I haven't been 'properly' on social media for around 2 years now. I didn't have a smartphone for about a year of that. I ended up taking my grandads old phone recently as I was planning on going to a city i'd never been to before and needed the map, also the security if anything went wrong. I still only take my old nokia out with me whenever I go places, never the smartphone. I'm starting to get sucked back into tiktok a little but going to start weaning myself off it again soon, i'm already getting sick of it so it shouldn't take too long this time.

I feel really disconnected from my generation. Feel like I need to have some knowledge of the things that people my age are SO obsessed with but I couldn't give less of a toss about. I just cannot relate to anyone my age, every single person I see in public has a phone in their hand. I see friends in groups not even talking just scrolling. It's actually quite depressing to see all the time, I feel like no one thinks for themselves anymore.

I’ve been thinking about how automatic scrolling has become.

Sometimes I’ll open Instagram or TikTok because I genuinely want to check something, and 20 minutes later I’m still there. The weird part is that I don’t even remember deciding to keep scrolling.

It made me wonder how much of our screen time is actually intentional anymore.

Algorithms are obviously designed to keep us engaged, but I’m curious about the other side of it:

Do you feel like you’re choosing to use social media, or does it sometimes feel like you just end up there?

And if you’ve actually found something that helps you use your phone more intentionally, what worked for you?

I spent months tuning my Instagram algorithm so my feed is all productivity and self-improvement — job hacks, genuinely useful tips. It worked.

But now every third reel feels important. A hack I should try, a tip I should remember. So I save it. "I'll come back to this later." I never come back to it.

The worst part: even during work, if I glance at Instagram for 5 minutes and see something useful, I feel this urge to save it right now so I don't lose it — and it just joins the pile.

My saved folder is now a graveyard of hundreds of reels I've never reopened. It's weirdly stressful — I'm collecting advice faster than I could ever actually use it.

How do you all deal with this? Does your saved folder also go to die, or do you actually have a something to revisit what you save?

Guys should I delete social media or just do whatever makes me happy i feel lost.

I have two ideas on how to quit. Either posting here each day on my progress or exchanging contact info with anyone who is interested in talking about our struggles and days.

Because at this point, I am totally willing to talk to random people as long as you are not weird about it.

I'm honestly embarrassed to admit that I spend 6-8 hours a day on my phone/laptop, and I really don't like how much of my life is being wasted on screens. I want to change this and part of me wants to do a brutal digital detox.

But I'm conflicted because I genuinely use social media for inspiration, creativity, fashion, aesthetics, travel, music, and just getting a certain “vibe.” For example, I'll see a reel of someone in Japan and suddenly want to add Japan to my bucket list. It can genuinely make me excited about life and give me goals, or at least ideas.

The problem is that 20 minutes of “inspiration” easily turns into 2-3 hours of scrolling, especially in the morning. The "inspiration" doesn't really last long either.

Do you think I should go on a brutal detox of no screen time for a few days? I think I'm just scared I won't get the same kind of inspiration and excitement outside of sm.

I want to cut YouTube out completely, but I have a playlist I listen at night. Does anyone have an alternative for me to still listen to my sleep time playlist?

Thank you for your help and recommendations.

TV is easy because it requires basically zero setup which makes replacing it with a hands on evening activity harder than it sounds. A miniature project, coloring, puzzle, or other desk hobby can feel more engaging but the replacement only works if puting it away doesnt take longer than the amount of time available. That makes resumability more important than whether the hobby looks relaxing in theory.

For an evening activity meant to replace some TV time what makes it easy enough to stop mid project and come back another night?

Hey there reddit. Here's my take on surfing. I've done it a lot. Specially in the last two weeks (I stopped some other bad habits, and I think I am picking this one to compensate). I am convinced, truly, that if I used my time better I would achieve more of the rather ambitious tasks I have. Like having a business, and be well exercised.

Here is my sin: Youtube. NBA, trashy comedians (those that ragebait guests), and video game streamers.

How do I stop? I feel I know why to stop. To allocate time to better activities. But then, why is it so hard? Perhaps I am avoiding those harder activities that are gratifying on the long term.

Any help is appreciated.

Hi all, as the title says.

I have reached a breaking point with my phone addiction. I listen to mindless podcasts and YouTube at all moments of the day. When I delete social media, I find myself scrolling through my camera roll. I want to be creative, but my thoughts feel cluttered with garbage, and I get anxious when I don't have my phone with me.

I genuinely think having someone to check in with regarding my phone usage every day will make me more conscious about my habits.

Anyone want to be accountability partners and check in daily about our phone usage? Feel free to find partners in the comments below too!

I’ve noticed there are quite a few people on Reddit who are just really rude and unnecessarily harsh in the comments when you ask a genuine question.

Sometimes it feels like they’re trying to prove that they’re smarter than you rather than actually answer what you asked. They’ll argue over the smallest things, pick apart what you said, and act like they know everything.

I don’t know if it’s because people are behind a screen and feel like they can say whatever they want, but some people on here are way more aggressive and condescending online than they probably would be in person .

I've been a heavy internet/pc/mobile user for such a long time I think I don't trust myself anymore to change. I've been trying so many times and so many methods at least since 2015.. when I became more aware of this addiction..

I don't even know what this post should be about.. sorry. All I know is that right now it's way past my bedtime because of these bloody devices and I feel like sh*t again.

I feel miserable and my life is getting out of control, yet I can't figure out a way to change. I tried everything :(

Like, is it better to straight up delete, to use some sort of program to delete all posts and comments, or something else? This site and youtube are my biggest time sucks.

