Think about how much of your life gets poured into a screen.

Scroll. Swipe. Refresh. Repeat.

You're bored? Scroll.

You're uncomfortable? Scroll.

You're lonely? Scroll.

You don't know what to do? Scroll.

Eventually, you don't even know how to sit with yourself anymore.

And I'm not saying "quit technology." That's not realistic, and it's not the point. You might need YouTube tomorrow to fix something. You might need Google to find an answer. Use technology as a tool.

Just stop using it as an escape.

You don't need another video.

You don't need another post.

Sometimes you need to sit there and be bored.

Let the boredom burn.

There is a fire within you that can transform discomfort, restlessness, and unused energy into something greater. But every time you immediately reach for another distraction, you smother that fire before it has a chance to work on you.

Because when you stop immediately satisfying every impulse to consume, something starts coming back.

Your attention.

Your curiosity.

Your patience.

Your creativity.

Your drive.

You realize you weren't lacking energy.

You were constantly throwing it away.

Take your attention back.

You might be shocked by what you can do with it.

Do you feel like because of social media/scrolling you’re kind of just incapable of engaging with anything written, especially complicated ideas, but still have like this urge to want to learn them?

Like i.e. you’d read something and even though it’s interesting you just can’t like keep going?

Idk maybe it’s just me but I’m just sick of AI slop everywhere, and all the constant bullshit we’re (gen z) into now and want to stop but can’t really.

Like i’d actually love a social media that actually gets you to think and has tools for that instead of only stories etc and attention farming.

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 another desk hobby can feel more engaging, but the replacement only works if putting everything away doesn’t take longer than the time you actually have. That makes resumability more important than whether the hobby sounds 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?

What should I do ?
Ik lame af

I always wanted to quit scrolling but I never found any alternative to keep me occupied even if I do I easily get bored but I think I saw one time a website that ask you to do something random and you got points based on the difficulty it was entertaining it was taken down later I think bc I never found it

The math isn’t quite as clear as the title suggests because YouTube and Reddit picked up some steam after I deleted TikTok but even with that I went from 15 hours of screen time a day to about 10.

A lot of that time is also “active” screen time where I have YouTube up but I’m cooking or cleaning.

I no longer do every task one handed and I’m back to playing with my kids more!

In total I have an entire full time jobs worth of hours back (42) where I’m simply not holding my phone.

I find that TV is now stupid and I don't want to watch it. But I find myself overwhelmed and its hard when tv and youtbe and stuff was used to take the edge of being overhwelmed off.

I do have hobbies. I go birding, read a bunch, diamond painting, coloring, regular painting, journaling, audiobooks, sewing and puzzles. I also play solo board games.

How did you adopt to being overwhelmed? What was your go to? When you wanted to relax and not do anything or to let go of stress and not feel ovewhelmed. I feel like all my hobbies take brain power and sometimes I just need to chill and not use my brain and I don't know how.

I also have chronic pain so sometimes I can't do anything and I just need to distracted in a mindless way. Which is what I use TV and internet for in the past. But now TV seems so stupid and there's nothing to watch.

people still toxic like 2019-2023 haha

like...

cancel culture

dramaslop

low effect content

Entertainment bait like extreme challenges, Doing something life-threatening like 2016

People these days still act like they're addicted to drama, like Mr be vs dogpack404 in 2024 lol

We are evolving technology, but still acting like stereotypes of social media in 2016 lol WTF

The era of black mirrors releasing movies is over now stop acting like that lol

Some of my longest streaks 80-90 days have been mediated by blocks but blocks seem to come with a consequence of binging whenever a slight opportunity presents itself (e.g new laptop, unrestricted WiFi network, increase in privacy, loss of structure). If I want to override or circumvent a block, I can always do so with sufficient effort but the blocks essentially work when I somehow convince myself that accessing porn is impossible and stop trying. Sometimes something changes and I lose this conviction and then I binge all the porn that I may have missed out on during my streak. There is a crazy amount of curiosity that keeps me binging without end and unfortunately there is a limitless amount of porn available so there is no limit to how long I can go. I’ve felt tempted to not put the blocks back on because the binging is really bad. Unfortunately, once I discover a loophole I don’t seem to be able to stop myself without reimposing the blocks. I’ll relapse 5+ times in a day and get completely fatigued. Unfortunately this fatigue compromises healthy habits (e.g. eating, sleeping, going outside) and leaves me vulnerable to relapsing even more. There’s a window after extreme fatigue following a binge where I have space/time to take action and put new blocks because I’m so fatigued I am immune to relapsing for a few hours. But if I don’t take action within that period, I can get complacent thinking “im good now” but the unblocked site festers as curiosity in my mind and it’s incredibly difficult to not scratch that itch once I have scratched it once. The issue is that my blocks have had to get stricter and stricter as time has progressed. Once I blocked the initial main porn sites, I managed to discover new loopholes with foreign language sites or social media sites. Then I had to block those too. Then I discovered more loopholes through audio porn on Spotify and I had to block it too. Then I discovered AI could produce erotica and I had to block AI too. My brain seems to be too curious for its own good. It feels like an arms race between the addict in me and the man who wants to recover. Ultimately I know that long term recovery requires building mental fortitude to have the awareness to see temptations and watch them subside (essentially urge surfing). However, some waves are too big for me too surf and blocking helps me limit the metaphorical wave size to a manageable amount. But ocean keeps brewing more and more storms and I don’t know if I can train my surfing ability fast enough to keep up. Additionally if I fail to surf an urge, my urge surfing ability becomes compromised and I become more vulnerable.

