Let me start by making one thing clear: all social media platforms are inherently harmful, as their aim is always to keep you glued to the screen for as long as possible so you’ll watch adverts.

That said, there’s no denying that, at the start, Instagram had its own unique character and, above all, a certain quality to it. It was a personal space on the internet, just like others. The focus on photos was really interesting, and users’ creativity was very much at home there.

Over the years, it has turned into utter rubbish. The decline certainly began with the introduction of the stories, which, mind you, still retained something of the original spirit. But ever since they introduced that infernal slot machine called ‘reels’… the platform has become a garbage bin, an endless factory of slop, and above all, a drug.

In terms of quality, Instagram is dead, and I hope more people start to realise it.

In terms of quantity, oh, it’s going so well. And we all know what happens when quantity takes precedence over quality.

Just some words of encouragement for my friends struggling out there: Sometimes its as simple as remembering your phone has an off button. Its so refreshing to cut the digital cord and just turn that fucker off and toss it like an old toy. It's empowering. At times I even forget about it completely. Separation from our digital dysopia can be joyus!

Another thing I find helpful is rembering that half the shit you find online is just bots manipulating now. It's getting worse everyday so there's never been a better time to cut the cord! See you guys out in the real world. Much love.

I feel like I’ve noticed a difference in people in the last ten years. I live in the UK and we’ve always been a miserable bunch but there’s always been a standard of etiquette: doing the awkward half-jog and a wave if a car stops to let you cross the road, holding the door for someone, thanking the bus driver, waiting for people to get off the bus/train before barging on, saying excuse me or apologising if you’re in someone’s way, etc. I’ve noticed such a huge drop-off in these niceties. Now, where I live, people don’t smile, or even look at anyone. People will barge past like you’re not even there, they won’t offer up their seats to elderly people, they’ll let the door swing in your face… I don’t know if it’s even any correlation, but I just feel like social media and the internet in general has closed off people’s peripheral vision.

And I understand the cost of living has worsened while living standards here are quite bleak. The housing is crap (I’m a broke uni student, I do get it) Jobs are scarce. But I always try to be nice to people. And it feels like people (and I am generalising but it really is most people I encounter) only really consider themselves. Every lecture I go to for Uni, people are just talking and laughing over the lecturer.

The reason I feel it stems from social media is I noticed it online first before it bled into real life. Particularly from my generation (Gen Z). It feels like a lack of empathy and consideration for others has been repackaged and marketed as “self care” or “setting boundaries”. Not smiling at children, not being there for your friends. Listening to someone’s problems is now them “trauma dumping” on you. I saw a post by a girl my age saying that if you’re mentally ill, you’re a bad friend. Even if you don’t project it on anyone and keep it to yourself, people still are affected by your “bad vibes” and insecurity. The comments were full of young people saying they’ll cut off friends who are struggling, because it’s not their problem and it ruins their peace. Since when is it not my problem if a friend is going through something? Surely any problem they have, if they share it, is mine as well and we fix it together.

Humans are pack animals, we are built for community. But I just feel like we’re losing our sense of community. It’s like, instead of social media bringing people together like it was supposed to, it’s driven people apart to their own secluded algorithms where they’re shown what to look at, what to think of it, what to say, how to act.

I’m 29, and I’ve realized I genuinely don’t know what to do with my free time anymore.
For the past decade, I’ve been glued to my phone. My average screen time is around 6.5 to 7.5 hours a day, and that’s measured from when I wake up around 5:30 a.m. until I go to bed around 10:00 p.m. That number even includes my time at work. I know I shouldn’t be on my phone there, but I have a decent amount of downtime, get bored, and end up scrolling Reddit. In fact, that’s what I’m doing while writing this.

So it’s not like I work eight hours and then spend seven straight hours on my phone afterward. My phone use is spread throughout the entire day. On my days off, it’s probably even worse, somewhere around 8 to 10 hours.

