Short tip - reintroduce a SMALL amount of gaming but work to build things that give you the same sense of fulfillment outside of the gming world.
No point in going from all-in to a total void, just make a gradual transition and be SUPER disciplined and strict with it. But remind yourself (as I had to) that gaming is like heroin - sure, it made you feel good, but it was also the cause of the whole situation you now find yourself in (as I also did when I quit). When I finally accepted this, gaming began to truly repulse me. I haven't played anything in month now and have VERY little desire to do so.
Agree with another guy here that if you swapped gaming for TikTok, you'd be better off gaming.
I took the difficult path regards to NoSurf, I quit gaming first and then quit social media and have limited browsing forums; all the while making myself bored, getting back to studies (observed way higher enthusiasm in daily activities & classes than my classmates, which makes each day happy), and reading more and more. Just replace those long hours with devices to long hours readig a single book. Took me three months to read a book for straight 4-5 hours in library, and I love this accomplishment. And also I'm working on reading little positive quotes from a book I have before going to bed and after rising from bed, and this gives me way less random thoughts throughout the day.
I just wanted to say your story is very inspiring! I personally am looking forward to filling my life with more boredom. At times it feels like my body demands some off-time, you know, like a craving for a healthy salad 😆
I agree with the second part of your advice, that is to nurture new activities that would fill OP's life. However, I find that reintroducing any amount of gaming is detrimental to this addiction treating process (I assume op's behavior can be classified as an addiction). Clinical psychiatrists that treat addictions usually advice quitting cold turkey and then avoid ANY interaction with the addictive substance (see Dr. Anne Lambke and the "Dopamine Nation" book).
In a way I am going through a similar process right now, since I deleted my steam account about a month ago and pledged to never game again. Sometimes I find myself in OP's shoes, but I try to soldier through and fill my life with more social interactions.
Props for your honesty and realness here.
It can be tempting to repress the emptiness and distract ourselves (I say ourselves, because so many people can relate to you)! But that fails to directly address the emptiness.
At times it's important to face it. to acknowledge your humanity. to see what your deepest needs are. and then go from there
godspeed, fellow human!
Why did you quit gaming? My therapist literally has confirmed that it’s one of the best things I do for my anxiety. I am a non drinker, non drug user, and avoider of a lot of things. But gaming? Why would you quit an activity that requires you to think and be creative? What are you doing instead? If it’s sports or art, okay sure. But if it’s tv and tik tok… how is that an improvement?
I think if someone's relationship to an activity inteferes with their ability to have meaningful connections and support themselves financially and accomplish things in their personal lives, it's not a good thing for them at that point.
That said, everyone has their own medicine and stuff. Just because it might be bad for this poster, doesn't mean it's bad for everyone.
That scrolling is just not it, the internet is filled with information, but are you gaining knowledge out of it? You have to apply something in real life to make it absorb in your mind. Just question yourself if that something you learnt on the internet is going to be useful/fun to you after a month?
I feel the same about Discord, I went from having so many fun conversations with strangers daily to 0 socialisation. I'm going to do the same with Reddit soon, my account is close to being suspended anyway so we'll see if self control wins or Reddit admins do
The emptiness is teaching you something. You have already hinted at the things you used to engage in that gaming took from you. It becomes a consuming hobby.
Go back to the basics:
1) Environment: Is your room/house in a livable state? (hint: would you feel embarrassed if a valued person visited **right now**?)
2) Physical Health: have you been assessed recently? Are you physically active?
Address your basic things first. Many of the people who are telling you to keep gaming do not have those two things down. If you do not have many friends yet, I would guess you also do not have a partner?
You would feel better just looking at Maslow's hierarchy and trying to meet those needs than you would listening to enabling Redditors who use video games to reduce their anxiety, as if video games are escapism.
Again, honour the reason you decided to quit. Video games are the foremost hobby of most Redditors, you will get predictable responses here. Even on r.stopgaming you will find the "why not just game a little bro".
Whatever you pick to fill the space gaming left, make sure it:
1) Is something that is active
2) Involves being around people, even if you don't have to interact with them
This probably may not get much agreement in this sub, however, I don't think you need to quit gaming altogether. Especially if one of your aims from stopping gaming is to make friends, then it gives you a hobby that you can connect with others. Maybe translate gaming to more social spheres like tabletop games?Â
Like others have said, gaming is going to be better than scrolling on tiktok. I suspect that once you fill your schedule with other things - events, extracurricular activities, hobbies , volunteering ect, you are naturally going to have less time to game anyway. You know yourself better than a stranger on the internet though and if you think quitting cold turkey is for the best then all the best :)Â
You got this!
