What did I learn after doing a Pseudo Dopamine Detox for a week?

So what is dopamine detox? In layman terms, dopamine detox is a practice of abstaining from doing any activities which generate dopamine for usually 24 hours. While most of the people associate the same top*rn, drug or a harmful addiction, as it tends to provide doses of dopamines, however, it includes all the activities from watching funny youtube videos, scrolling through Instagram posts etc.

While doing the pseudo dopamine detox, I did the following :

• Uninstalling Youtube from my Phone( Any other forms of Entertainment platforms)
• Uninstalling Instagram from my Phone (Any other forms of Social Media)
• Uninstalling Google Chrome from my Phone( I used to get astray from watching the news or any other recommendation 😅)
• Not listening to any music ( Though this one is a bit harsh)

Here’s what I found out:

Day 1:

When I started this self-made challenge( I would encourage you to create some same sort of challenge for yourself accordingly), what I realized in just a half-day is that I missed the social interactions with people on the social media platforms, the reason perhaps which I realize post-challenge is lack of activities in place of such applications.

Day 2–4:

For the next few days, I thought up of picking any replacing activities which could help me in passing my time. I felt that the time was passing quite slowly during this. However, one of the harsher results that I found out is that there is a lack of social relationships when we remove all the social media apps, gone are the days when people just used to converse on telephones on hours, there are some close friends with whom you could converse daily. However, a lot of friends with whom you converse by just sending a meme or funny joke, are the ones to whom you can’t talk that much.

Day 5–7:

The last part of the week it became more dreadsome as I realized the amount of time which I could spend freely. This is apparent due to realizing how much real social life I lack outside the virtual environment of my phone.

I came to the following insights after completing my week :

1.) As mentioned earlier, Excess Idle Time which I got on my hands and need to replace the same with constructive activities. This in my opinion is quite important as idle time seems to be more poisonous than wasted time.

2.)Increase in concentration and mindfulness, I was able to concentrate more on my studies as I didn’t stare at my phone for any sort of notifications. Not only that, I surprisingly starting looking forward to my lectures as they became something through which I could feel that I am spending my time constructively.