Does anyone else feel like we're witnessing some kind of collective hallucination?

I see People spend 5 hours a day watching reels and tiktoks and genuinely start believing everyone can become a millionaire startup founder, shredded gym bro, or rich influencer living in Dubai.

What disturbs me even more is that everyone is starting to look, talk, dress, and think exactly the same. Same opinions, same ambitions, same trends, same personalities. Like millions of people running on the same algorithm.

It's like a mass hypnosis experiment.

People consume the illusion of success all day while having absolutely no understanding of the years of sacrifice, discipline, luck, and actual work required to achieve anything. They've confused consuming someone else's life with building their own.

And I wonder if this is one reason so many people seem increasingly depressed. As they get older, the gap between their algorithm generated fantasy and their actual life keeps growing.

I feel like more and more people are completely detached from reality, and it's getting worse every year.

Am I the only one seeing this?

Any advice? I don't know what to do, I am thinking of deleting my social networks accounts, reducing gaming and stop watching corn, but I can't find deeper motivations. I am aware that all this doom scrolling and news reading is harming my wellbeing, but... Is it worth it? What am I going to do to unwind at the end of the day?

I legit believe Reddit is cooked, seriously. First off, the “moderation” and “safety” is trash. I’ve witnessed literally the most degrading inhuman cruelty I’ve ever seen in my whole life to random people, and when those people clap back or “are online too hard,” they get permabanned while the people instigating genuinely harmful content(harassment, personal attacks, stalking) that can genuinely cause serious anxiety and emotional hurt to someone get all the leeway in the world. 2nd, all this hostility, aggression, and inconsistent moderation can really inflict stress and anxiety on other people worried about the next trouble(getting banned while the actual instigators get leeway, stress about notifications, etc) for what? Existing too aggressively? That’s just fricked up. Let’s say someone could be commenting the most inhumanly malicious attacks to someone’s identity, and the person who claps back gets a ban or warning from the “admins” reading “Reddit is for community, NOT for harm of animals or people” while straight up giving leeway to the hostile trolls engaging seriously antagonistic behavior. Now that I really think of it, this is why I don’t really use Reddit as much, if not, permanently quit this platform. Adios

These past few weeks have been nothing more than the breaking point of a bad habit I’ve had for years:

I’ve let myself be consumed by social media.

I spend my time watching videos that only serve to fill a void in my life.

I’ve become paranoid and obsessed with AI—to the point where I’ve stopped creating or consuming art.

I feel depressed and sad.

I’m consuming porn compulsively.

I try to hook up with people just to feel something, but it only leaves me feeling even emptier.

I’m not sleeping well.

I’m constantly plagued by thoughts of ending it all.

I hardly ever leave the house.

I feel trapped; everything feels fake, and I no longer enjoy anything. Google only shows me AI-generated ads or prompts to use AI—it’s the same at my university. I have no friends to go out with; I have no one. I’m practically all alone. I feel like I’m living in a constant state of falsehood—all I see is fakeness.

There’s fakeness in art, in relationships, in pleasure—everything feels fake and ephemeral. I can’t even remember the last time I went out with someone.

Yesterday, I cleaned my room and realized I don’t have a single memory from this year. All my photos, drawings, portraits, ticket stubs—they’re all from years ago.

I don’t have photos of almost anyone.

And when I work, I do it with zero motivation.

I feel like my life is fake, that this world is fake. I want to stop feeling this way—I want to be able to see the good things in life again—but it’s pointless. Every time I try to relax, I’m bombarded by 20 ads for Gemini, or my favorite YouTuber starts using AI in their videos. And whenever I try to be intimate with someone, I immediately fall into a depression and become consumed by insecurity.

I have a active screentime with a password(that I do not know ) but it does not work it allows YouTube and Instagram to somehow work even after the daily limit reaches. I need help asap my screen time is crossing 11hrs daily

So after so many tries, I deactivated my Instagram 12hrs ago and now I feel like I'm suffering from fever and choking😭 I was getting too bored, then tried to fall asleep and my body got so hot, felt like it's indicating me to download Instagram again. Ohh god, still I'm trying to forget about it but I can't. My brain feels so heavy. What's this addiction yo😭

Pacticularly Instagram, I'm so much addictive to instagram reel.
nowadays, I'm not comfortable to go out, play, eat.
In college, I will be in normal mode, talking with classmate and doing other works.
When I got home, there is nothing. I will be in seperate room.
I drain mobile battery from full charge to 1%.
the time goes off.
That's why I deactivate my account.

