- Date posted
- Yesterday
My life is on the internet, how to live outside it
So for the past decade or so I have more or less lives out my life on the internet. It either drove my OCD or my OCD drove my internet use, primarily through the form of research. I initially started using it due to loneliness - i had no friends at school and argumentative parents as a- and I went into social media especially due to that. I have averaged something like 15-17 hours of screen time a day for several years especially after leaving school for uni, as less structure made my screen time much worse. I am now on the verge of finishing university, and having seen a therapist for a bit my OCD has improved a lot, but my screen time has not changed and I think it's sort of a roadblock for my OCD, and with the depression I have more generally. But if I stop using it, I feel bored and lonely and I don't really have any friends to do anything with and I haven't developed enough social skills to be confident enough to go out and do things so I kind of just continue. I don't do things other than social media either because other activities make me feel lonelier (I'm aware that social media doesn't really have human interaction/connection of course, but that's the feeling I get). I haven't developed any other interests either I could engage with so I just carry on. It has depressed me - both the general side effects of spending so long on screens but also the fact that I just exist for the internet, and I don't even like it. I feel lonely, and it depressed me to read how people say it's going to be even harder for me to make friends in the future, or try out new things now that I'm about to graduate. I don't really know how to move on from someone who effectively existed on the internet to living in the real world. I think that's holding me back from progress.