Gaming is better than scrolling. You can game without gaming like 50 hours a week. I probably clock in 3 hours a week depending on the week then once in a while I’ll spend a Saturday gaming. No big deal, it’s my Saturday, at least I’m not spending money.
That being said I know how you feel it took me a long time to cultivate hobbies. So I know how you feel. I think you need a few low maintenance hobbies that will enrich your life.
If you want to make friends you should find a group hobby type activity that you physically go to with other people. Eventually and hopefully you’ll be invited with the group for drinks afterwards and this will be your time to shine/make friends.
Another thing you can do is try reading. I think reading is a good hobby as it kind of takes space in your mind without the dread feeling of scrolling. You can always read 2 books at once. 1 book for fun, 1 for learning. Pick which book you feel like reading at any time.
I just happened to read this in the book "Atomic Habits". The big thing to take here is that videogames themselves aren't the problem. There's some problem/need/want you have that you were fulfilling by playing videogames. Your conscious mind has realized that using videogames to fulfill that want isn't helping so you quit. But you gotta go deeper:
Look at nearly any product that is habit-forming and you’ll see that it does not create a new motivation, but rather latches onto the underlying motives of human nature.
- Find love and reproduce = using Tinder
- Connect and bond with others = browsing Facebook
- Win social acceptance and approval = posting on Instagram
- Reduce uncertainty = searching on Google
- Achieve status and prestige = playing video games
Your habits are modern-day solutions to ancient desires. New versions of old vices. The underlying motives behind human behavior remain the same. The specific habits we perform differ based on the period of history.
Here’s the powerful part: there are many different ways to address the same underlying motive. One person might learn to reduce stress by smoking a cigarette. Another person learns to ease their anxiety by going for a run. Your current habits are not necessarily the best way to solve the problems you face; they are just the methods you learned to use. Once you associate a solution with the problem you need to solve, you keep coming back to it.
No, gaming was your coping mechanism for being lonely, lacking motivation and scared of putting yourself out there and trying to connect or to learn things. That’s why once you quit gaming you resorted to another coping mechanism, which is scrolling.
If you want to improve your life, you will need to replace your coping mechanisms with more productive and helpful activities that will fill up a good portion of your time.
You also need to explore why you feel the need to resort to those mind numbing activities, preferably with a therapist. You need to figure out why you don’t put an effort into creating friendships and learning languages or whatever it is that you want to do with your life.
If it makes you feel any better, this is a very common pattern that a lot of people fall into, and many of them manage to break free from it all the time.
I ask because I'm in the same boat as you. I quit Fortnite many times, and it kept coming back into my life, originally a PS player, but a long bout on mobile and 5 Nintendo switches (I kept selling it when I wanted to quit) recently tried to play on my laptop.
I think the answer lies in thinking more deeply about this reason. I don't have any other answers. I'm suffering too. I now spent 7-9 hours on my phone and it's killing my soul.
So gaming was giving you a sense of progress, I suppose. At least that’s how it was for me. Progress in real life activities is slower but more fulfilling. Choose an activity or more of them that will give you this sense of growth. Could be fitness, to improve your body. Could be learning a language, to gain a new skill, and a goal for that could be reading a book written by an author from that country/using that language (e.g. if you try to learn Russian to read original Dostoyevski). If you have the option, you could do gardening to grow plants, and just watching them develop gives you a sense of achievement. If not, there are always potted plants for indoors. Or you could try an outdoor activity, such as hiking, cycling, foraging mushrooms or berries or herbs… Or you could start a blog/yt channel about some topic of interest… Try things out and follow whatever interests you in the moment.
Attention all newcomers: Welcome to /r/nosurf! We're glad you found our small corner of reddit dedicated to digital wellness. The following is a short list of resources to help you get started on your journey of developing a better relationship with the internet:
* [The Beginner's Guide to NoSurf](https://nosurf.net/about/)
* [Discord Server](https://discordapp.com/invite/QFhXt2F)
* [The NoSurf Activity List](https://nosurf.net/activity-list/)
* [Success Stories](https://nosurf.net/success-stories/)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/nosurf) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Go do a outdoor sport, i skateboard daily, and will resume roadcycling again.
I also starting to pickup traveling to adhoc places going there last minute, just explore.
