Forums » Smalltalk » how to reduce time on rpr

i’ve found that i spend too much time on rpr for my liking. i have mail notifications enabled, so if i get a pm on here and i’m available at that moment, i’ll read it. then i’ll reply and aimlessly roam through the site with no purpose, just waiting for a reply. the bad thing about this (for me) is that it happens frequently. or when i’m bored, i’ll go on rpr and just wait on replies. this leads to me more or less wasting time that i could spend being productive. it can also at times be emotionally hurtful for various reasons

i’d appreciate if anybody has any ideas as to how i can reduce the amount of time i spend on here without any purpose. i’ll do something and even though i know nothing new has happened, i’ll have a thought like “i haven’t checked rpr in a while” and it doesn’t happen every day but too often for my own liking

I don't have the solution, but this is what I do too. Although I don't have notifications enabled. I think it's the way brains are wired...when we get messages from people we like and get that feeling of validation, it gives our brain a dopamine boost. The effect has been studied on social media networking sites, a description which doesn't exactly fit RpR, but there are definitely some similarities and parallels.

So anyway, when we feel that dopamine boost, our brain remembers it, and for people like me, it's almost too rewarding and kind of hacks my brain. So then, even when I know there are no messages, and when I'm too tired or in a rush to write an rp response, and there's really no purpose for me to be on here, my brain just still associates that dopamine hit with RpR. And it associates RpR with calm, because writing is a calming thing to do for me. So, I come cruising through RpR, knowing I have no energy, knowing I have no new messages, simply because my brain has developing a craving to do it based on the bursts of dopamine and other feel-good it has gotten while I've been cruising through here in the past.

So I'll peruse the new smalltalk messages. Look for one I feel inspired to answer or have some information about. I'll go play forum games, I'll PM people and talk ooc, I'll try awkwardly to make Smalltalk in Just Talking, I'll make surveys. After I do that, sometimes for hours on end, I will come out of it and say to myself, "What did I just do? What did I get done?"

The ooc conversations seem worthwhile, but the other stuff sometimes just feels like it's me, killing time, waiting for something to happen...because of this enchantment my brain is under. And that's the kind of thing that bothers me, and bothers you too, seems like.

My advice is to turn off notifications, if that wouldn't cause you worry and such. My other advice would be to "poke" the people you are waiting on for an answer who you feel hurt by and find a polite way to say that their lack of response is bothering you and you want clarification about when they'd like to start RPing, or if they've changed their minds. It's better than continuing to feel hurt and have it fester.

Now, I'm a hypocrite, because I probably wouldn't take my own advice...I am a super non-confrontional person. Lol. But that's what seems like the best thing today, just from absorbing what other people have said to me about assertiveness.


But back to the point -- how to spend less time on RpR? I don't know, but one thing I know is that since I started this new, crazy, difficult full-time job, I haven't been able to be on as much. Wheras before sometimes I was online 24/7 for a day or two at a time -- it was bad.

So from that, I would draw the conclusion that if you do other things that are also social (like this is), but in real life, it might give you your social fix and keep you busy enough that you stay off here except when you consciously want to be on here, and not because you're brain is just stuck on one track, waiting for stimulation. Give it another track! Find something social that you can do IRL and you'll start retraining your brain to remember to go looking for it's dopamine fix elsewhere, in the real world, when nothing you're interested in is happening over here. Good luck! It can definitely be hard, but I know you can do it!

One possibility would be to decide on specific times you allow yourself to check, and forbidding yourself from checking before those times. A possible downside is a sort of nasty bit of brain training; back in high school for awhile, I wasn't allowed online until a specific time of night, but that eventually resulted in me getting super stressed and angry if there was some reason I had to wait longer. (Dial-up and only one line, so... Phone calls or anyone else online prevented me from getting on.) So you have to be careful if you try setting times, and if you notice yourself getting irritable around those times, you should probably try a different method.

You can also try productivity programs. I was using Stay Focused for awhile, a browser extension that keeps a timer for how long you spend on certain sites. I remember that you can define your own black or white list, set your length of time, limit it to certain days and times, etc. It warns you when you're almost out of time, so you can try to wrap up real quick, or save your work if you're writing up a post or something. If you do something like this, though, you need to take care to minimize your ability to sneak around it, like by using a different device - either forbid yourself, or get more programs/apps to help.

1) Turn off notification

2) Set your email notification to only once a week, or which ever that suits your needs better.

3) Notify your roleplay partners that you would probably start to reply less often (might keep you off RPR, because if you told them that you would be on less often, but your replies are still coming at the same rate, they might get curious and it is awkward, don’t you think? That’s what I did in the beginning at least.)

4) Keep yourself busy. New school years has just started for you, no? Try to stay on top of homework, read ahead, revise early on, get busy with your club activities, go out and meet other people, maybe stop at a cafe or library, go grocery shopping or something . If you are busy, you have less time to come on RPR, and if you fill your day up with activities, you would probably have less energy to roleplay anyways.

5) Keep to a schedule. Maybe roleplay once/ twice a week? Restrict yourself to only come online at night? Maybe after you finished your work for the day? After 7pm even? Regard coming on RPR as a ‘reward’ after you have done your required workload for the day, I don’t know but that works for me.

6) Don’t bring your phone/laptop everywhere with you. Go to another room, or somewhere else, read a book, go to karaoke, go to the gym or walk around the park cooing at other people’s pets and ask to pet them, or actually go to a friend’s house that has a pet and try to kidnap it, but if you don’t actually need to bring your phone with you, don’t.

7) All the above. But honestly? Keeping yourself busy is the best way, in my opinion, doesn’t even have to be work. Just find a hobby that doesn’t involve RPR. Maybe practice more if you play an instrument, it’s the easiest way to lose track of time and annoy your annoying neighbours in my opinion, speaking from personal experience.

Lol

@Abigail: that seems incredibly logical. i feel the same way; i get bored, go on rpr without any purpose and just waste time being on the website, doing absolutely nothing. i think it makes a lot of sense that our brains connect it to something good, so we want more of it

thank you for your input! i’ve noticed that on longer school days, i spend less time on rpr because i’m distracted and have something to do with my hands. it’s a great idea to incorporate that into my spare time; i’ve tried to do it before but it seems like when i take breaks, my hands automatically reach for my phone and go to rpr


@Zelphyr: i think it would work best for me to set specific times when i’m “allowed” to go on here; of course with exceptions because i really want to avoid feeling annoyed

knowing me, i would probably just reach for my phone because i’d be too lazy to get the chrome app and extension on my phone. but for that, i figured that it could work to set a sort of timer as to how long i can spend on rpr - so thank you for the ideas!


@Birdy99: so far i’ve sat my e-mail notifications to once every hour because i’ve previously had them to once every 15 minutes. maybe i’ll lengthen the time later on but i figured it would be a good place to start - baby steps

i sadly can’t do any of the things you recommended (though i very much appreciate that you recommended them!) but i’ll try to find alternatives

the schedule thing is a good idea! i see it was a reward in the same way so for now i think i’ll reduce it to a few times every day; again, baby steps. thank you for all of your suggestions!