Does anyone have any thoughts on how to manage this?

I have a freakin bad habit, that I have to screenshot every single fking thing I see on the internet, even boring people that I don’t like on social media, from normal texts, funny videos, cute stuff, cool stuff I wanna buy, my friends’ posts, influencers’ posts, random videos, boring videos, whatever whatever, and next thing I realise is my phone’s storage is to the brim and it’s burning hot despite being a new phone I got months ago, I can’t even receive texts cuz of the full storage, so sometimes I have to delete screenshots little by little. 

IM TIRED OF THIS, I need something to stop me from taking useless screenshots and I need to be daring enough to delete them when I don’t need them, I’m too sentimental to these stuff, idk, I need to be done with it, I need to stop, but they still mean a lot to me cuz of FOMO I guess, it feels like a mental health condition lol, PLEASE HELP ME!!

I have been isolated irl for the past 7 years, and still no irl friends. Growing up, I never have any healthy friendships in real life, my peers mistreated me in ways that negatively affected me, which hurts me because all I wants is a genuine friend. So, I don't talk to people in real life much ever since. I then delves myself to solitary activities more such as playing videogames, watching YouTube videos, etc, which leads me to discover an online community.

In late 2017, I find out about a niche related to geography through a video. This intrigued me because I had never seen a video style like this before. Prior to this video, I have been watching videos about gaming or animation videos. So, when I saw this, it amazes me and got intrigued to geography further.

I then joined the community in 2019 and made my first friend through the internet. And I'm surprised how well they treated me, it's like a miracle. So I stayed there and 7 years has passed and I have old and new online friends now. Although, I still don't have any irl friends. So I tried making friends in high school, but it didn't worked. I'm in a month now in university, and still don't have friends. So, I begin to think that I may never have irl friends...

I feel very weird. I’m 27 and I’ve never done a social media detox (I’ve had social media since I was 15). I feel good in a sense but I also feel like I’m missing out and disconnected from the world?? To me, it feels similar to dieting. Like, I know it’s good for me, but it feels weird to change habits. Does this go away?? I’ve deleted everything besides Reddit (snap, IG, Facebook, TikTok). TikTok was making me extremely anxious about the state of the world and was influencing my negative outlook on life. I rarely used IG or snap, and Facebook was just to keep me updated on friends and family. Sorry for the word vomit, I kinda just threw all my thoughts out there haha.

I’m a freelancer, so I spend most of my time working and living at home.
A couple of years ago, I was always eager to go out, explore, and travel. But after visiting many beautiful places around the world, exploring most of the interesting spots in my own city, and having my close friends move away, I’ve gradually stopped wanting to leave the house.

Since becoming a freelancer, I’ve also had to be more careful with money, so traveling frequently isn’t really an option for me anymore.
I did try to make my life more interesting in other ways. At different points, I enthusiastically tried learning a new language, working out, and even learning the piano. But I never managed to stick with any of them for very long. After giving up on so many things, I feel like I’ve lost some confidence in myself, and I’m not even that interested in trying new hobbies anymore.

The problem is, I don’t actually want to become someone who just stays home all the time. I want to go out and enjoy life, but I genuinely feel like I’ve forgotten how to have fun. Whenever I leave the house, I often end up wondering what I’m supposed to do, where I’m supposed to go, or how people actually spend a fun day outside.

So I’m curious: what do you actually do for fun outside, especially on your own and without spending a lot of money? Where do you go? What kinds of activities do you do? How do you turn an ordinary afternoon or weekend into something you genuinely look forward to?
I feel like I need to relearn how to play and enjoy myself, so I’d love to hear very concrete examples of what people actually do.

I open one of my favorite games for 5 minutes and get bored and close it??? I used to play for 8 hours.

I used to be able to watch full movies now I can't even watch two episodes of a TV show.

Is this just cheap stimulation addiction? Or is it ADHD? I read you can't develop ADHD as an adult.

After one year on reddit it is time to go, not that i have used reddit much. I just personly think it is full of hive mind nutjobs. ie publicfreakout and norse reddits.

I mean, its all about habituation, but how many of you got this feeling? Years of keeping in internet, watching everything and after that, theres no things that can give me happy.

Eckhart Tolle helpped me with that a bit, feeling slowly better now, but its hard to feel something. In somehow i feeling like an old witcher without any emotions, hoping that i die soon and dont be bother any family of mine.

Thats stupid, internet is stupid, even if theres still something good. Looking for the good thing in internet is now like swimming in cesspool, if this is correct word.

Its stupid.

Sorry for the crashout, but I don't know where to post. This has to be the most miserable place in internet. I have yet to found an social media more toxic than reddit. People here are complete douchebags or worse, actual bad persons! There is not a single place I've been more bullied than this damn website. And what makes me more angry is because it is always for the most ordinary things ever.

