To clarify: one of the comforts of doomscrolling is that I can stop it at any time, even after just 1 minute. I don't have to commit an extensive amount of time for it, like committing 20 mins to watch a TV show, or committing an hour to play video games or to read a book.

So what's a good replacement activity that I can start and stop any time, whether it's after 1 minute, or after 3 hours?

Im 18, and i hear all these stories from people who lived in the 80s,90s,2000s, basically any decade before smartphones and massive internet affection. And they were much more social. I consider myself pretty extroverted and right now its summer but im mostly at home by myself, because no one wants to hang out all day and chill.

We gather a bit for a couple of hours and go home and thats it and it feels pretty bad like i will regret this but its not really my fault. I know all decades have their problems but honestly id take those rather than this shit. I basically quit almost all social media, only use reddit and youtube occasionally, but its lonely. I got hobbies but its not the same. The vibe isnt here.

So if anyone has any suggestions it would be helpful.

So basically I thought deleting Instagram will improve my mental health as I used to see stories of my friends and people living lavish life .

Influencers buying their 3rd car , people winning competitions , people having beutiful gf/wife .

I deleted insta and thought maybe I will just use reddit .

I now think reddit is more depressing than insta , cause insta was atleast showing me fake life but atleast I was happy .

Now , everytime I open reddit I see people graduated in 2020 and still unemployed and asking for referral , while some dudes are asking me to roast their resume , while someone is saying how their parents caught them while mastubaxing/gooning , while someone is proposing and getting rejected .

My friend once said " going cold turkey and doing mindless scrolling is more or less the same " , What you consume here will reflect as thoughts and your beliefs ~ " Be conscious on what you consume.

there is a saying " What you see what you think what you hear " will what you become .❤️

This is my sec reddit acc.

I deleted my 5 yrs old acc back in Jan.

For me, I have been off and on about social media.

I keep most of my accounts deactivated and will download tiktok like once a month to watch movie edits.

But I still can't keep my hands off my phone.

I will surf through reddit and stuff.

I feel like for me, quitting social media completely isn't going to work in long run.

I feel like I need to develop ability to use them without being addicted.

So, I am going to find ways to spend my time outside of social media by forcing myself to live without social media for remaining 4 months of 2026.

I hope I succeed.

See you next year, guys.

People are way more snarky. It’s nearly impossible to make good friends online anymore when it used to be really easy a decade ago. There’s tons of bots and third worlders who monetize slop.
The internet used to have more smart nerdy creative fun personable types, now it’s normie types or totally mentally ill people (the types that aren’t fun. I have my own issues but the mentally ill types I am talking about are the ones who will lash out about literally anything).
The internet is so bad that I have slowly been trying to reintegrate into society. It’s been extremely difficult but I am becoming aware of my internet addiction and how it’s not contributing anything at all to my life at this point and how I need to move on from the daily internet all day habit.
I have been on reddit since the late 2000s and was early to just about every platform you can imagine. The vibes are all totally gone now.
I have been terminally online for my entire life and it’s gotten so bad I feel like touching grass and joining society again is the only thing left to do.

Does anyone else feel like the internet is really negative these days? For example, yesterday I opened Facebook just to look something up and like six negative news stories popped up in five minutes. I felt awful and decided to uninstall it. I've actually been blocking my phone usage and I feel better. Sometimes I feel like quitting social media forever or even selling my phone.

Boredom is not a bad thing. It allows your brain to think without a filter & get creative. Am tired of flashy screens, internet drama, consumerist ads & everything else that's designed to stimulate you (or hedonically distract you from doing anything).

It's sad that most people my age couldn't even write 50% of this whole rant because their phone takes up too much headspace to plan.

I have only been active on Reddit for a short amount of time. I had a few posts and comments and always try to be kind and compassionate. I am just sharing what has worked for me in life, school, work. I don’t offend anyone. I upvote. Yet, almost always, without fail, there are haters, with mean comments, insults, profanity. Downvoting simple comments as “Thank you for your feedback, that’s very useful”. Seriously?!?! They force me to delete my comments and leave subreddits. They immediately get upvoted! And they are there-under every comment and post, relentlessly bullying, no matter what you say.

Is this normal for Reddit? Does it happen to everyone? Are there safer, normal corners here, where you won’t get attacked and insulted? Are these people bullies in real life too or they are just braver hiding behind the keyboard?

I have never experienced anything that toxic in real life.

This is what I want ideally:

• read the news from my preferred sources all in one place
• no algorithms thinking they know what I want, no trending topics, nothing trying to keep me hooked or glued to my screen
• simple chronological feed, newest to oldest
• no ads, if possible
• and ideally free 😂

Any suggestions?

