[banana_sandwich]

I used to be highly addicted to scrolling. Tiktok, reddit, instagram, everything. It nearly cost me my relationship and I swore it off ever since. I’ve been offline those apps for a few months now, and have never felt better. Cant believe what i was allowing to happen to my attention!

[mc3301]

Youtube: There are a few long-form creators I watch, maybe 4 hours a month of content. Besides that, viewing history is off, no apps, browser extensions block mostly everything (comments, suggestions, etc.)

Instagram: I have a 15 minute daily timer, because I sometimes post, and I sometimes receive DMs.

Reddit: Fully blocked, I think I ublocked everything.

Tiktok: I won't even download it ever again. It has an algorithm like no other for sucking me in. Dangerously addictive.

Facebook? Deleted it completely around 2013, so no idea what's going on there.

[johnofthesea]

For those that are subscribed to Youtube channels: no need to have account. Youtube has RSS.

[KellyCriterion]

IMHO, the account is esp. useful for one thing: selecting explicitly which channels you want to block - if you do this over some time, then you see that YouTube content is by far not unlimited, acutally rather limited if you select only really interesting things for you :-))

[fragmede]

How's the dating scene where you are? Whatever bubble I'm in, in the US, while I could not be on Instagram, that would be making things harder on myself.

[safety1st]

I totally get this sentiment and I think it applies equally to the actual dating apps, these apps are all garbage fires that you don't really want in your life, but they do have utility if you want to date.

So an idea I've been thinking about lately, is that evolution didn't produce humans that were wired to date forever. These app publishers undoubtedly would prefer that you keep using their apps until you die, so they're happy to see you also keep dating until you die. But that shouldn't really be how things go and it's not how most of us are wired. Most humans throughout history went through a brief courtship period and then they settled down with someone, even if that person wasn't perfect.

The app has utility in that courtship period, but the activity itself is meant to be temporary, possibly even brief, and ultimately give way to something else. The app publisher has an incentive to make you forget that.

[Aurornis]

I’m curious what you mean by this. Most of the guys I know treat their Instagram accounts like their LinkedIn accounts: It has enough information and occasional updates with major life changes, but they don’t actively engage with it all the time. Just let it exist and respond to any messages if they come in. Would that work, or are you saying the dating scene in your area requires some type of active constant engagement with Instagram?

[fragmede]

Some level of engagement with it, anyway. Only having one post from 7 years isn't going to do you want favors, but I'm not saying you need to be on it 97 hours a day either. But the younger crowd seems to favor that app as a first level of contact, and you can escalate (as welcome) from there.

If you steadfastly refuse to have one, it seems like it'd be the same as trying with job seeking without a LinkedIn. Which you can do, but it seems like making things harder than they need to be when things are already difficult.

[mc3301]

No idea about the dating scene in central Japan; I'm not in it.

[octoberfranklin]

No, that really wouldn't.

Instagram is a tool to help women manage their fan club of orbiters and get validation from them on demand (which is what makes so addictive for women). It might look like "hey there's all these hot women here if i hang out here i will get dates with them" but that's the mirage.

[wkat4242]

Hmm in our community it's also a way to connect when you meet someone at parties, that doesn't expose too many details like your real name or phone number.

[gverrilla]

Yes men don't do none of that at all!

[cons0le]

Its the endless shortform videos. The brain was not meant to switch contexts every 20 seconds for 3 hours straight. I replaced most of my screens with e ink, and only allow myself to scroll through text based sites and rss feeds

[flirtyqwerty]

Interesting concept. I'd like to hear more about your process. What e-ink screen(s?) are you using? Any good text based websites to recommend?

[cons0le]

On my desk I have 2 monitors, one normal 24" and one dasung paperlike. If I need to watch a video or do work that needs high refresh, I just switch to the other monitor. One side benefit of this is you can't use your computers in the dark anymore, you have to turn on the lights like you're reading a book. This does wonders for your eyes.

The e ink screen I use the most is a boox 10.3 tablet. It does have internet and can run android apps. So I can read rss feeds, hacker news, manga, ect. I don't do any "serious" work on it and don't sign in with my main google/apple accounts. The build quality for the price is superb, and its the first eink device I've had that feels premium like an ipad. Its also super thin and the battery lasts me ~2 months on a charge.

As far as fun text based websites, you're already on the best one :) But I also have a million RSS feeds that I read to get the news.

[sofixa]

Not who you asked, but personally I'm using an Onyx Boox Palma, which is a phone-sized Android device with an e-ink screen. I have Readwise's Reader on it, which doubles as "read later" and RSS feed reader, and works offline. Pretty happy with the workflow overall - I use it extensively when travelling and having time to waste (e.g. waiting at an airport or while on the plane/train).

Note about Onyx, they're kind of violating GPL by refusing to publish source code. Also, their Android devices are a bit special and you have to jump through a couple of small hoops at set up to be able to use Google Play (nothing special or complicated).

[teroshan]

It's important to highlight that while it's phone-sized, it's not a phone and doesn't have a modem

[johnisgood]

Why were you scrolling, what were you scrolling for? Were you trying to fill some void? :D

I do scroll on Instagram, but it was mainly to share some reels with my girlfriend, no other purpose. It was not addiction. I tend to forget to check hers (which she does not like so I try not to), and when I check hers, I look at some reels to send back, then I close the app.

I did scroll on Facebook when I started using it recently, and it might be leaning towards the addiction side, but I stopped myself from doing it because it is a waste of time and I realized everyone is arguing there, and their arguments are horrendous. I feel like were I to read it all day it would dumb me down.

But yeah, I think the best move is to not play at all. Use Facebook only when you absolutely must. Same with anything else. If you have Discord, you may use it for discussions, whether technical or not, but it can be just as addictive as the other website.

[safety1st]

This is so true. I can't signal boost it enough.

I'm also a recovering social media addict, it was a slow and painstaking transition but the benefits in terms of attention, concentration and attitude have been profound. The main metric for me was going from almost 5 hours a day of phone time 2-3 years ago, to about 1 hour today. Of course the socials still snuck in on other devices but that was the main thing which killed the poison at its root and then eventually all the offshoots withered.

The apps condition you to come back through a feedback loop. Once I broke the feedback loop enough times the whole idea of going into one of these apps or sites and watching my life disappear into it started to feel revolting, like I just knew it was going to make my day worse not better, then the hold was gone.

The next battle I see on my horizon is that I sometimes watch 20-30 minutes of YouTube subscriptions in the morning with my coffee. There's some good content, but sooner or later Google's going to try and kill my ad blocker and probably look for new ways to creep that time up into hours instead of minutes. I know it's coming and I'm ready to die on this hill rather than lose my morning. I will do absolutely anything to continue blocking ads, up to and including saying goodbye to YouTube, to Google, to a web browser, putting only TUI interfaces on my TV, anything.

My favorite small act of defiance this year was purchasing a $120 deluxe hardcover edition of the Lord of the Rings trilogy - that's a great work I enjoy enough that I'm happy to read it many times over the course of my life, it improves my attention span instead of worsening it, and it won't show me a single ad ever. So I figured in terms of recreation, it's one of the best investments I could make. Perhaps several of such omnibuses on a shelf next to a comfortable armchair is the best defense against Big Tech.

[mc3301]

"Would you like to watch a 30 second add to skip to the next chapter?"

[bdangubic]

6 years and counting for me

[fragmede]

How'd you do it?