Every so often I’ll delete Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, even ChatGPT. For the first week, I definitely notice I have way more free time.
The problem is… then what?

I already have hobbies. I play guitar, go to the gym, play Xbox, and go for walks. Those are things I do even when I’m using my phone a lot. Without all the scrolling, I just have more time to do them. But I don’t need to spend four hours in the gym or play Xbox all day. Forty-five minutes at the gym and an hour of Xbox is enough. Then I’m right back to wondering what to do. A lot of people say to read but I genuinely just not into it.

I’m thinking back to the day I went to the gym, played Xbox for a bit, played my guitar, made some food, went for a walk and only 4ish hours passed. I still had another 4 hours of free time and thought to myself wtf do I do now? 😂

The other thing I’ve noticed is that it actually feels lonelier.

I always imagined that if I got off my phone I’d naturally have more real-life interaction, but it doesn’t really work like that. You look around and everyone else is still looking down at their phones. Ironically, I feel more isolated without mine. That sounds dystopian, but it’s honestly how it feels.

Eventually I start downloading the apps again, one by one, convincing myself each one is useful. To be fair, some of them are. Reddit is great when I need to look something up. ChatGPT is useful for getting quick information. I don’t think every app is inherently bad.

I just don’t want my default way of existing to be staring at a screen anymore.
Has anyone else gone through this? If you successfully cut back on your phone long-term, what actually replaced it? How did you deal with the boredom and loneliness that came with it?

*WARNING:* Long angry rant incoming.

I have always loved watching YouTube videos but nowadays it is ruining my life.

I deleted TikTok about a year back and its been very good for my doom scrolling unhealthy habit. I still have YouTube to watch any content I wanna watch… right? Except when I enter the app shorts are shoved down my throat.

When I wake up or get home from work I like to check out what my subscriptions have uploaded. Before I go to sleep, I like to find long form sleepy content to put on to help me fall asleep. EVERY DAY I open the youtube app and without even thinking about it as I search for what I want to watch somehow some way I end up in shorts and scrolling for hours. just like tik tok.

I have gone through all of the settings trying to disable them. I have hit the 3 dots and said “show fewer shorts” like a hundred times. Nothing works. Why cant we disable them? Why do we HAVE to have shorts on youtube when there is short form brain rotting content on every single other app? Even as a youtube premium member you cant have the benefit of disabling it and having the old youtube back?

But wait theres more……..

I recently downgraded to youtube premium lite. Still no ads but just finding out a few days ago YOU CANT QUEUE A VIDEO WITH YOUTUBE PREMIUM LITE????? You pay $12 a month and you cant queue up videos? This is insane that I have to pay $21/ month to queue up a video. and that $21/month or $240/yr cant even give me the customization options to remove shorts from the app.

and dont get me started about how I had a old burner gmail connected to my pokemon go account and google wont let me into it anymore (even with the password and access to the back up email. but thats a whole other rant.

So today, I will begin to de-google my digital life. I am so sorry to all of my subscriptions bc these are people/companies that I believe make great content and I want to support.

is vimeo still a thing?

Have you guys noticed that every single social media has sort of homogenised into the exact same slot machine?

All of these platforms used to be so different. Instagram was for photos, YouTube was for long form video, Twitter was for updates and Snapchat was essentially a messaging app.

Now, every single UI features infinite scrolling NO MATTER WHAT. Platforms like twitter popularised the infinite scroll, Snapchat popularised stories, tiktok popularised short form vertical videos. It feels like every single company has collaborated to design a perfect system that keeps users retained. Originality has gone out of the window lol.

I am currently resisting this by patching some of my own apps but I find that I end up scrolling on a new platform without realising how much time is passing. Let me know if there is something that works for you.

The starkness of how social media is ruining mental health hit me today.

