During the two-day measurement on the weekend, I often found myself browsing Reddit, either intentionally or out of habit, with unconsciously opening it being the most common case. I tried to note down what I was doing before that or why I ended up on Reddit. The typical scenario was when I got bored doing homework; I also found out that I sometimes “rewarded” myself for finishing the homework by giving myself “permission” to browse more Reddit. Another interesting finding is that I have had the habit of keeping Reddit open in my browser no matter what I’m doing, which may also contribute to the behavior.
Based on my findings on the behavior of my excessive Reddit browsing, I made two model diagrams: a fishbone diagram and a connection circle, demonstrating the causality between different factors.
I think the habitual tab switching to the Reddit website is what enables me to go down the rabbit hole, especially when I’m doing it unconsciously. If I wanted to change this behavior, I would start by removing Reddit from my bookmarks so that I wouldn’t have it open in the first place. This change can probably make it harder for me to turn to Reddit when I get bored doing homework.
