I'm a "Media" Addict

Most of my life I've been a highly productive person. I'm a bit of a perfectionist and have been described as a "go getter".

I feel like in the last few months my productivity has flatlined. My monthly income is in the red and I spend increasing amounts of time on social media and a constant consumer of meaningless Youtube videos.

I'm not sure if it's burnout or lack of motivation but I spend at least 2-3 hours a day taking in useless junk from the internet + time spent useful communication and marketing.

Usually in situations I would cut things out of my life cold turkey. For example, I banned myself from Netflix because I have a terrible habit of bing watching series. I watched the first season of Game of Thrones in one sitting.

However, facebook and instagram seem like very effective tools for marketing and I'm starting up a small business. On top of that, they are a popular form of communication for my family, friends, and community groups. I would like to use YouTube to start a Vlog series on my composting and market garden business in the new years. Youtube has also been my "How-to Guide" for learning to be a market gardener/chicken farmer/compost queen. Not to mention watching Paul's new videos!

Even something like permies, where I feel like I can contribute and learn so much, I find myself checking for the little bell in the corner every 30 minutes if a juicy thread has started.

I have methods of consuming media available to me that are much more productive: I demolish audio books and podcasts! I'll clean my whole house if it gives me an excuse to listen to the Witcher Saga or the latest Permies podcast.

But still... I start my day on Facebook and then poof and hour flies by! On days off I spend my whole day on a computer... pretending I did something productive. Good thing I have chickens that force me to go outside!

I know it's not healthy, I know I would enjoy other things more but they take more effort to start engaging in... Anyone have any good methods on training yourself out of impulsive media consumption?

Cheers!

Maybe you're going through a fallow time to regenerate your energy?

At this time, I can feel myself building up to needing an internet vacation.  For this, I give myself half an hour online each morning to check urgent emails.  Anything that cannot be fixed or replied to in half an hour gets ignored.  Then the internet goes off for the day.  I usually need one to four weeks of offline to recover from my burnout.

Have you had your D3 levels checked recently? Your issues started about the time daylight stared being diminished.

What about your thyroid?

Both of these could be the underlying causes of why you are media addicted. I am on here a lot because of physical issues that keep my motivation down. It may not be the problem with you, but it is easy enough to check too.

facebook and other web sites are designed and personalized to be addictive based on your profile and what you have clicked on and viewed. A very telling book came out a month or 2 ago that explains all this in detail written by one of the founding investors of facebook. its by no accident that you feel that it is addiction, that is what they designed it to do. it is good that you are aware of what is happening so you can take back control over your life. please let others know about what you learn about what I am writing about.
here's a link to story about the man and his story
https://fortune.com/2019/02/04/qa-roger-mcnamee-mark-zuckerberg/

I'm gonna keep bumping this up because it is of such importantance in our online world of today. Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe is a gotta read book IMHO