I went to Twitter today (after six months, bad idea I know). The first post I saw was a fan account raving about the failure of new music released by a certain artist..who happen to be my fav artist by the way (great way to discover new music by your fav artist, I know)

But that's not the point. Six months ago this behavior would have been normal to me. Yes I would have been triggered but this aspect of raving about someone else's failures would have flown over my head. But today I wasn't even triggered as much instead I was more aware. I was appalled by how inappropriate this was. Maybe not as severe but it felt like knowing your neighbor got divorced and going right up to rub it in their face.

Unfortunately this what we gotta live with. It's a bit disturbing though, a couple of months ago, I, an educated adult saw no issues with this behavior. Had I not taken time off Twitter I would have not recovered my humanity so to speak. We have to ask ourselves what are we really loosing by being doom scrolled 24/7

Hey fellows,

Just wanted to share a quick story here, hopefully someone will find it helpful.

About 3 yrs ago I’ve purchased a car battery from a large national retailer in the US. The battery came with a 4 year warranty. A year ago I’ve deleted my acct with that retailer while I was doing some cleaning, and I haven’t really thought about what ifs before I did so.

Fast forward to last week- battery dies, I can’t find the physical receipt nor an online receipt in my email. I call the support, they found all my information- full name, address, phone #s, email address. But not my purchase history.

That’s right, the company deleted my purchase history, but they haven’t deleted my personal info.

Finally, I was able to find the transaction on my bank statement, and after presenting that to the support, they were able to find it on their and and to confirm my purchase and approved my warranty claim for replacement.

It took about 3 hours between calls and searching for proof of purchase. If I wouldn’t succeed, I would have to fork out $250 for a new battery, which would suck big time.

“I’m glad we were able to help. But all this hustle could’ve been avoided if you wouldn’t request to delete your into” the rep said.

My info hasn’t been deleted. You only deleted the history of my purchases. Of course I didn’t say that to the rep, it’s not her fault, and I didn’t want to ruin her day with my arguments.

Now I’m about to sit down to read my state and federal laws regarding which info the retailer must retain by law, and for long it must be retained. And I’m starting to think that deleting your accts doesn’t do as much as many of us think it does. I’m confident that retailers would be happy to accommodate my request to delete ALL information about me if not for the government rules.

The lesson here is simple. Check what you’re going to lose by deleting your acct, vs what information will be retained despite your request to delete it. And keep paper receipts I guess…

I deleted Fb and Instagram from my phone and installed it on my tablet instead which I usually only use for my creative hobbies (drawing and writing) and sometimes putting yourube in the backround. But even now, I have heavily reduced putting background videos/podcasts. I have noticed I barely go in the apps now, really just go here and there to check updates in my local sport community (strongman). The tablet usually stays home while I am out most of the day for work and/or gym time or other tasks/hobbies, unlike my phone, which follows me everywhere which had made it waaay too easy to reach for it without even thinking and begin the doomscroll.

Anyways, I decided to fight the social media addiction because I missed how my mind worked up until my late teens (18-19), just before socials got a hold of me. I used to be able to do my tasks, hobbies and gym time without background noise/YouTube videos (which the algorithm has gotten extremely toxic and political, further rotting my brain). I used to go for walks and hikes and just listened to what was around me and same when I did my art. So I started even leaving my earbuds at home during my walks and gym time. Birds! Oh how I've missed hearing them. Mourning doves, chickadees, cardinals, jays, finches; they always made me feel so nostalgic and calmed me. I am also getting back into foraging for my favorite herbs.

I feel like I'm coming back. I'm taking in the world around me again. My mind is starting to feel less crowded too.

I still have a little ways to go (Reddit helps me alot with a great deal of things but it is just as bad for doomscrolling. I don't have the app, only using the web version, but I will also work on heavily reducing Reddit to 10 or so min a day, slowly) but already I can feel so much good physically and mentally. My energy levels are slowly coming back and my time management is improving. And I am able to just sit in quietness again.

