Quitting the Wired

Today I woke up at 11, watched youtube and soykafposted on discord for a few hours, then I jerked off for a full hour and change using AI-generated erotica. I haven’t needed to leave my house today yet, and I probably won’t. A distressingly relateable day for many males my age, I’m sure; probably more than you’ll see in any statistic. Why do I do it? I barely derive pleasure from doing these things. Masturbation, sure, can be quite pleasurable, but I don’t always have a good time doing it, and usually it is immediately followed by shame and regret. Aimlessly browsing the wired, watching stupid videos, getting in to fights with strangers, isn’t very pleasurable at all. I spend maybe 5% of the time I am using my computer recreationally, including for pornography, actually feeling something pleasurable. The rest is just killing time. The thing is, I have things to do. I have projects to work on, there are books I’d like to read, places I’d like to go. Oftentimes once I get started on any of those I can easily focus on them for hours, and usually feel satisfied afterwards. So why do I always end up sitting in this damn chair, and why do I always end up tabbing between websites, checking whether I’ve gotten any replies, seeing if there’s any youtube videos today to catch my fancy? I’ve literally being doing it even as I write this. Why do I inevitably seem to go back to porn, when I could just masturbate normally or wait until my girlfriend is back? One thing is clear: this is addiction. I’m addicted to the wired. I think that many, many people are also addicted to the wired. I think that collectively, we all sort of live in denial of it. Like caffeine addiction, it’s seen as benign, maybe even normal, but I don’t think it is. If we must compare it to a drug, it should be compared to nicotine. It’s extremely hard to quit, very available, stimulating, and for many users it isn’t even a particularly pleasant experience, it’s just a habit. It’s also pretty gross and antisocial in nature, and in this last regard it is much worse than nicotine. The thing is, where I’m from (California), people demonize the fuarrrk out of nicotine. Some people think that smokers shouldn’t even be allowed to smoke in the same building as children, even when there’s no ventilation directly connecting the smokers’ home to a child’s home. I hear ads all the time about how bad vaping and smoking are for you. The taxes are insane. People came to my school and told me how evil cigarettes are. Even marijuana, which is much milder, is understood by almost everyone to be something best enjoyed in moderation. Where is the similar attitude for recreational wired usage? The best you’ll find is nofappers always trying to quit porn, and always backsliding because, for many of them, porn addiction is simply an aspect of wired addiction. When I experimented with the relatively minor step of getting rid of my cell phone, people treated me like I was extremely rude for asking for plans or directions before I left my home. I feel like I’m a smoker in a society where everyone thinks that cigarettes are A-Ok, and in fact if you talk about the ills of recreational wired use in some spaces, invariably a misguided individual will step in to tell us about how important the wired is for liberation. This is true, and the wired is and always will be a tool, one that can be used for good. However, like many tools, it has destructive potential as well. It can be abused, and I argue, unless you can think of a specific, good reason why you are using a website at any particular moment, you are abusing it. In years past, I would have recognized my need to change and I would have taken a tab of acid or some mushrooms or smoked some DMT to try and clear my mind and set myself straight. Lately I don’t desire to do that again, and I don’t think it would even be effective. I’ve learned many lessons from those chemicals, but they don’t ever tell you how to put it in to practice, and can lead to a false enlightenment. I don’t need any inspiration, I need discipline in this moment. From now on my usage of the wired will be deliberate and utilitarian. I will not watch youtube videos or browse forums, not even for a few seconds while I’m waiting for code to compile. I will use communcation technology to communicate, not as a way to kill time. I will consider removing my phone from my life as well, although I think it is too useful at the moment. One step at a time. I’m telling you this, Lain, because I love you and you’ve been a great friend to me, even though you’re sometimes an insufferable twat. I think that everyone reading this could benefit from seriously considering their own relationship with the Wired. Quitting is possible. We’re all connected, and we always will be, even if we’re not all tapping away at our little stimulus machines. See you on the other side.

No chance, just watched cartoons all night instead lmao There's no escape. Might as well just throw your electronics away and try living inna woods. Maybe get some pen pals.

>/hum/ - discord.com/channels/#vent

I do the same thing. Discipline is hard to acquire, I find myself coming back to the same places despite a general desire to quit. I use the endless babble of the internet to comfort myself. So perhaps its comfort-seeking I should give up. I should get used to discomfort.

I do the same but I realized why. I'm afraid of time commitment: browsing the web, especially imageboards, is something that you can stop any time. If I decide to watch a movie that's at least 2 hours that I am commiting from the start. Of course I can theoretically stop watching the movie half-way but that's not very satisfying. If I start a singleplayer game that can be a time commitment of 1 day to over a week. I can also save the game and move on but again it's not satisfying as I want to finish the game. It's even worse with hobbies as they require even more of a commitment. Meanwhile browsing the internet is open ended. I can tell myself that I will just check out if there are any new posts which will just take a few minutes of course this time evaluation gets repeated so I waste hours in minute increments so I don't realize it.

wassup yall, I already knew the ''chan'' thing and I actually wanted to enter one, a friend of mine said ''lain chan is pretty chill and not the most criminal chan, so yeah I think you should try it'' so here I am, any tip or advice, or new friendships are open! ty

change needed to leave today distressing day for many you'll see do i derive good by regret fights at my computer the rest is just killing i have focus on them usually end up sitting in between catch it inevitably addicted people think collectively denial of normal must quit demonize children directly all the time insane people understood by moderation wired is backsliding rid of directions talk about us for good tools abused reason have my acid clear that enlightenment now watch for a few seconds waiting to kill my life love insufferable machines

>>76593 Good luck mate. I hope your attempt at escape succeds.

