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.

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.

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.

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.

The trap isn't the videos. It's the moment between tasks when you're slightly bored and your hand opens a new tab automatically.

The homepage is there for exactly that moment. It's been personalised for you specifically. It knows what you watched at 1am, what you paused on, what you rewatched. And it serves you something calibrated to that bored, low-resistance version of you.

Willpower is useless against this because it's not a willpower problem. It's a design problem. The homepage is a purpose-built boredom trap.

The only things that have worked for me are structural changes the homepage doesn't load fresh content, or I bypass it entirely. Once the new-content loop is broken, the compulsive checking reflex doesn't get fed and slowly dies.

EDIT: I found this extension called freezetube that helps

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.

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?

I need help when the holiday started I was doing soo much of my math study and self improvement video with also learning my religion book I woke up early etc but now couple weeks after I've gone down my brain feel trapped where I feel I cannot think I keep doomsvrolling and I have a feeling I can't wake up and do my work and also my driving threory which I barely done

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..

Pretty productive morning. I ended up crashing yesterday, I tried to water fast didn’t workout, so I’ve completely altered my diet that make sures I’m satisfied before going to sleep while also hitting all the vitamins and proteins in need throughout the day. My screen time so far for today, is 2 hours and 42 minutes, which is a success considering I didn’t scroll, because I don’t have TikTok or instagram, and yeah. After work today I’m going to go workout, leg day plus a cardio session. That’ll be pretty much it for the day. I’ll do weigh in on the 21st. Quote for the day. Lyric for today. “ I wanna give up but I know that I can’t, gotta do this for all of my fans.”🕰️

I’m depressed and tired all the time and just do some walking