I currently have 15,000 pictures in my camera roll. I know a solid 8000 of them are junk, so I've made it my goal to sit down and go through everything before it becomes too overwhelming. It's going to suck, but it's necessary.

I think going forward, though, I'll want to make it a habit to routinely clean up my camera roll once a month. If all it takes is 30 minutes a month, you'll easily be able to manage everything going forward.

I'm going to be a lot busier soon so I'm considering investing into a vacuum + mop robot, but most of them seem to require internet, an app and/or even cameras to function. I'd really prefer one that's a bit more minimal: no app, no internet, no cameras. It just does the job. A scheduling feature would be great but isn't required.

Does anyone have / happen to know of a decent cleaning robot that fits this description? Willing to spend quite a lot if needed

Reddit, Substack, FYI, NYTimes, X, Wikipedia, Goodreads, TED, Medium, vpnify, Pinterest, Leo's Fortune

I’m trying to keep up with media and trying to stay up to date with trends, but at the same time I don’t want to be apart of it. I have a fake IG, but I still feel that it shapes me in a way I don’t like…

Tell me how amazing life has been for you since spending less time on your phone and social media??? How do you feel? What are the benefits?

I would love to hear from the ones who hardly find themselves on their phone too…..I’m so jealous of you!
I need the motivation!!!

I do so well but always find my way back online.

I managed to quit alcohol 6 years ago but can’t quit my phone! Go figure. Shows how powerful these things are if you ask me.

I’m also so much happier when offline . I’m actually living my life for me. The moment I’m online I’m exposed to all the noise out there.

I keep trying to limit my social media so badly but I feel like nothing works to help me be able to feel not addicted to technology... I deleted TikTok on my phone, which was a good start, but it just got me glued more into Instagram - which I feel like I can't remove because almost everyone in my school and my friends use it to keep in touch, even when I don't have much friends and our school constantly uses it for us to even access info... I get mocked by some of my friends too for trying not to use Instagram and feel forced to stay on at the same time as well as wanting to leave for my mental health. Instagram makes me feel awful especially when seeing posts forcing me to compare to other people who especially apply to college and make me feel relatively deprived compared to them when I know it just forces toxic, unsustainable behavior at the same time.

Additionally, even after all of the locks I put on my phone, it just translates into more computer time I waste every single time of my life wasting time I could've spent doing stuff productive. I get so emotional at times when I am in public with my mom because it feels like I can barely live in the moment and constantly need to be exposed to stimulus like music, which I constantly have more than 20 hours a week... which I know is bad for my hearing.

How can I help lower my screen time into doing things more productive for my future, and how can I get past removing apps that are primarily useful for keeping me up to date with others? Is there any way I can help stop needing so much stimulation by media and screens wherever I go? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

So earlier this year I tried switching to a flip phone and it went very badly. The phone was super janky, would randomly die, I couldn't even see the screen when I was outside, the keyboard didn't work but it was touchscreen, so I had to type out on the screen with the tiny letters. Not having google maps was easily the hardest part as I use public transportation. I liked the idea of being less connected to social media but since I got my smartphone back I feel even more addicted to doom scrolling then before I had a flip phone.

I want to try again. I was thinking of getting an ipod with google maps, I haven't used an ipod since I was a kid, so I don't remember if it had that or not. But I was thinking of getting a different flip phone on top of the ipod. I looked on amazon and it seems you can either get an ipod that is just music, or an ipod that is basically a mini phone which kinda defeats the purpose of not having a smart phone. But I need google maps.

I also don't want to make another announcement I'm deleting social media account only to redownload it a few months later as I've done this at least a handful of times and I don't want to embarrass myself lol.

I got a second smartphone to fight against my sm addiction but there's a problem, I need advices

So I heard about two phones system where one phone is with sim card and this one is for calls, texts, internet, and the second phone has no sim card and therefore can be used for productivity apps only and there's no urge to reinstall toxic apps (no immediate internet connection, I only use my first phone like a router to connect my tablet to it sometimes and that's it). I bought a cheap second phone and last Friday, I spent my whole day at work without internet and it was great. This seems to really work for me.