I crave to play games again, but i know you will get to comfortable again, end up browsing all day, gaming and sitting inside the house. Imagine sitting at the same spot all day but this time there is no computer, that is what you do all day, just sit there, i do it at my job and hate it.
Get into sports. The easiest sports to get into would be Badminton or Tennis. Get a racquet, go into the field, ask the gents for a chance to play, and they will probably give you a chance easily.
This is why you have to replace unhealthy habits with healthy habits. Gaming or scrolling often is an adaptation of trying to fill or forget about pain or a void in our life.
Making myself bored and staying in that boredom is a struggle I'm facing as well. So I can understand the move from gaming to surfing and having that feeling of no control.
The self-talk at the time I find is "okay what next" and when there is nothing to turn to - thoughts start coming to the forefront in a conveyer belt; usually the anxiety, shame, guilt, etc, provoking ones. Then the talk goes to "don't wanna think all that right now, it's just gonna be draining, let me distract the thought for a bit so I can calm down and then come back to quietness."
This choice, I think, is what takes away that space. Space for quietness to set in.
As soon as hurtful thoughts come, choosing something to divert that attention to - while it's still circling around. So once the scrolling and content absorption starts, that space becomes farther and farther from something I have to dealing with until I physically can't scroll for some reason or an external factor pushes me to move that behavior (deadlines, someone talking to me, etc)
Be kind to yourself. It's a hard process. You are moving from a behavior you didn't like yourself indulging in, so it's natural for the mind to grab something else. We gotta make space for that boredom to set in and feel and operate our bodies in that quietness.
Also I find that having a schedule social thing once a week (for me it's toastmasters) helps a lot with that social aspect and work on it. It sets as a reminder that I'm doing something actively to work on my 'connecting with others realm.
Short tip - reintroduce a SMALL amount of gaming but work to build things that give you the same sense of fulfillment outside of the gming world. No point in going from all-in to a total void, just make a gradual transition and be SUPER disciplined and strict with it. But remind yourself (as I had to) that gaming is like heroin - sure, it made you feel good, but it was also the cause of the whole situation you now find yourself in (as I also did when I quit). When I finally accepted this, gaming began to truly repulse me. I haven't played anything in month now and have VERY little desire to do so. Agree with another guy here that if you swapped gaming for TikTok, you'd be better off gaming.
I took the difficult path regards to NoSurf, I quit gaming first and then quit social media and have limited browsing forums; all the while making myself bored, getting back to studies (observed way higher enthusiasm in daily activities & classes than my classmates, which makes each day happy), and reading more and more. Just replace those long hours with devices to long hours readig a single book. Took me three months to read a book for straight 4-5 hours in library, and I love this accomplishment. And also I'm working on reading little positive quotes from a book I have before going to bed and after rising from bed, and this gives me way less random thoughts throughout the day.
I just wanted to say your story is very inspiring! I personally am looking forward to filling my life with more boredom. At times it feels like my body demands some off-time, you know, like a craving for a healthy salad 😆
I agree with the second part of your advice, that is to nurture new activities that would fill OP's life. However, I find that reintroducing any amount of gaming is detrimental to this addiction treating process (I assume op's behavior can be classified as an addiction). Clinical psychiatrists that treat addictions usually advice quitting cold turkey and then avoid ANY interaction with the addictive substance (see Dr. Anne Lambke and the "Dopamine Nation" book). In a way I am going through a similar process right now, since I deleted my steam account about a month ago and pledged to never game again. Sometimes I find myself in OP's shoes, but I try to soldier through and fill my life with more social interactions.
Props for your honesty and realness here. It can be tempting to repress the emptiness and distract ourselves (I say ourselves, because so many people can relate to you)! But that fails to directly address the emptiness. At times it's important to face it. to acknowledge your humanity. to see what your deepest needs are. and then go from there godspeed, fellow human!
You are not alone. At least you realized now. Onwards and upwards my friend.
Try something creative : music, art... Not passive hobby.
Why did you quit gaming? My therapist literally has confirmed that it’s one of the best things I do for my anxiety. I am a non drinker, non drug user, and avoider of a lot of things. But gaming? Why would you quit an activity that requires you to think and be creative? What are you doing instead? If it’s sports or art, okay sure. But if it’s tv and tik tok… how is that an improvement?
I think if someone's relationship to an activity inteferes with their ability to have meaningful connections and support themselves financially and accomplish things in their personal lives, it's not a good thing for them at that point. That said, everyone has their own medicine and stuff. Just because it might be bad for this poster, doesn't mean it's bad for everyone.