Very nicely said, comparison to caffeine is, in my opinion, very accurate. I too suffer from its effect. My diary is left empty, homework and personal projects are pilling up, book are being covered in dust when I for gazillionth of time replapse. There are no alternatives to wired unfortunately. We can try limiting usage, so only neccesary stuff like communication would be possible. Complete removal of wired is impossible, but we can do days without it. Let's not open up computer every sunday for example. Or one day a month. It that case we can do things online while not being entirely dissconected. I hope you all lainanons succes in overcoming our century's greatest stuggles

you need to put yourself through your crucible. do something so difficult in the span of a year or more that requires consistent undivided attention. it has to require so much time investment every single day that you can barely afford to waste any time on soykaf like that.

>>77288 This lain speaks the truth. The catch, however, is that it must be something you cannot quit. If you find yourself in that do or die for long enough, you'll come out the other end willing to do without the die.

It's hard to quit an addiction, but if it's any help... Just do it. Delete all accounts, put all unnecessary electronics somewhere you won't reach "by accident", find an activity that draws you in as much or even more. If you go back, even for a moment, your progress is lost. The harder it is to do so, the more likely you are to actually quit. Good luck, anon.

I blame imageboards for ruining my life. I think it rewired my brain by getting used to instant gratification, bite sized information and to seek feedback for every thought I have since there are no barriers to posting and anonymity. Forums or video games or watching tv might not have been productive either but they would not have messed me up like imageboards did.

I highly recommend using an application like AppBlock on your phone if you struggle with internet addiction. It allows you to structure moderation into your internet usage in all sorts of ways

hey Lainon, if it's any consolation, i lol'd at your mention of fapping to AI-gen'd Pr0n. Very Cyber, that one. It sounds like you use the wired as an escape from things that you don't like. It's a very self-destructive form of escapism, but it is ultimately a self-defense mechanism that you need to acknowledge. You have to sit down for a bit and just think about why you do what you do. The best course of action would be to go out, without any tech, for about half an hour. Nothing to distract you, just your own thoughts, and think about why you always drift back to the same patterns. Wish you the best Lain.

I have the opposite issues as you kids. I am so weary of how every community and other human-populated spaces online are full of porn and other almost reflexive behavior I have trouble doing anything and going anywhere. Most of the time I try out a new community I end up from irritated to angry, art at this point = porn, everything that even remotely features visuals is filled with tasteless horny soykaf, there are whores and peddlers everywhere, everything is derivative meme content made by parasitic opportunists. The fact that AI is swarming the whole net blurs the very idea that you might be looking at real people. I've been escaping on the internet all my life because I was always a misfit, the internet for me was where I could be and meet people who were creative and shared that extra bit of humanity that you would have to repress when you were around soykafty shallow normal poeple, now it's all porn and memes and AI slop and I hate every little bit of it. I used to share art and writing and generally speaking, a lot more of myself but right now all I can think when I have this idea of sharing a picture or making a comic is that someone will say something horny about it if there's a girl in it or draw horrible porn of the characters. And someone always tells me "I would feel honored if someone drew porn of my characters" it's like I live on the wrong planet. It genuinely feels like everyone around me is a completely inhuman skinwalker and I have no fallback environment. It's ether a soykaf town where I might get stabbed for walking down the wrong street at the wrong time or this soykafty internet I don't recognize anymore. I am dedicating myself to my hobbies in private but the massive undiluted social isolation is really heavy. I hate going out and socializing, I have nothing to tell to any of people I meet assuming I'd even get to talk to people who're glued on their phone 24/7

>>76593 Consider this: Maybe internet use is the symptom, not the problem. Chances are, if you are anything like me, when you get off the Wired, you start beating yourself up: "Why do I spend so much time there, I'm waisting my life..." etc. When I was a teenager and felt my life was a living hell, I got into the habit of using the Wired to escape, not only my life, but more importantly, my thoughts. These bad situations have passed, my tormentors are gone, but their opinions are internalised. I instead continue their work myself, I beat myself up for them, they are now omnipresent. And so, the habit persists. Using the Wired is the most convenient, most practiced way of shutting up your mind. Ever noticed that? When you are online, your mind is offline. Instead you interface directly with the global consciousness. You, not only your every day life, your body, but also your thoughts, your worries, completely disappear. There is no longer you, only it. Using the internet is kind of like dieing. If you don't forgive yourself for your behaviour, if you don't learn to be content with yourself, you will never escape.

>>78406 I relate to this a lot, and I think that not only is the internet a source of escapism but it can also make you reliant on it by warping your thoughts. Personally, I am trans and frequently I binge websites that are filled with transmisic content, because I tend to prefer loose moderation. When my brain is off and I am reading, it is not a big deal. But when I try to leave the internet and return to the real world I will find my brain is much more self-hating, that i jump to the worst conclusions and am totally uncharitable to myself. So naturally I want to escape back into the internet, where the negativity is amplified even more. After particularly long binges I often have to suffer for 2 or 3 days before I return to baseline. That's one of the reasons I'm here, I have restricted my access to the other websites to short, irregular intervals because the withdrawals from using them make me suicidal.