Having been through almost the entirety of college at this point, I am reflecting on the ways I have spent my time. When spending time trying new things, it is super easy to get hooked. I have spent a lot of time on things that were a total waste of time. It is super easy to get addicted to new and fun things in general, but during college, everyone is even more vulnerable to addiction. I feel like when people talk about addiction, they are normally talking about substance or gambling addiction. However, addiction plays a much bigger role in the average person’s everyday life than you may think.
The biggest addiction I have faced during my time here has been TikTok. For the past few years, I can piss away over a day’s worth of time every week, mindlessly scrolling. There is something in that app that makes it addictive, like drugs, not that I would know how addictive drugs are. It has been incredibly frustrating seeing so much time wasted away for no purpose whatsoever. It is a hard thing to manage because, to a certain degree, I very much like spending time on social media to keep up with everything going on in the world. But it is so easy to use to an absolute extreme that it is very easy to get sucked in. Even in the past couple of weeks, I have spent most of my time between classes and meetings aimlessly scrolling for no reason other than to fill the space in my day, when I could have easily spent my time pursuing hobbies or working on homework. So, this past week, I felt the need to finally take action. I deleted the app for the first time and am currently going strong and occupying my time with things that aren’t social media.
These past few days, I have had a lot more free time and am beginning to search for new things to spend my free time on. Not much of an improvement, but I have been watching more TV, and I think more long-form content is helping to heal my brain from the rot of constantly watching one minute videos over and over again. Other than that, I have been trying to get my work done quicker than usual because I have been a habitual procrastinator for years, which has been beneficial so far. But by the time you’re reading this, I probably gave up and went back to my old ways. But I think for now I will keep my hopes held high and continue to try to find things that make me happy.
There are many different forms of addiction. Some should be treated much more seriously than others. But I recommend that you all reflect on what you may have been up to lately that may be forming into or actively a habit that would be best for you to break. Use the people around you and try to replace the habit you are trying to get rid of with a new and better one. It genuinely is super easy to get hooked on things that aren’t great for you, but if you work to find balance in your life and manage how much time or how frequently you do certain things, you are setting yourself up to be in a good place. Admitting you have a problem is the first step of action to change your ways to better yourself for the future. I wish you all luck in curing your addictions, however strange they may be!