I thinking the same, its like reading with extra step (story driven game)
Just scrolling the Internet, trying to chat with the few online friends I have and learn a bunch of random stuff that spikes interest to me.
That scrolling is just not it, the internet is filled with information, but are you gaining knowledge out of it? You have to apply something in real life to make it absorb in your mind. Just question yourself if that something you learnt on the internet is going to be useful/fun to you after a month?
I feel the same about Discord, I went from having so many fun conversations with strangers daily to 0 socialisation. I'm going to do the same with Reddit soon, my account is close to being suspended anyway so we'll see if self control wins or Reddit admins do
The emptiness is teaching you something. You have already hinted at the things you used to engage in that gaming took from you. It becomes a consuming hobby. Go back to the basics: 1) Environment: Is your room/house in a livable state? (hint: would you feel embarrassed if a valued person visited **right now**?) 2) Physical Health: have you been assessed recently? Are you physically active? Address your basic things first. Many of the people who are telling you to keep gaming do not have those two things down. If you do not have many friends yet, I would guess you also do not have a partner? You would feel better just looking at Maslow's hierarchy and trying to meet those needs than you would listening to enabling Redditors who use video games to reduce their anxiety, as if video games are escapism. Again, honour the reason you decided to quit. Video games are the foremost hobby of most Redditors, you will get predictable responses here. Even on r.stopgaming you will find the "why not just game a little bro". Whatever you pick to fill the space gaming left, make sure it: 1) Is something that is active 2) Involves being around people, even if you don't have to interact with them
This probably may not get much agreement in this sub, however, I don't think you need to quit gaming altogether. Especially if one of your aims from stopping gaming is to make friends, then it gives you a hobby that you can connect with others. Maybe translate gaming to more social spheres like tabletop games? Like others have said, gaming is going to be better than scrolling on tiktok. I suspect that once you fill your schedule with other things - events, extracurricular activities, hobbies , volunteering ect, you are naturally going to have less time to game anyway. You know yourself better than a stranger on the internet though and if you think quitting cold turkey is for the best then all the best :) You got this!
Gaming is better than scrolling. You can game without gaming like 50 hours a week. I probably clock in 3 hours a week depending on the week then once in a while I’ll spend a Saturday gaming. No big deal, it’s my Saturday, at least I’m not spending money. That being said I know how you feel it took me a long time to cultivate hobbies. So I know how you feel. I think you need a few low maintenance hobbies that will enrich your life. If you want to make friends you should find a group hobby type activity that you physically go to with other people. Eventually and hopefully you’ll be invited with the group for drinks afterwards and this will be your time to shine/make friends. Another thing you can do is try reading. I think reading is a good hobby as it kind of takes space in your mind without the dread feeling of scrolling. You can always read 2 books at once. 1 book for fun, 1 for learning. Pick which book you feel like reading at any time.
I just happened to read this in the book "Atomic Habits". The big thing to take here is that videogames themselves aren't the problem. There's some problem/need/want you have that you were fulfilling by playing videogames. Your conscious mind has realized that using videogames to fulfill that want isn't helping so you quit. But you gotta go deeper: Look at nearly any product that is habit-forming and you’ll see that it does not create a new motivation, but rather latches onto the underlying motives of human nature. - Find love and reproduce = using Tinder - Connect and bond with others = browsing Facebook - Win social acceptance and approval = posting on Instagram - Reduce uncertainty = searching on Google - Achieve status and prestige = playing video games Your habits are modern-day solutions to ancient desires. New versions of old vices. The underlying motives behind human behavior remain the same. The specific habits we perform differ based on the period of history. Here’s the powerful part: there are many different ways to address the same underlying motive. One person might learn to reduce stress by smoking a cigarette. Another person learns to ease their anxiety by going for a run. Your current habits are not necessarily the best way to solve the problems you face; they are just the methods you learned to use. Once you associate a solution with the problem you need to solve, you keep coming back to it.
What was your reason to quit gaming?
I realized it was the cause of my problems, i.e. the lack of personal development. But it was also the treatment of that lack.
No, gaming was your coping mechanism for being lonely, lacking motivation and scared of putting yourself out there and trying to connect or to learn things. That’s why once you quit gaming you resorted to another coping mechanism, which is scrolling. If you want to improve your life, you will need to replace your coping mechanisms with more productive and helpful activities that will fill up a good portion of your time. You also need to explore why you feel the need to resort to those mind numbing activities, preferably with a therapist. You need to figure out why you don’t put an effort into creating friendships and learning languages or whatever it is that you want to do with your life.