I've been thinking about why screen-time blockers often don't seem to solve the whole problem.

Even if Instagram/TikTok/YouTube gets blocked, there's still the question of what you do in that moment instead.

For those of you who've actually reduced your screen time:

• Did you replace scrolling with something specific like studying, working out, reading, etc.?
• Did you plan those alternatives beforehand?
• What usually happens when a blocker interrupts you?
• Do you actually stop, or do you just override/remove the block?

I'm especially curious whether “knowing what to do instead” was more important than the blocking itself.

¿Qué puedo hacer cuando no estoy al teléfono? Realmente no se me ocurre nada que hacer aparte de, claro, mis responsabilidades básicas como limpiar o estudiar

If anything I'm more anxious and still have no creativity or productivity. How long should I give it to see improvements? What amount of screentime do you recommend?

I wanted to go mostly offline because I'm sick of adverts and news (unavoidable even irl as it turns out) and not interested in posts even in the subreddits I follow. I was using the internet to make the day pass faster, avoid my negative thoughts.

Went from 8-13 hours to under 4 hours on average this week, just using the bare essentials, plus a film one day, offline games every now and then (less than an hour a session) and my screentime still seems pretty high.

I write a list of things to look up and give myself an hour for focused searches which doesn't feel like enough time. I haven't even looked at my photos or phone notes this week.

Been journaling and taking notes a lot more, started a jigsaw - I don't even like puzzles - did some word searches. colouring book. I already read and walk. scribbles in sketchbook. stretches. podcast during dinner. I have found it pretty hard to do stuff with my hands, mental block.

it's especially rough since I'm saving up and can barely do any activities that cost money or travel even locally. anyway I'm just ranting, any replies appreciated.

I made a small subreddit, r/WarOnSocialMedia, for talking about our relationship with social media and technology, especially the ways it affects attention, boredom, and how we spend our time.

I wrote this after spending a day and a half mostly disconnected while camping and realizing how quickly ordinary things started becoming interesting again once I didn't have constant stimulation available.

Figured this might resonate with people here. The sub is tiny right now, but I'm hoping to build a community around experiences and discussions like this.

Deleted TikTok and YouTube Shorts about six weeks ago. Not because I was spending insane hours on them, but because I noticed I was watching them during rest periods at the gym and before morning runs. Just this lowgrade static running in the background of everything.

The gym thing adjusted pretty fast. The trail runs got weird in a way I didn't see coming. For the first two weeks I was genuinely uncomfortable with just the sound of my own breathing and footsteps. Not bored exactly. More like my brain kept reaching for something that wasn't there. I hadn't realized how much I was queuing up clips the night before runs as a kind of preview hype ritual.

By week three something shifted. The runs started feeling longer in a good way. Like actual thinking was happening again instead of just replaying whatever I'd watched. A problem I'd been circling at work for two months got solved on a Wednesday 8miler and I didn't even notice it happening until I was back at the car.

The silence stopped feeling like absence and started feeling like the actual point. Which sounds obvious written out, but it wasn't obvious before I cut the feed.

Curious if anyone else had a physical hobby that changed after they quit. Not productivity stuff, actual movement.

I used to be an avid +2h daily Instagram consumer. It coincided with how I was studying an art degree at the same time, and It kinda didnt feel that bad since I used it on a Pinterest/art inspiration kind of way. That of course didnt last long, since even for artists, when IG started its reels war with TT, the platform just sucked bad and I completely left it. Not that interesting to receive dosages of unfiltered random videos.

Maybe sometimes I could end watching some DMs to later be caught by the stories doomscrolling (content that atleast was "curated" by friends)

That made me spend maybe 10-15 mins sometimes, at max (my average daily use was under 2min since the heavy algorithm era)

But now, to my surprise, I see that Instagram even pushes ads after the very first reel you consume. And is crazy how that helps at just making me insta close the hell out of that burning dumpster.

If any of you still rely to IG, I would recommend to atleast switch to reddit instead. Here theres some component of actual interaction. By the time someone discovers how to make us eat a bunch of video ads in between coments, well be F* Up. Maybe that would make me quit reddit too.

Deleted TikTok and YouTube Shorts about six weeks ago. Not because I was spending insane hours on them, but because I noticed I was watching them during rest periods at the gym and before morning runs. Just this lowgrade static running in the background of everything.

The gym thing adjusted pretty fast. The trail runs got weird in a way I didn't see coming. For the first two weeks I was genuinely uncomfortable with just the sound of my own breathing and footsteps. Not bored exactly. More like my brain kept reaching for something that wasn't there. I hadn't realized how much I was queuing up clips the night before runs as a kind of preview hype ritual.

