i’m sat here missing another morning because of screen use. it was a good morning where i woke up well rested and had an early breakfast- yet i picked up a phonescreen, with good intentions, before preparing for the day- shower, clothes, y’know. now i am sat here three hours later and the hill to get those things done is steeper than ever. i missed the morning schedule by not walking out the door- and i don’t feel like rushing myself yet again is gonna leave me anything but with more difficulty tomorrow.
addictions are symptoms of problems. i have tried middle paths, cold turkey quits and just indulging withoit restraint. nothing helps my wellbeing long-term- considering i am always here again.
going back to my cold-turkey attempts and reitterating: what am i lacking when i go off the screen? i am eternally drawn to videogames, specifically 3D fighting games like Tekken SoulCalibur BloodyRoar DeadOrAlive Tobal … list could to on… i figure i could get that fulfilled by actual fighting sports, i know it’s an unwritten meme and i also don’t like what i’ve tried of actual fighting sports… but i figure defining the fighting game genre’s skill checks and psychological effects (not pushing buttons, emotional self-awareness in adverse situations, mechanical execution-reaction honed to fit intuition and to not be indoctrinated to mindless responses… all these are excercises within any given fighting game cough that is good cough and result in aforementioned effects that i just really really appreciate for my wellbeing.
for fighting games i’m thinking of actual fencing with gear and racket sports (like tennis badminton pingpong) and archery (for some reason idk.)
*'m’ups - including beat’m’ups like the original Final Fight and shoot’em’ups like the original Gradius - i wanna lump together with ciruit-racer games like Enthusia, Richard Burns Rally (PS2 exclusives) and others from consoles earlier and later. simply because it’s all holding the line in an ever repeating pattern: it’s less so reacting and more so internally preparing & pacing yourself to space according to the obstacle course ahead of you. the course is constant, some obstacles will be there but it’s predetermined stuff. if you haven’t thought it out beforehand… so i am also including Mirror’s Edge to this and that leaves a simple entryway for me to consider offscreen activities.
for mup’s, racing games, speedrunning games… i’m thinking freerunning, parkour, vehicular sports (like biking (maybe driving an actual car but economy & ecology & crashes though…), wallclimbing or bouldering you call it in english, longskiing (my beloved), rollerblades, aerobatics (aerial silks, corde de lisse, aereal hoops, …)
It looks like you already have lots of ideas for hobbies to explore. Rock wall climbing/bouldering is a great one if you want a physical activity with a strong analytical component. I don’t think you need recommendations, though. I think you need a strategy, so that’s what I’m sharing below.
The first thing I would do in your situation would be to switch from a smartphone to a dumb phone, or, failing that, uninstall all of your social media apps so that you need to use the web browser and consciously navigate to the websites to go on there.
Adding just one extra step gives your conscious mind time to stop your subconscious from returning to the loops you’ve been addicted to.
It’s also extremely useful to turn off notifications for all apps that aren’t notifications of DMs from people you actually want to talk to.
Another thing to do is to reduce the intensity of colors on your screens, either by lowering saturation or forcing them into a black and white mode.
All of this stuff seems stupid by itself, but it adds up to your subconscious deciding that these activities are boring more easily and the addiction falling by the wayside through natural processes. This is far easier to pull off than cold turkey. By growing bored with what you have been doing, you will naturally find the time to explore new things to get excited about again. Thus you don’t end up with such an intense rebound effect.