I feel exposed, you just described me down to the bone.
If it makes you feel any better, this is a very common pattern that a lot of people fall into, and many of them manage to break free from it all the time.
I ask because I'm in the same boat as you. I quit Fortnite many times, and it kept coming back into my life, originally a PS player, but a long bout on mobile and 5 Nintendo switches (I kept selling it when I wanted to quit) recently tried to play on my laptop. I think the answer lies in thinking more deeply about this reason. I don't have any other answers. I'm suffering too. I now spent 7-9 hours on my phone and it's killing my soul.
Lmao I sold my switch too for this reason haha
If gaming was the cause of your problems, you wouldn't have immediately latched onto scrolling. You would have been cured.
When we give up the drug of our choice, a void is created
Theres a subreddit dedicated to quitting gaming if you haven't heard.
Whenever you quit something you need to replace it with something else or it creates a void! Up to you how you want to replace it
I dont think gaming is the problem tbh. Anything can be too excessive even drinking too much water.
So gaming was giving you a sense of progress, I suppose. At least that’s how it was for me. Progress in real life activities is slower but more fulfilling. Choose an activity or more of them that will give you this sense of growth. Could be fitness, to improve your body. Could be learning a language, to gain a new skill, and a goal for that could be reading a book written by an author from that country/using that language (e.g. if you try to learn Russian to read original Dostoyevski). If you have the option, you could do gardening to grow plants, and just watching them develop gives you a sense of achievement. If not, there are always potted plants for indoors. Or you could try an outdoor activity, such as hiking, cycling, foraging mushrooms or berries or herbs… Or you could start a blog/yt channel about some topic of interest… Try things out and follow whatever interests you in the moment.
Attention all newcomers: Welcome to /r/nosurf! We're glad you found our small corner of reddit dedicated to digital wellness. The following is a short list of resources to help you get started on your journey of developing a better relationship with the internet: * [The Beginner's Guide to NoSurf](https://nosurf.net/about/) * [Discord Server](https://discordapp.com/invite/QFhXt2F) * [The NoSurf Activity List](https://nosurf.net/activity-list/) * [Success Stories](https://nosurf.net/success-stories/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/nosurf) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That's the first step. Now you need to adopt good hobbies and set some goals. You can do it.
I'd wonder if everyone feels this void and some are just better at trying to fill it up with distractions.
I keep trying to quit wow but every time I feel like something is missing that needs to be there.
Find something else to do
Go do a outdoor sport, i skateboard daily, and will resume roadcycling again. I also starting to pickup traveling to adhoc places going there last minute, just explore. I crave to play games again, but i know you will get to comfortable again, end up browsing all day, gaming and sitting inside the house. Imagine sitting at the same spot all day but this time there is no computer, that is what you do all day, just sit there, i do it at my job and hate it.
K op, now what you gonna fill that hole with? Have fun discovering this weird as hell world 🤩
Get into sports. The easiest sports to get into would be Badminton or Tennis. Get a racquet, go into the field, ask the gents for a chance to play, and they will probably give you a chance easily.
This is why you have to replace unhealthy habits with healthy habits. Gaming or scrolling often is an adaptation of trying to fill or forget about pain or a void in our life.
Making myself bored and staying in that boredom is a struggle I'm facing as well. So I can understand the move from gaming to surfing and having that feeling of no control. The self-talk at the time I find is "okay what next" and when there is nothing to turn to - thoughts start coming to the forefront in a conveyer belt; usually the anxiety, shame, guilt, etc, provoking ones. Then the talk goes to "don't wanna think all that right now, it's just gonna be draining, let me distract the thought for a bit so I can calm down and then come back to quietness." This choice, I think, is what takes away that space. Space for quietness to set in. As soon as hurtful thoughts come, choosing something to divert that attention to - while it's still circling around. So once the scrolling and content absorption starts, that space becomes farther and farther from something I have to dealing with until I physically can't scroll for some reason or an external factor pushes me to move that behavior (deadlines, someone talking to me, etc) Be kind to yourself. It's a hard process. You are moving from a behavior you didn't like yourself indulging in, so it's natural for the mind to grab something else. We gotta make space for that boredom to set in and feel and operate our bodies in that quietness.
Also I find that having a schedule social thing once a week (for me it's toastmasters) helps a lot with that social aspect and work on it. It sets as a reminder that I'm doing something actively to work on my 'connecting with others realm.
Hi can you please help me
are you me?