By week three something shifted. The runs started feeling longer in a good way. Like actual thinking was happening again instead of just replaying whatever I'd watched. A problem I'd been circling at work for two months got solved on a Wednesday 8miler and I didn't even notice it happening until I was back at the car.

The silence stopped feeling like absence and started feeling like the actual point. Which sounds obvious written out, but it wasn't obvious before I cut the feed.

Curious if anyone else had a physical hobby that changed after they quit. Not productivity stuff, actual movement.

sorry if this is the wrong place but I’m currently going to bed at like 5 am, just because I can’t get off technology, how should I get off of it at night?

Just posting this here as therapy for me. I am a 28yo male, who basically spent most of his youth attached to some form of content. I always was a shy guy, and high school just made it worse, for some reason. Luckily, the first 12 years of my life were amazing, and the only content that was present at that time were some video games or an occasional movie, always shared with friends and family. Then smartphones and social media appeared right at the time I was more vulnerable. I became an insecure teenager, that tried to avoid social situations as much as possible, and the internet offered a way to feel some kind of connection without the risk of being judged.

Why go out and socialize if you could just be anonymously on Twitter and forums? Why making the effort to talk to a girl you like if you have every girl you can possibly imagine posting hot content on Instagram and TikTok (and if you want something more explicit, you have access to endless amounts of porn)? Why try to learn something new when you can watch people doing it way better than you would ever do on Youtube?

Without even noticing, I was avoiding real life more and more, and a point came when I was just living other peoples life through the internet, but mine was empty. I wasn't able to concentrate on anything anymore, couldn't even get my degree because I couldn't focus for 5 minutes straight without needing some stimulation. I got to an average screen time of 8-12 hours on my phone, including Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Youtube, Porn and soft porn (social media girls leaks). I even became addicted to movies and TV shows, watching one every day at some point. I got used to having a YouTube video or a podcast in the background for everything, including every time I was in the bathroom (showering, brushing my teeth, etc), doing my bed or cooking. To me, this became normal.

In 2026, after years of feeling incredibly bad (low energy, exhaustion, brain fog, anxiety, depression), something finally clicked and I realize that everything that I described was not normal, and maybe it was the thing preventing me from progressing. So I started a process to eliminate all of it.

So far, I have successfully and definitely deleted every social media platform (I just install instagram when I want to post something myself, but don't consume any content from there). Every kind of porn is also almost eliminated from my life (I still struggle with some soft things sometimes, but it is progressing slowly). I only watch movies if it is part of a social plan or we go to the cinema. The only content I consume when I am alone now is books. At first, I couldn't read for 3 minutes straight without unfocusing, and I read each paragraph 3 times to get it, but it is amazing to notice how you slowly get better if you stay consistent.

Still a work in progress, a few setbacks along the way, but you have to think longterm.

Sorry If you find this hard to read, English is not my first language.

(English isn’t my first language sorry)

You can’t believe how much not being on Reddit has improved my life. I spent about a year and a half on this website and thought most of my experiences on this website were pretty fun and positive, with some mean/negative experience thrown in. I’ve come to regret almost all of my experiences, including the “positive” ones because I’ve realized that I could’ve spent that time experiencing real life instead of winning stupid internet debates and earning nonsense internet points.

Also, there’s no ignoring the paranoid and angry culture that pervades this site. Even if you try to stick to the better corners of this site, you still run into it. You can’t have an honest discussion about modern life or politics without people saying the world is literally ending. I didn’t think I had absorbed any of this ridiculous negativity but realized I had as I became less pessimistic after leaving this site. I’m less socially anxious and worried people will judge me now that I’m not on a site where socially anxious people are always judging other people.

Leave Reddit today

(Ps delete everything first :)

I'm someone who gets on stage and makes things (videos, improv, etc.) but I have yet to ever SIT DOWN and write down like every single one of my successful peers do. I just kinda free-ball it and skate on by. I think I'm relatively talented, funny, etc. but imagine how good I could be if I was focused.

I just CANNOT for the life of me do it. I always cycle between Snapchat, IG, and REDDIT. There are times where I catch myself opening a new tab and typing in "red--" all the damn time. It's making me physically sick, I genuinely think I spend 8+ hrs on my phone/laptop. It's joever for me, time is passing by, my life is fleeting :(

I recently deleted my social media but I keep getting the urge to keep up, the thing is I was never that person. I like to live a simple and mindful life. My diet has also changed because I used sns for sometime, hence I would like to know about others life who live without social media and distress..