How can I forget the ugly things I see on Internet by accident?


nellyleyva92
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You know, somethings you're innocently surfing the web when a horrible image/ video, etc shows up and makes you feel really bad. It may be something pornographic, child abuse, sex depravation, explicit pictures of dead people, animal or human torture, etc.

I can't easily delete from my mind things that I saw by accident, and I wish I could just forget them because just thinking about them make me depressed about the horrible world where I live, and I suffer knowing people or animals out there are suffering horrible things. That makes me sick and afraid of this world... even confused on why Heavenly Father allow such things to happen. Sometimes the memory of a terrible thing I saw long time ago,s come back to my mind unexpectedly and ruins my day.

How can we forget those horrible images, and keep possitive about this life? And, are there any ways we can avoid them? (without quitting Internet completely)

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50 minutes ago, nellyleyva92 said:

1.  even confused on why Heavenly Father allow such things to happen. 
2.  How can we forget those horrible images, and keep possitive about this life?
3.  are there any ways we can avoid them? (without quitting Internet completely)

Looks like you have variety of questions/concerns... because of a lack of time right now. I'll comment on #3 and I'm sure others will step in for all of them.

#3. How to avoid them?:

a. Find wholesome sites that you enjoy and stick with them. Ask friends/family/here for good sites that are clean. I stick to about 20 sites that I enjoy. They are book marked and I am thus able to avoid "surprises".

b. Get a filter on your internet, something that helps clean it up for you in advance. All of our computers have: K9 Web Protection. It is FREE, and you gauge how strong or weak you want it to protect you. There are others, but this is what we use.

c. Another user Jojo Bags gave some advice one time that really stuck with me, some thing like "if you have problem with viewing things, stop feeding the evil then". You don't have to quit the internet, but perhaps reduce your time on it "surfing", stop feeding yourself as much. Take an internet diet instead. Random surfing leads to who knows what? The internet is a tool. How you use this tool is up to you. How often you use this tool is up to you. If it is causing you pain, perhaps switch to a different tool instead: books, newspaper, tv program, etc. Along these lines, I don't watch the news, nothing but death, sickness, disasters, worry. I listen to NPR on the way to work, and that is about all I need. Life without the news has been wonderful. 

d. If you are willing to "surf" the internet, then expect to occasionally see the sharks in the water "pornographic images, horror, cruelty, etc.". These sharks linger there waiting for surfers to come by, they are stories/images/hooks to pull you into other sites. Companies spend millions to leave these hooks floating in the water. I don't surf much personally.

Edited by NeedleinA
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30 minutes ago, nellyleyva92 said:

You know, somethings you're innocently surfing the web when a horrible image/ video, etc shows up and makes you feel really bad. It may be something pornographic, child abuse, sex depravation, explicit pictures of dead people, animal or human torture, etc.

I can't easily delete from my mind things that I saw by accident, and I wish I could just forget them because just thinking about them make me depressed about the horrible world where I live, and I suffer knowing people or animals out there are suffering horrible things. That makes me sick and afraid of this world... even confused on why Heavenly Father allow such things to happen. Sometimes the memory of a terrible thing I saw long time ago,s come back to my mind unexpectedly and ruins my day.

How can we forget those horrible images, and keep possitive about this life? And, are there any ways we can avoid them? (without quitting Internet completely)

I don't know how you "forget" something, but I would recommend you replace the image as soon as possible with something better - probably multiple betters (sight, sound, movement), and perhaps pray immediately for help.

@NeedleinA gave good advice.

For the future, I recommend learning how to not see these things.  That may not seem possible to you right now, but I have never seen the sort of things you describe, "by accident".  I'm not accusing you or anyone, so please don't take this that way, and I know you're not the only person who has seen these sorts of things without intending to, but I haven't had this problem, so I can only assume the difference is behavioral.  I don't use internet filters (except google's filter) because they don't work as well, IMO, as knowledge and discipline.  In my experience, when something (a filter) works most of the time, people come to rely on it all the time - they don't think first and rely on the filter second; they rely on the filter first and react when it fails.  I prefer to rely on diligence in my choices (that doesn't work for everyone).  So depending on how intentional you intend to be, a filter may be a good idea for you.  The best idea, IMO, is to slow down and know what's there before you go there - but that takes time, and a lot of people aren't willing to spend the time, so they rely on the filter - which is fine, just know that it's not going to filter 100% correctly.

