u/Beloved_Loretta

Hello, fellow Redditors! For context, I have always been one of the top students in my class, not because of some innate super genius or anything, just a love for learning and a lot of hours spent with my butt on the chair. I got into my dream college on the major I wanted. And I never never had had a problem with my phone before. I never thought it could happen to me: I have so many hobbies (knitting, crochet, embroidery, reading, baking, cycling...), and I never had a social media presence (I thought, perhaps naively, that was the only pitfall to fall on).

But about a year and a half ago, I found an app.

It's not social media. It's not gambling. It is not harmful in the ways I thought could cause addiction. It's an RPG, it's five bucks a month, it's fun...

But it just takes so much of my time

Like, I am not failing exams or anything, but I can tell I am not on my top performance because I spend time on the game and not studying as I should. I've come to reject my other hobbies and let them fall to the sidelines because the game is always more appealing. I eat well, I sleep 7 to 8 hours most nights, it doesn't impact my social life... but whenever I am home alone, well, that's different (I live alone, moved out of town for college and have no roommates). The temptation of getting on the couch and just losing myself is too great, and I end up not doing anything else.

Doing some research, I think I might suffer from Maladaptive Daydreaming (This is not an official diagnosis or an attempt from me to make one, just a hunch based on the descriptions I've found online, the scarce pubmed articles I was able to find and my own experiences compared to that). When I was younger, it must have manifested in other ways, like how I heard the same five songs on loop, sometimes just the same 30 second clip, imagining scenarios in my head; imagining animation memes on my head; telling myself stories in my head to go to sleep. I was really into roleplaying on Roblox when I was younger (Royale High had me on a chokehold, I'd devote my whole weekend to it if I could).

Now, I think the thing has just found another outlet through this RPG. After reading all of that, I can admit that I don't see the character I play as as external to me, I have a deep connection to it, I literally wear its shoes while playing. And that would be fine if it were an experience I can disconnect from after. But sometimes, I'll me having as shower or walking to class and find myself imagining what I (or rather what my character) will do once I get home alone.

I have been trying to find ways to go around it since my shoe dropped.

A very effective method was, since Mother's Day last week, leaving my earplugs at my parent's house in my hometown. I may live home alone, but I still live in a building with walls that are as thin as a tissue and neighbors who will definitely hear me playing 'Peer Pressure' on loop for the fifth time on a row. It has helped me a lot, even with the RPG usage (Whenever I listened to a song, or even a YouTube shorts of a scene from a movie, I'd end up imagining scenarios I'd later want to implement in the RPG. So, removing the music, I remove the inspiration and thus the fuel).

I also bought an alarm clock, the cheap, tiny ones. It plays happy birthday to you when it rings and it fits just fine on my bedside table. It also helped, since I don't have my phone on hands first thing in the morning to turn off the alarm and thus the perfect occasion of getting cozy under the blankets and playing away instead of getting stuff done or even engaging in another one of my hobbies.

Still, it isn't enough. I still spend far too much time on it and I know it, no matter how I try to rationalize it. So, I tried various methods I have read online to limit app usage: reducing the age limit of the playstore's parental controls to exclude the app (16+, so I put it to only show me 14 rating), the Samsung phone's own app time manager, and even some external apps for focus... I doesn't work. Why? Because it's just too easy to bypass! Even if I set all passwords to a random number I don't remember to make it impossible (or at least very time consuming, there's no way in hell I am trying, one by one, a four digit code) to access the parental or screen time controls; you can just reset the password easily on the settings in case you 'forgot'. Complicated for kids with helicopter parents, but not me. As for the Samsung time controls, just installing and installing the app again removes all time limits you had placed on it, regardless if you forgot the password or not. As for external apps, same problem, I can just delete them and have that sweet sweet serotonin again.

So, what I need is basically a way to put time limits on this app on my Samsung phone in a way I can't bypass (or that requires me to have a computer sciences abilities which, thankfully for these purpose, I do not possess). Or a way to keep the app off my phone permanently. (I don't know if quitting cold turkey is the best solution here since, you know, the same way I transferred my daydreaming from Royale High to the RPG, I can just as easily transfer it to a third problem. So maybe capping it to an hour or so every night, that would be my goal)

TL;DR: An app on my Samsung phone has me on a chokehold, I want to cap my screen time on that specific app in a way I can't realistically bypass in less than 5 minutes like what I have tried so far. If there is no way of limiting screen time on that manner, I am willing to just purge it off my phone for good. (P.S: If you guys think another subreddit can help me on the matter, send that too, please)

Thank you so much already, guys!

