Bad habits, technology addiction, and dopamine

This is my first SpaceHey blog post! Thanks for stopping by. Hopefully my brainjuice in text form can offer some insight or entertainment to you. I speak only from personal experience, and you should never trust strangers on the internet blindly. The best advice is learned, not heard!

This blog post is inspired by the latest video from Technology Connections.

I've become frustrated with the culture of self improvement, specifically as it relates to the destructive habits people have with social media and the surface level internet. I know that practicing something and improving myself is better for me, but I've failed enough dopamine detox's to know that the sickly embrace of a content algorithm will always be close by.

No amount of highly produced, high birate, ten minute average, and AdSense supported YouTube videos saying to wake up early and write down your goals will change that.

Don't get me wrong. Understanding dopamine has helped greatly in understanding my subconscious behavior, as well as the things I'm feeling. But it's what music theory is to making music; some thrive off of the more logical approach, some can succeed completely ignoring it, and most are somewhere in the middle.

If you still spend a large chunk of your time like I do on habitual behaviors you'd like to stop (YouTube and typical social media for myself), there isn't any one stop solution to correcting your emotional desires. You have to expend effort to stop reinforcing the habits, and then ride the wave out of it. I am way less dependent now then I was in the past, but I still have a ways to go. Failure is never the end as long as you get back up, and continue the struggle to break the habit.

Eventually, it will be easy. Momentum is powerful, and if you continue to try and push yourself to break the bad habits, you'll look back and see how easy it is by comparison. Anyone can make that level of progress. It takes effort to best the pouting brat in your brain that is no longer getting it's Scott the Woz fix, but its more than possible with time.

It doesn't have to be a zero-sum game, either. Its up to you to define what is a bad habit, a healthy recreational activity, and something that's okay in moderation. Let your definitions change over time with experience. My Scott the Woz to practicing drawing ratio is in a comfortable spot right now.

Make sure you're taking care of yourself first. It's hard to give yourself the space to improve if you aren't already giving kindness. Learn to love the person you are like you love a friend, and you'll find out that all of this becomes much easier.