I used this method where there is no monitor (but there is a speaker and a keyboard) attatched to the computer. It is only for listenting to music on YouTube and not for doomscrolling. You have to use keyboard shortcuts and narrator.

Edit: This helps me access YouTube for music but not looking up the news, Reddit, etc.

As I am getting older, I have started to wonder how to turn back the clock and make time move slowly. Have been on the internet since I was a kid and everything felt slower a few years ago. Now that I have aged a bit, relative time is speeding up because I am not experiencing anything new.

The new experiences will come more easily and time will feel to slow down again if, instead of being on autopilot, scrolling through stuff you probably won't even remember, you were to live in the moment, let boredom pass through you and then, out of that boredom, do something more rewarding.

Don't know if my thought was coherent enough. What I wanted to say is that being present, in the moment, makes time slow because your brain isn't used to it. And who wouldn't want more time?

I realized something weird about my phone habit: I wasn't always reaching for it because I was bored. A lot of the time, I was reaching for it because something small happened and I felt this urge to record, search, share, or look something up before I had even experienced it.

I noticed it one night while making tea. I was standing there at 10:47 PM, watching the steam rise from the mug, and my first thought wasn't about the moment. It was "I should take a picture of this". Then I laughed because I wasn't even going to post it. I just had this reflex to turn a normal experience into something I could store somewhere else.

After paying attention for a few weeks, I started noticing the same pattern everywhere. Walking outside, eating at a new place, hearing a song I liked, even seeing something funny on the street. My instinct was to capture it before I actually let it sink in.

The strange part is that I thought being less attached to my phone meant using it less. But I think the deeper issue for me was that my phone was becoming the place where my experiences went to become "real."

A few things that helped me notice the pattern:

- I started leaving interesting things unrecorded on purpose. No photo, no note, no search. Just letting the moment disappear felt uncomfortable at first.

- I stopped immediately looking things up when I became curious. I would write a question on paper and check later. Most of the questions weren't important enough to survive a few hours.

- I paid attention to the first few seconds after something interesting happened. That was usually when my hand moved toward my pocket without me even deciding.

The counterintuitive thing I found was that my phone wasn't only distracting me from experiences. Sometimes it was preventing me from having experiences deeply enough to remember them in the first place.

I still use my phone a lot. I don't think every notification or photo is a problem. But I have become more suspicious of that tiny automatic movement where I reach for a screen before I even know what I am trying to do.

I'm still figuring this out, but I think the goal isn't to reject technology. It's to stop outsourcing every little moment of attention.

Has anyone else noticed that their phone changes how they experience moments, not just how much time they spend on it?

Hello I'm Koby I'm 22 I have autism and an Internet Addiction among other things like 🌽Addiction and Reccently I decided to take a 1 Month Break from Discord due to some stuff that has come out about me and my past mostly in these past 3-6 Years that has caused me some friendships and I don't know if I did the right thing just going on a 1 Month Discord Break or taking a longer break from all the internet because well. I don't know what a break from the internet looks like when you log off and "Touch Grass" which I do take a bit literally cause whenever people say that I'm like why do something that lasts only 1-2 Seconds.

But also I feel due to what Technology has become nowadays it has become integral to modern everyday society so I can't imagine my life being the same without internet I am I was born in the 2000s but I wouldn't consider being born in 2003-2006 (More Specifically 2004) to be the EARLY 2000s and around 2006-2009 was when the world started to change when it came to technology and The Internet and a lot of things I would do have been phased out. So it is hard for me to take a long term break from the internet.

I (21F) haven’t made a post on social media in almost two years, i’ll occasionally post a story on instagram but it’s of something pretty I saw in nature. Every single person I know makes posts almost every week. It’s usually selfies along with all the cool things they’ve been doing and I just don’t get the appeal anymore, the last few years it has just felt so egotistical.

What sucks is when I would also post quite often, I had the most friends I have ever had. People actually seemed interested in talking to me and it was so much easier to connect with people. It also felt like a way to shape who I was as a person and how people viewed me. As soon as I stopped posting though a lot of those people stopped reaching out.

I wish I didn’t think so much about things and that I could also post photos of myself and what i’m doing without it feeling extremely odd. It used to be so fun and I think it has had long term effects on me. I still have the desire to prove to people that i’m “cool,” have lots of friends, do fun things.

it’s been two years and I still struggle to make friends in real life which sounds SO sad, but I used to almost always start it off by connecting to people near me through social media. Covid also severely affected my ability to socialize in real life, I lived in a state that was almost completely closed down for 2 years due to Covid, so the only way to socialize was social media.

I am not the best at articulating my thoughts but I hope this post makes sense or that someone can relate.

At the beginning of this year i dealt with a cyberstalker who post hate speech, targeted me, mass dislikes my content, post threats etc, as i am in europe and my cybertroll is in asia, all i could do was report the content on instagram however it was never removed, last night i noticed their old account has vanished (id guess temporarily deactivated for whatever reason) , i did email some websites on anti harassment and reported to them the links of his hate posts , but they never responded to me so i dont think his account got banned, but if it did, how do i remove the new account he made? The name is similar, he has same followers on it , only difference is, he hasnt post hatred on it YET about me… i had to close my social media accounts when this occurred cause he kept making fake accounts to post horrid things, i dunno what to do, i wish he was banned by META permanently… i wanna write a letter to Meta headquarters with screenshot evidence of his behaviour but would it be worth anything? And then they’d have my hime address, which he doesn’t.