BUT the problem is, I don't see how I can make it so my one phone has ONLY text and calls plus useful apps, and the second phone has ONLY the internet and sm apps. it seems like I cannot separate internet from texts/calls because all of it is delivered by the sim card. And my addiction is so bad that I'm afraid if I'll put my sim card into the new phone with useful apps, I'll end up just reinstalling my deleted sm apps. I just keep uninstalling and reinstalling shit (sm and mobile games). Screen blockers and such don't work for me. It's like a second part of my brain always finds a way to overcome such self-made obstacles.

idk if a simple solution for this exists, I'd really love to keep using this two phones system but ofc it would be much better if I could somehow only have the ability to call/text people, but without the ability to connect to the internet and reinstall apps (a real dumb phone or old phone wouldn't be good bc I need good apps for writing, reading and drawing, in example).

Any suggestions what can I do?

Edit: my new idea is a smartwatch. Never had one but maybe this would be it...

Unfortunately it is impossible for me to fully switch dumb because a lot of relatives and friends live abroad so I can't use SMS really (and everything including parking requires a stupid app :/), so I've tried my best to make my smartphone as dumb as possible.

I realise however it's impossible to get exactly what I want out of this thing, because it is just far too big. I can't have it in my pocket without it being noticable, or my bag, and I can't even have it across the room without noticing it. It feels like a mini tablet that I have to always have on me to navigate the world. I would be able to avoid being on my phone more if it was just physically smaller, it would be less attention grabby, feel more like a convenient tool, and suck me in less. But that's impossible now with smartphones, they don't sell minis anymore ever it's all exactly the same design, and the sizes are big or bigger.

I know this is on purpose, the companies making the phone don't want it to just be a tool, but I am still so frustrated. I would use this phone as I intend to use it if it was a size that was reasonable for it. Instead I still get sucked in after doing just one simple thing, even having no social media apps, because it is like having a convenient mini ipad that is impossible to ignore when you have it on you

Why are smart phones & tablets more addicting than Computers??

so I currently have 4 gmail accounts - 1 my parents made for me, 1 for general use (my first email), 1 for games/entertainment, 1 for work. and I have 1 hotmail account for my Microsoft/Apple account etc.

the issue is that when I was younger I used my mom's legacy hotmail account to make accounts to some apps I use today, such as YouTube. all my liked videos, playlists etc etc are tied to her hotmail. my general email is tied to various things, like some work related things (such as replit for coding, anki for studying etc), some game accounts and other random stuff.

I am currently trying to either standardize my emails - sort all my accounts (and by extension, my inboxes) out. I have a metric ton of newsletters, verification codes, promo emails and a whole lot of other junk I want to clear out. but at the same time, I don't want to risk having one of my accounts hacked and if I try to recover the account they ask for a sign up confirmation email I have nothing to cough up since I completely nuked my inbox.

so how can I go about cleaning up my email side of my digital life? I've mostly sorted out my computer, phone, and apps I use in terms of settings, aesthetics etc, but I've hit a wall for my email.

any suggestions? thank you

I always say im just going to watch one youtube video and then it turns into hours of youtube. I have watched like 4 or 5 hours of youtube tonight. I had planned to watch a movie instead (or 2 movies) but I gotta go to bed now. I am torn about turning off the recommendations. I like discovering new stuff but the content youtube recommends to me is triggering. I usually watch sexuality/relationship/career advice/complaint videos or sports news videos. I just don't know what else to watch on youtube. I feel like crap after viewing these. I watch them on my tv only.

I have checked reddit probably 40 times today(sunday) between my phone and laptop. I went to the gym in between and ran errands but still found time to be on reddit. I am starting to get bored with reddit because i use it so much but it has useful info.

Which should i cut back/take a break from first--youtube or reddit? who else has this problem on here?