content in general to consume. Technology has been making producing these mediums easier and easier. Musicians used to have to write down lyrics and notes on paper - now there are programs which can practically generate a whole song for them. News can be written by your friends who just got the latest scoop at a major conference. Producing content has never been easier.
At the same time on the distribution side, the internet has made all this content available at your finger tips instantly. As bandwidth increased, it became almost too easy to spend 10 minutes watching news or entertaining on YouTube or a myriad of other free media streaming sites.
These processes will only get more efficient and more effective. As a corollary, the media which seems highly targeted and interesting to you will become increasingly prevalent.
There are no easy answers, and I for one am taking the issue relatively seriously. Getting away for extended periods of time without internet is vital - which is also why I don't own a smart phone.
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