Replacing online communities and resources?
Does anybody have any tips/advice or just personal experience on the subject of replacing online communities and resources? I think a failure to replace these things is why I keep falling into the trap so often.
For example, I am currently learning to play the guitar, and YouTube is an incredible resource. Thanks to YouTube, my guitar playing has come on more in the past six months than in the previous 5-10 years. This includes ear training, which there are several brilliant apps for. But I don't want to have my phone/laptop with me when I play. I want this time to be offline, i.e properly engaged and relaxing.
What about more niche interests, too? My social life is fine which is one thing I'm grateful for - I don't rely on the internet for social connection. However, some of my interests I don't share with friends/family, and the internet is a great place to engage with people who are into the same music, books, films, politics etc as you.
Reddit and YouTube are really the only social media I use, but I get sucked into wasting awful amounts of time on them. I'll delete them and love the feeling that comes with less internet time. In many ways, I'll spend my time doing things i'd really rather be doing. But while I might play the guitar more, the quality of practice is worse without internet resources. I'll read more but miss the instant access to communities where I can talk about what I'm reading.
Has anyone had similar struggles and found any solutions? Ideally, I would just cut back and manage my usage, but this really isn't possible for me. I am someone who needs really hard boundaries with the internet. As I've been writing this, I've been wondering whether we are really spoiled to have had this access in the first place. Perhaps a solution is to just accept that you can't have it both ways and figure which is a greater sacrifice.