Can I find a balance between my Internet usage and my ideals?

Moderated by Faigy Peritzman

I’ve been feeling pretty stuck recently. I’m a single girl in nursing school, and I need YouTube for school; I wouldn’t have gotten this far without it. The medical and nursing education videos on the site have literally helped me pass my courses, and I’ve been told that such technical support is crucial to continue to succeed in my schooling.

I’ve installed a really good filter, but I find that although I’m not logging into anything “bad,” I waste a horrible amount of time watching innocuous things.

I try to tell myself that when I finish school, I’ll completely block it, but I realize that’s not realistic. At least in the beginning, I’ll be reliant on it in any new job I take (new nurses are nowhere near experts). I want to get rid of it so badly, but I need it professionally (and the medical geek part of me wants it too, because I love medical videos).

I struggle with my use of the Internet in general. My future job is going to come hand in hand with Internet education, and I need to learn how to live with it. But I feel trapped.

I’m caught between two worlds. There’s the ideal one in my mind — the type of life I desperately want for myself, and the way I envision my future home — and the practical one, where so much of my daily life revolves around the Internet. Can I have one without destroying the other?

Rabbi Menachem Nissel has been teaching in yeshivos and seminaries in Yerushalayim for over 30 years and is the author of Rigshei Lev: Women & Tefillah.

I’m not sure if this makes you feel any better, but I’m constantly hearing about the challenge of mild YouTube addiction. A talmidah will bemoan that it typically starts with something “important,” followed by an enticing clickbait asking her to watch another “slightly important” three-minute video. Suddenly, without warning, it’s two hours later, and she’s watching a tutorial on how to communicate with a giraffe. How did she get there?

You must fight this, otherwise you’ll wake up years later and realize that huge chunks of your precious life have been irretrievably lost. Furthermore, Internet surfing, even when innocuous and filtered, is rarely a healthy outlet like a hobby. It’s one of the great challenges of our generation.

Here’s a three-point plan that may work for you:

Chesed: Recognize that free time is the plaything of the yetzer hara. The solution is to be proactive in keeping yourself busy, preferably with time-bound obligations. Since most of your life when raising a family will have you involved with the amud of chesed, I strongly suggest you ramp up the chesed you do now, several hours a day. You can volunteer for bikur cholim, tutor teens, work in kiruv, make packages for the poor, or visit old age homes. You can even help your mom (sarcasm intended). The pressure of having this responsibility won’t let you waste time. If chesed isn’t an option, at least maintain a healthy social life. Keep yourself busy.

Self-control strategies: It’s like taking that second Pringle; once you click to watch your second YouTube clip, you’re “in the zone” and it’s almost impossible to pull yourself out. However, if you have a plan before you click the first time, you have a chance. The plan has to be personalized, preferably written down, to make it real. You need to be self-aware and realistic as to what works for you. The idea is to set yourself up for success. Remember not to lose hope if you fail, just try something different. This will be a long journey. Here are a few examples:

1. Place a timer next to your computer (many phones have them) and challenge yourself to not watch more than half an hour of non-essential You Tube videos a day. Make a chart for a month. If you succeed, celebrate with a tub of ice cream. Not Ben & Jerry’s. Next month go for 25 minutes. The month after 20 minutes…
2. Do the same, but with a trusted friend struggling with similar issues. Like with weight-loss challenges, having a partner adds motivation. Unlike with weight-loss challenges, you can celebrate together with ice cream.
3. If positive reinforcement isn’t for you, put ten dollars in a pushke every time you go over your half-hour of watching time. Preferably a tzedakah that doesn’t excite you, like a donation to the seminary that rejected you, thus giving you an incentive not to mess up.
4. Instead of a timer, use your browsing data (click on the “history” icon). Print out the list and read it next time you log on. Oy, the bushah!
5. Join WebChaver.org so a trusted female friend or mentor knows what you’re seeing.
6. Work on your computer in a public place.
7. Download the 613tube extension or the equivalent, which offers a cleaner environment.
8. Have motivational quotes on or near your computer. Pesukim, mussar, or write your own. Something that’s both literally and figuratively in your face.
9. Close your computer at midnight. For so many, night time is when we lose self-control.

Tefillah: Recognize you need Hashem’s help to get through this. In Shemoneh Esreh you can have kavanah when saying the words teshuvah sheleimah or hoshieinu v’nivasheia. Best is to talk to Hashem in English before you take three steps back and ask Him for inner strength not to waste time on the Internet. Daven again before touching your computer by saying a kapitel Tehillim, followed by the same request.

If these suggestions seem daunting, recognize how appalling and depressing the alternative is. Remind yourself that change comes slowly and with hard work. Most of all, focus on the prize at the other end — a new lease on life.

The Internet is the Mitzrayim of the 21st century, and we have the choice to choose freedom. Live a life where you’re in control, not a life that controls you. You’ll have earned the greatest simchah in This World and in the Next One.