Examples of behavioral filtering:

* Look at the rating on movies / videos.  If the rating is above G, find out why before you choose to view - and even if the movie itself is fine for you, the previews of the same rating may not be, so you may want to plan for that; if it's a  TV show, learn about it before you choose to view.  If you're talking about what you see on commercials, stop watching them / TV that has them (if there is such a thing).

* Look at the domain name of a search result before you click the link, and use reason to determine what type of site it probably is based on the domain name and the brief content description.  Google also has filtering that works fairly well as a pre-filter / image filter.  (Works on YouTube as well.)

* Read reviews of books before buying - don't trust just the first few pages or the blurb on the back.

* Learn to suppress your curiosity online: do you _really_ need to see "what the heck" that YouTube video is about?  Is that weird search results title really something you need to pursue?

* This may be hard, but as an IT person who has had to do support from time to time, particularly where the document the user is having problems with is confidential, I've learned not to see what's on screen beyond the narrow bit I need to see.  I realized how much this was ingrained in me when one day a Project Manager asked for help, and I got about three dialogs deep before I realized his operating system was Japanese and I had to ask him what some text said before I could continue - until that point, I hadn't even realized the OS was in a foreign language. This is easier with text than images, but you don't have to look at the images off to the side of the screen, or at the end of a YouTube video...

FWIW.

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On 4/9/2016 at 11:45 AM, nellyleyva92 said:

You know, somethings you're innocently surfing the web when a horrible image/ video, etc shows up and makes you feel really bad. It may be something pornographic, child abuse, sex depravation, explicit pictures of dead people, animal or human torture, etc.

I can't easily delete from my mind things that I saw by accident, and I wish I could just forget them because just thinking about them make me depressed about the horrible world where I live, and I suffer knowing people or animals out there are suffering horrible things. That makes me sick and afraid of this world... even confused on why Heavenly Father allow such things to happen. Sometimes the memory of a terrible thing I saw long time ago,s come back to my mind unexpectedly and ruins my day.

How can we forget those horrible images, and keep possitive about this life? And, are there any ways we can avoid them? (without quitting Internet completely)

You don't need to worry about forgetting them. Your brain will do that in process of time, and not very much time. Within weeks or months, you won't remember it any more, as long as you do two things:

  1. DON'T INVESTIGATE THE IMAGE. Don't click on the link. Don't do a Google image search to see what else is like it. Just leave the image alone.
  2. DON'T DWELL ON IT. Sing a hymn. Read a good book. Watch a TV show. Ignore the ugliness you saw and replace it with something good.
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On 9/4/2016 at 4:45 AM, nellyleyva92 said:

You know, somethings you're innocently surfing the web when a horrible image/ video, etc shows up and makes you feel really bad. It may be something pornographic, child abuse, sex depravation, explicit pictures of dead people, animal or human torture, etc.

I can't easily delete from my mind things that I saw by accident, and I wish I could just forget them because just thinking about them make me depressed about the horrible world where I live, and I suffer knowing people or animals out there are suffering horrible things. That makes me sick and afraid of this world... even confused on why Heavenly Father allow such things to happen. Sometimes the memory of a terrible thing I saw long time ago,s come back to my mind unexpectedly and ruins my day.

How can we forget those horrible images, and keep possitive about this life? And, are there any ways we can avoid them? (without quitting Internet completely)

Desire it to stop and it will. 

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Honestly, what would you do for Jesus? 

"29    And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. 

30    And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." (Matthew 5:29-30)

 

Would you forsake the Internet for Jesus? If it is drawing you away from God in the least degree then why shouldn't it be plucked out? Why argue or rationalize with God about it if, in your heart, you know what He would have you do?

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  • 1 month later...

Something that helps me.

I have AdBlocker, and it has a cool feature.  You right click on the image and you can permanently block that image from showing on your computer, so you can go back to that page and it isn't there anymore.  Amazing, but I found that somehow it also erases it from my memory -- as if it never existed.  I go to that page and it is just a blank space.

It's a psychological thing.

Edited by cdowis
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On 5/13/2016 at 11:06 AM, tesuji said:

OpenDNS is also a great way to filter out sleaze. It's free:

https://www.opendns.com/home-internet-security/

I also found something that looks promising, as another way to regular what your family sees. I don't think it has filters, though.

Circle with Disney
http://www.amazon.com/Circle-CIRC001-with-Disney/dp/B019RC1EI8

I just ordered this gadget to help us manage our kids summer online activities. I hope it's good

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Block Site is an extension where you can block individual sites but also block specific words in a search (such as the search in youtube).  It is very troubling the kind of videos that are now on youtube.

Edited by cdowis
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  • 3 years later...

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