Hello, fellow Redditors! For context, I have always been one of the top students in my class, not because of some innate super genius or anything, just a love for learning and a lot of hours spent with my butt on the chair. I got into my dream college on the major I wanted. And I never never had had a problem with my phone before. I never thought it could happen to me: I have so many hobbies (knitting, crochet, embroidery, reading, baking, cycling...), and I never had a social media presence (I thought, perhaps naively, that was the only pitfall to fall on).

But about a year and a half ago, I found an app.

It's not social media. It's not gambling. It is not harmful in the ways I thought could cause addiction. It's an RPG, it's five bucks a month, it's fun...

But it just takes so much of my time

Like, I am not failing exams or anything, but I can tell I am not on my top performance because I spend time on the game and not studying as I should. I've come to reject my other hobbies and let them fall to the sidelines because the game is always more appealing. I eat well, I sleep 7 to 8 hours most nights, it doesn't impact my social life... but whenever I am home alone, well, that's different (I live alone, moved out of town for college and have no roommates). The temptation of getting on the couch and just losing myself is too great, and I end up not doing anything else.

Doing some research, I think I might suffer from Maladaptive Daydreaming (This is not an official diagnosis or an attempt from me to make one, just a hunch based on the descriptions I've found online, the scarce pubmed articles I was able to find and my own experiences compared to that). When I was younger, it must have manifested in other ways, like how I heard the same five songs on loop, sometimes just the same 30 second clip, imagining scenarios in my head; imagining animation memes on my head; telling myself stories in my head to go to sleep. I was really into roleplaying on Roblox when I was younger (Royale High had me on a chokehold, I'd devote my whole weekend to it if I could).

Now, I think the thing has just found another outlet through this RPG. After reading all of that, I can admit that I don't see the character I play as as external to me, I have a deep connection to it, I literally wear its shoes while playing. And that would be fine if it were an experience I can disconnect from after. But sometimes, I'll me having as shower or walking to class and find myself imagining what I (or rather what my character) will do once I get home alone.

I have been trying to find ways to go around it since my shoe dropped.

A very effective method was, since Mother's Day last week, leaving my earplugs at my parent's house in my hometown. I may live home alone, but I still live in a building with walls that are as thin as a tissue and neighbors who will definitely hear me playing 'Peer Pressure' on loop for the fifth time on a row. It has helped me a lot, even with the RPG usage (Whenever I listened to a song, or even a YouTube shorts of a scene from a movie, I'd end up imagining scenarios I'd later want to implement in the RPG. So, removing the music, I remove the inspiration and thus the fuel).

I also bought an alarm clock, the cheap, tiny ones. It plays happy birthday to you when it rings and it fits just fine on my bedside table. It also helped, since I don't have my phone on hands first thing in the morning to turn off the alarm and thus the perfect occasion of getting cozy under the blankets and playing away instead of getting stuff done or even engaging in another one of my hobbies.

Still, it isn't enough. I still spend far too much time on it and I know it, no matter how I try to rationalize it. So, I tried various methods I have read online to limit app usage: reducing the age limit of the playstore's parental controls to exclude the app (16+, so I put it to only show me 14 rating), the Samsung phone's own app time manager, and even some external apps for focus... I doesn't work. Why? Because it's just too easy to bypass! Even if I set all passwords to a random number I don't remember to make it impossible (or at least very time consuming, there's no way in hell I am trying, one by one, a four digit code) to access the parental or screen time controls; you can just reset the password easily on the settings in case you 'forgot'. Complicated for kids with helicopter parents, but not me. As for the Samsung time controls, just installing and installing the app again removes all time limits you had placed on it, regardless if you forgot the password or not. As for external apps, same problem, I can just delete them and have that sweet sweet serotonin again.

So, what I need is basically a way to put time limits on this app on my Samsung phone in a way I can't bypass (or that requires me to have a computer sciences abilities which, thankfully for these purpose, I do not possess). Or a way to keep the app off my phone permanently. (I don't know if quitting cold turkey is the best solution here since, you know, the same way I transferred my daydreaming from Royale High to the RPG, I can just as easily transfer it to a third problem. So maybe capping it to an hour or so every night, that would be my goal)

TL;DR: An app on my Samsung phone has me on a chokehold, I want to cap my screen time on that specific app in a way I can't realistically bypass in less than 5 minutes like what I have tried so far. If there is no way of limiting screen time on that manner, I am willing to just purge it off my phone for good. (P.S: If you guys think another subreddit can help me on the matter, send that too, please)

Thank you so much already, guys!