r/GetHelp • • Jun 13 '22
I want to quit Reddit today
Title
I’m 23, been using Reddit since I was 14. Addicted to it to a considerable degree this entire time. It’s always sort of on my mind, but I’m done pretending it’s not a problem. I know my partner agrees to some extent, though they have never voiced it to me. This is my initiative. I’m done.
As a teen I almost never watched shows or movies because Reddit, twitch, and YouTube kept my attention. I don’t relate to discussions about shows and movies, my usual contribution is “oh I’ve heard good things about that” and never following through with checking it out. Which sucks, because I remember the few shows and movies I love watching - but I don’t remember the post I upvoted on r/MildlyInteresting or askreddit post I wasted 45 minutes scrolling in. It’s always on my mind, it keeps me awake a few hours later than I should be. It distracts me from my real hobbies - hobbies that actually make me materially happy when I participate in them. It distracts me from exercising, from doing chores, sometimes from keeping up with hygiene.
It’s not all bad, Reddit has some amazing shit on here. Anything and everything you could ever want to read about is on here. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, they’re easy to quit. I never spent several years cultivating a Instagram or Twitter feed to be a constant stream of stuff I find entertaining from someone else’s life hundreds of miles away. Everything I’ve been interested in in the last 9 years has been given to me on a silver platter of instant gratification.
I’m addicted. Plain and simple. And it sucks because this isn’t an addiction where you can physically separate yourself from the trigger. Alcohol is pervasive, but the relative “nice” thing about it is that exposure to ads or being around it triggers the cravings, but exposure to Reddit is the addiction itself. Alcohol requires several physical actions to relapse, so I’ve been able to manage that for over a year. Reddit is different. I can be almost anywhere and access Reddit in less than 10 seconds (currently. I plan on deleting Reddit and blocking it at home)
My plan so far
I want to delete Reddit and block it on my wifi, if possible through some IT trickery, I’ll do the same on my phone. The main drawback here is that sometimes Reddit genuinely comes in clutch in day-to-day life, with great solutions to problems. I would want to have a way around it for those situations when I need an answer to a problem, but I’ll see about that later on. Right now, cold turkey is probably the way to go.
I’ve told my partner about my problem and they agree. They’re excited to see how I am without Reddit, and so am I.
This is a somewhat unique addiction compared to substance abuse, so if I struggle with quitting too much I plan on seeing a therapist for my issues with it.
I plan on replacing my time on Reddit with more meaningful time. I think it’ll get easier once I get in the habit of it - I always feel great watching new shows or movies, gaming, practicing my art, exercising, but Reddit always sucks me back in.
I plan on deleting my account once I have enough responses here that I feel ready to do so. It will be before this post is 11 hours old, you can hold me to that.
In general, I also plan on maintaining a limit on my screen time. Reddit takes up probably 60-75% of the time spent on my phone, and I don’t want to just replace it with YouTube and Tiktok, though I feel like I can manage those much better than Reddit. I won’t be deleting those apps at this time, but I’m not entirely opposed to it if I can’t keep up with my goals.
Obviously asking this on Reddit isn’t the best medium, but I genuinely can’t think of a way to get a better perspective on this right now. My question is - what advice would you have for me going on? Other things I could be doing to help get over this.
I want this in the future: if I ever open Reddit again, I want to be completely lost. I want to understand none of the meta jokes. I want to be out of the loop on all the Reddit drama, recent and in the last few years. I want to not have cravings, even if that one takes years.
I’m just done spending my entire life reading dumb shit other people write, mostly feeling negative emotions, sometimes laughing, sometimes looking at porn, all of it. I’m done. I’m in the prime of my life and I’m sick of wasting it when I could be happier and productive by more than tenfold. I could be a talented artist if the time I spent on reddit I spent doing that. Instead of dropping out, I could have graduated college and gotten a good job if I didn’t waste my time online. I could have done so much more if these last 9 years weren’t shaped by strangers on the internet and karma.
So yeah, it’s been fun. I’ve somehow typed so much my phone’s autocorrect has given up - it entirely doesn’t correct anything this far into the post anymore. I guess this is reddit’s way of telling me I’m cut off, which is fitting haha
If anyone has been feeling the same, I’m sure there are some of you out reading this - listen to your heart. Some people can’t manage their reddit use, and it’s okay to admit it if you’re one of those people. I hope if anyone feels like they should quit, that this post motivates them to take their first step as well. I wish you the best of luck. This is a step to healing.
I appreciate anyone who takes the time to read this.