Unplugging My Heart: Overcoming Screen Time Addiction After The Affair

One of the biggest changes I had to make after my affair was reducing my screen time.

My screen time was excessive, even before the Playstation cheating scandal. Gaming, scrolling social media, volunteering to admin a Facebook group, Facebook page, and pretending I was writing. I mean, I published a few romance novels, 300 short stories, poetry.

Mostly I used screens for distraction, because I was dissociated or bored.

Screens were how I coped with the shit that is my mush of my brain. I identity with traits of ADHD, autism, borderline personality disorder, complete trauma. I have no diagnosis but I struggle ya’ll with depression, over feeling, emotional dysregulation, and dissociation, to name a few.

So after some serious conversations and breakdowns in our house, Damon requested I reduce my screen time.

In 2023, for the month of September, I gave up my phone and computer. I didn’t go on social media, or play games or watch YouTube. I checked my email once a day.

No month-long plan existed. I initially planned a week without screens. I couldn’t access my devices until the urge to check and scroll disappeared from my brain.

Since then, I’ve read about dopamine detoxes and screen time detoxes. Generally, it’s prescribed for 24 hours, which is not enough if you are scrolling compulsively. Dr K of HealthyGamerGG recommends two weeks at least. And he says you can retain some pleasurable activities, like the occasional movie or hobby. Release compulsive behaviors; cease mindless actions. If you pick up your phone to check your work email and find yourself on Facebook or IG. Toss the phone for a month or at least, the app.

**Learning To Deal with Emotions**

The most important, but longest term, skill is emotional regulation.

This will not get done during the dopamine detox. In fact, I’m two years past that and I’m still learning how to deal with my emotions. The biggest thing I learned was dropping anchor from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy modality of therapy. ACT changed my life.

There is also mediation, yoga, exercise, sleeping, better food intake. All those healthy practices you should do but most likely neglect. Self care is like my second job. Way less time for screens.

**Choosing deliberately**

One struggle of people with screen time “addiction” is jumping impulsively between activities.

The other day, I watched an interesting video about using task jumping to your benefit while tidying. Just as long as you keep moving. This technique of task switching have been really useful when my kids were little and the house was messier.

One minute I’ll be writing and I get an impulse to check Facebook, twitter, Reddit, whatever. I switch to that tab without thinking because all of them are open. (At this time what two books on google books and a wheel of names with all my book options because I’m randomly reading all the books I’ve been hoarding by spinning a wheel to choose a new book are my only open tabs).

At times, I casually switch between tabs, considering my options, before recollecting a meaningful task I had started.

So I’m trying to use this thing called intentional binding I learned about from the good Dr K of HealthyGamer. Intentional binding means slowing down and choosing a task deliberately from all my choices.

This means I could game or write or clean. The choices are endless for me. Next, I consider the consequences of each option. Only those I desire, the options that align with my goals.

Conclude with reflection. So I’m bad at remembering to do this, but I’ve been writing about it frequently so hopefully it will become a “habit.” Reflection means spending a few minutes thinking about my last actions. It doesn’t seem to matter what you reflect on, but the act cements the tasks as something you will repeat later.

So I’m hoping that I can create routines, because I struggle with creating a habit. I must remind myself to clean the kitchen each night and then continue with brushing my teeth and showering.

**Keeping Busy**

My schedule, though busy, leaves me with ample free time. And when I have a minute, I will grab my phone and scroll through Facebook. Or I would. My broken phone prevents me from playing games. It’s basically a big screen flip phone with a browser.

So I guess my go to is grabbing a PlayStation controller and playing some Forager.

During my “detox” time, I kept myself busy with reading actual books. With hanging with my family. Doing some art work as wood working. I continued my daily runs, a habit from the affair. If I repeated the experience, I would include long walks and maybe crocheting.

**Don’t Consume Junk**

Media is getting faster and shorter.

Reels, tiktoks, shorts, atomic. Our attention span isn’t getting shorter, the media we consume is so we can’t help but follow suit. We have been trained to hyper-consume.

Nothing feels pleasurable.

We’re overwhelmed and flooded with neurochemicals that we can’t even process. With good feelings always around, enjoyment now feels insignificant.

Stop watching shorts. Stop watching the news. Mark Manson taught me to stop consuming junk. Read books. Watch documentaries. If you want news, go to Wikipedia. On the main page, you can get the news and historical events. You can learn in depth the news. A whole timeline of the wars happening in the world today. A timeline of the monkey pox epidemic and if you need to worry. Without the politics and sensational news stories.

**Challenge yourself**

One component of getting into flow is challenge.

There is a sweet spot of not too hard nor too easy. Screen addiction is life being too easy. To quit, I had to start doing harder, boring activities. I wanted to keep being distracted, entertained, not work.

My wish is to write and have freedom.

I still spend too much time distracted. Not writing, watching YouTube, scrolling Reddit, scrolling Facebook. But I have six months of parenting posts on my Substack scheduled. And almost six months of weekly posts on medium.

Daily ten-idea generation produced this writing. That was my start of getting ideas. Now I have almost 300 ideas just from one month. My writing will not include every idea but even if it’s 10%, that’s 30 usable ideas. Boom!

I haven’t fixed my screen time addiction, but I have more control over my time rather than compulsively overwhelming my brain with crap.