[whstl]

Funny. I was actually able to control myself in Facebook/Twitter (I had veeeery few discussions there, even peaceful ones were rare), but the problem was the increasing amount of arguing I was seeing, especially thanks to the algorithmic timeline.

It was making me feel like shit even when I wasn't participating. Even when I stopped liking stuff it was visible that it was fucking with my mental health. Walking away from reading two people arguing completely drains my energy.

Reddit is not that different. I don't have an account and just go there to get updated on my favourite hobby, but even that will show me a lot of people arguing and things getting heated, and it makes me a bit anxious after reading.

Mastodon is going in the same direction IMO. It is a bit of an echo chamber the people I follow (I don't mind this tbh), but 60% of the things that get going are fucking powderkegs where a single disagreement becomes too heated. I've seen people piling on others because of opinions I agree, and vicariously reading makes me feel like shit.

I'm perfectly fine with conflict and with discussions, but it doesn't really work for me when lots of topics are treated as if it was as high-stakes as we do online.

[javajosh]

>increasing amount of arguing I was seeing* [on twitter]

I recently created a new account, adding only programming and professional connections, and it's actually quite good! If you don't click on any of the "trending" stuff, it functions like a microblog should: it's a way for me to keep up with the projects and OSS personalities I want to, without the fuss.

I did something similar with YouTube: I simply turned off "watch history". The youtube home page is literally empty, because without data the algorithm offers nothing. (In fairness, there's a big contingency message saying in bold letters "Turn watch history back on? Pretty please?") The only time I see content on youtube is because someone I subscribed to posted something. It's glorious. No more doom scrolling because the content is finite once again. I find that the creators I like (and the comments) have enough references to other content that I don't feel cut off. And there's always search. It's just that default empty screen that seems like the magic sauce.

This is my "middle path", and it seems likely that if it catches on they'll do something to disrupt it. In which case I will truly leave. It would be such a waste though, and why we can't have nice things.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Personally, I found switching to liferea (an RSS reader) to track the YT channels I cared about, and generally avoiding using recommendations was a path to satisfaction. I spend very little time scrolling through YT now. Most of the time, it's liferea that tells me a new video is out that I almost certainly want to see. However, the recommendation engine works quite well for me, and so when watching the video I did actually want to see, I will see the right-side suggestions list and every so often, there's something good/valuable there).

[bratwurst3000]

Thank you! I didn’t know that feature of YouTube. I love YouTube and you made it a better place. Because now I block the front page but then I miss the posts of channels I subscribed.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Use an RSS reader (I use liferea) to track the latter. It can be delayed by several hours, but that's the life we want, right?

[whstl]

That new feature of Youtube is indeed fantastic.