[vonseel]

I don't know if I would call it an addiction, but I feel very similar in the sense that I spend a ton of hours on the internet and tinkering with technology.

I did take a break. A long break. I joined the Army in 2021, after being laid off during the pandemic, thinking I wanted to leave technology for good. Then after I graduated from basic, I realized I was probably going to be a shitty, unfit soldier and that I missed all of the interesting technical and engineering challenges we solve as software engineers.

I'm still working on getting back into the profession (pretty much due to my own laziness the past year... I guess needed time to recalibrate after everything). But, I have spent countless hours the past year setting up homelab equipment, various servers, writing scripts and small programs to organize stuff.

Youtube isn't something I really could get addicted to, because I don't like learning from videos or watching stuff I could read in a quarter of the time. But I guess I do have a pretty bad TV addiction. I wasted tons of hours when I was depressed binge-watching shows online. It's to the point I don't even watch movies often because I prefer the intimacy I feel when I know the characters well and am deeply immersed in a series, especially something running multiple seasons. I binged all 5 seasons of the Handmaid's Tale a few weeks ago in less than a week, for example, and considered immediately rewatching them all.

As another has stated below, I guess this is to fill the void that occurs in life when we are single and childless, unemployed, or both.

I still don't think if I would call my internet usage or passion for technology "addiction". The TV/Netflix/etc. ... sure. That's fair. But I think it's fine to be obsessed with something like programming, especially if it's your profession. People who get paid to do something they love are lucky.