I can't give an mere opinion without getting downvoted to the oblivion and harrassed in the coments. It is impossible to have an sane debate about almost everything here. This place is a bubble, where the same opinions gets glazed and the same kind of post gets the more upvotes. The fact that I had more sane debates over a disagreement in INSTAGRAM says much about this place. And I never had problems with mods, my beef is with the people who use Reddit daily.

Almost all subs I go act like they are part of a cult. Ironically, religious subs are more accepting of different opinions than, let's say, a superhero or any other pop culture fandom sub. And If you think that it is only american reddit that is like this, I can guarantee that the subreddits of my country are ten times worse!

Also, why are people here always angry? I'm always amazed at how the average Reddit user can call someone a "piece of shit" just for having a different opinion, and I'm not even talking about politics! I'm not even angry because I got bullied and all that, no. I'm angry because I see it happens with so much other people. Also I'm surprised on how much this website tolerates bullying/abuse and even promotes it. Yesterday, I saw a comment like this "[certain group of people] should be ashamed to exist", and there was someone who called him out. You may already presume who got downvoted into oblivion and who got upvoted, right? The virtue signalling here also piss me off, because It always come from that person you know would be insufferable to deal with in real life.

People here can be downvoted for simply asking a question! Like, what the hell, man? Sometimes I think it's not even because they don't like what you posted/commented, but only with the purpose of being mean. I'm glad this place is getting more hated outside of it.

Now I can't think in any sub that makes me want to stay in this hell. I wasn't using it much as I used, but it is interesting that my worst time in life I always would spent hours and hours on Reddit. I haven't leaved this place before because I couldn't find any place to discuss some things I like with people who have actual knownledge. You know what, It's not worth it.

Someone posted very mean and provocatice comments under a post about healthy plus size relationships. Honestly I've never seen more offensive comments on women's bodies than that.

Me and a few other users ended up in an argument with them, who communicated like an absolute psycho without manners. After way too much time, I checked their profile. Or should I say its? There where hundreds and thousands of comments like this, on all kinds of topics. Very repetitive and always a bit off, but always full of hate. I then realized that user was most probably one of those bots designed to outrage social media.

I'd heard about those but to spot one in the wild gives me an odd feeling and makes me want to leave the internet forever. I've just wasted my time talking to a computer, feeling hurt by things a computer said. And since reddit is so mean these days, they blended in perfectly.

I looked it up, and apparently 20% of reddit's comment section could possibly be bots. This is insane.

I cannot explain how disappointed i am in myself. i have a problem and i need help. it's very difficult when you live alone. it's very difficult when it always starts with 'i want something to watch while i eat'. it's very difficult when im stressed and want to unwind. I just am in a trance and cannot stop or get up or snap out of it. I hate this hell im putting myself through and I need help. I don't know how to get it. I'm not doing right by my health, or my work, or my studies, or my cat or myself. i dont know how to get this under control. and it's just so unbearably difficult to not watch anything when i feel like i need some form of entertainment or company or a voice to hear and people to see so that i don't feel like im going insane. but then it just gets out of hand, because i can't stop myself. i am very sad

i get days and weeks where im fine, and everything is under control, and suddenly i've wasted 2 days, 3 days, a week... i don't know how to help myself out of this vicious cycle i keep inserting myself in .

I’ve been off most mainstream social media for almost a year now (facebook, instagram, snapchat) and i can’t help thinking to myself how cringe and embarrassing it sounds when people around me talk about those platforms.

Example: “They were active and didn’t respond to me!”

Out loud i say “don’t sweat it” but internally I’m really thinking about how embarrassing it is that we've normalized tracking each other's online activity and letting arbitrary status indicators dictate our self worth and relationships. Stepping away has highlighted how toxic and unnatural that hyper-awareness actually is.

On top of that, the whole ritual of posting for validation is just as embarrassing. Watching people carefully stage photos, post performative updates and obsess over like counts or view counts looks genuinely humiliating once you step away from it.

So, I like to write.

Sometimes, I post my essays to Reddit (on different accounts.) Most of the time, people respond positively to my writing. But, one time, I posted an essay, and a small subset of commenters accused me of being a bot. They said the essay was far too generic and nonsensical to be written by a human. I responded that I was not a bot, and my small post history was visible for all to see. The commenters argued with me, saying that "that's just what a bot would say."

I abandoned the argument, feeling hurt. Was my writing truly generic enough to be confused with AI?

I thought about the students I taught in freshman composition. I tried to be openminded with all their essays, but, after reading AI-generated text (with fake sources) over and over again, I started to be suspicious of my students' writing instead of excited about it. The AI-text-checkers are inaccurate and discriminatory. There is no real way to know if a piece of writing is real or not. This realization gave me a sense of unreality.

I started to understand the commenters on my essay a bit more. At least I knew my students were real people!

In this era of unreality, I am going to spend less time online. Reddit's great in some ways, but it is also full of AI, bots, and antisocial behavior. The internet's done amazing things for me, but it's also ruined my life -- and AI is the nail in the coffin.