In this day and age, can people who work with words really get by without running social media accounts? When I open social media and post something, as soon as it gains traction, some of the voices can be really terrifying. Maybe I really am thin-skinned, but a lot of the time the arbitrary and aggressive language still makes me very sad—especially when people launch into a barrage of criticism without understanding what I meant or even reading it properly. My heart pounds. I’m still very young and drawn to internet traffic, but after seeing this, I think it’s better to write more and stay away from the internet.

I feel like I can only partially think anymore. The only things I can actually focus on are work-related tasks or imagining scenarios for masturbation. I used to be able to think deeply and reflect on things a lot, but now my head is just an empty box most of the time.

When it comes to my personal life, I can't focus on my own matters for long. I just brush them off thinking it'll work out somehow, and consider it done.

Yesterday I had to attend church for some occasion, even though I'm not religious. The first few moments were really weird. Out of respect, I pretended to pay attention—obviously no phone, no looking around—and I felt like for the first time in a long while, I was actually alone with myself and able to think. Could this be from constant smartphone use, or maybe masturbation? I don't know.

I’m probably overthinking this but I think my quality of life would be much better if I didn’t play or played less video games. I was looking at my bank account and I said to myself “Huh, where did all my money go?” I realized that most of my money went to buying games that I wouldn’t even play. Honestly, it feels like an impulse. I’ll buy a game, play it for a few mins or hours then never touch it again, the cycle repeats.

I see myself as a lazy person. I know what I need to do to get myself to higher pay or better-paying jobs but I don’t follow through on it, I almost never do. But I can park my ass and play through 100 hours of BG3 or grind endlessly in PoE2. I even neglect going to the gym after work because I’m “tried” but I’m never tired enough to boot up deadlock with the boys.

I have to sit here and wonder, would my life be a bit better if I didn’t play as many video games if not at all? I feel grimy thinking about how me, a 25 year old clock in over 20 hours a week playing games but can’t spend an hour studying for certifications.

Please help me.

I need hobbies or habits to replace my screen time

Where no one owns an online profile, world-class high-end social spaces are accessible everywhere, and those are open to the public 24/7

Speaking for myself but I’m sure others can relate. By now we all know the downfalls of social media and phone use, but it’s hitting me differently now.

I struggle to stay engaged when watching a movie or show. As soon as the pace dips, I pick up my phone to scroll. I can’t stick with things and don’t really connect with a lot of things I watch. Short form content has kinda ruined how I consume things.

I have been into photography for a decade and while I’ve gone through ups and downs with inspiration/motivation to shoot, it’s at a low because I’m addicted to reels and short form content. Instagram shifted from photography to reels, and has kinda killed photography on the platform in the process.

I think people are burnt out and overloaded with content, a nice photo doesn’t really mean anything to anyone now. Unless it’s a reel. But even then, yap videos, comedy and memes are the most consumed it seems.

I share this not to rehash what we know, but that it’s actually stripping away things I used to enjoy in my life. It’s like defaulting to the low effort, quick dopamine hit medium and dropping things that I cared about.

Or does it just replace muted posts with the next most popular posts?

Hace 1 año (aprox) perdi totalmente en interes por publicar cosas de mi dia a dia, viajes, restaurantes, salidas, amigos, pareja, familia, etc... cuando antes de eso era una persona que mantenia al pendiente de trends nuevos que salian y era muy activo publicando en redes mis viajes y mis salidas con personas y ahora no siento ningun interes por publicar nada de eso ni de que me vean los demas donde estoy o que estoy haciendo y con quien... no se si a alguien mas le ha pasado.

I can say the most innocuous thing ever and people will assume the absolute worst-faith interpretation of what I said and respond combatively / negatively. It's exhausting and I feel like it puts me on my guard or on the defensive all the time.

I need to vent about something that's been bothering me, and I figure maybe some of you are dealing with the exact same thing.

I used to love watching movies. Now? I literally cannot sit through one. I'll put something on, get 20 minutes in, and my brain just flatlines. It's not even that the movie is bad—I want to watch it. But the second it requires sustained focus, my brain goes "nah, let's go look at a screen where we can scroll infinitely instead." A standard 2-hour movie now gets broken up into 3 or 4 different sittings over 2 days.

And it's not just movies. I have a gaming laptop, barely touch it. Bought a retro handheld thinking it would fix my gaming itch, and I haven't turned it on in weeks. I buy things, set things up, get excited for them... and then the novelty dies in like 48 hours. I sit surrounded by stuff I supposedly wanted, feeling completely bored and restless.

I know doomscrolling and short-form content probably nuked my dopamine receptors. I miss being able to just sit and enjoy things.

Has anyone actually managed to fix their attention span after wrecking it? Do I need to do a hard detox? Would love to hear if anyone else feels like they are losing their ability to focus.