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Hellow youtube, just kidding
MY EXPERIENCE:
I've been on a binge since school break about the idea of living an "analog life", which to me, is when you swap a digital part of your daily life for a more offline or physical one. A good example I have been practicing so far is journaling. I have this red notebook I found under the dusty tv table that I use to right my thoughts on.
What made me gradually shift into this kind of life is when I was watching Linh Truong on her video about "7 things to do instead of doom scrolling" and in the beginning, she calculated an approximate time of the hours spent on her phone into years. In total, she reached about around 5-7 years of spending time in her phone.
That scared me because when you're mindlessly scrolling online, you don't count the minutes. It moves by so fast that by the time your done watching, its already midday. I thought to myself always that I could do better, but I repeat it over and over. I've been in this cycle for so long, now I'm trying to limit it when I become an adult.
When Linh spent the average of 5-7, I might've spent a decade.
I'm sure that cutting myself off Tiktok is going to make me FOMO, but I'd rather have a passing thought than missing out on fully immersing myself in the things that I love.
It really is going to take a long time until I finally live an offline life, or at least a life that isn't a burden to me. It won't solve a lot of problems but it can make it better.
MY PHONE AS A TOOL:
So one of the ways I've made my phone as a tool is to tweak the use of social media, such as deleting what you don't need and consuming meaningfully. I tend to avoid tiktok and twitter, since not much comes out from those app as meaningful to me. However, I use tiktok with boundaries since there are good discussion I've come across there. I use instagram sparingly, mainly using it as a source for gathering participants for school research projects. Youtube is where I have to "consume meaningfully", since its an outlet for a lot of important discussions and tutorials, I only use it as that, I also disable the Youtube shorts feature.
I keep a media journal, where I research more into the topics I've came across online. I learned it from Olivia Unplugged who got the idea from @balakalavamochi. So instead of letting them be passing thoughts, you can record actual research and even jot down your thoughts on it.
I put on a focus feature in my phone, mimicking a dumbphone. This is where you only make your phone have the apps it really needs. Mine are Chrome, Messenger, Maps, Alarm, Youtube, and my contacts.
Sorry super corny ~~ but pretty important imo
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bloxation
How did u turn off yt shorts feature?
hii, in my experience, you cannot permanently remove the little icon of youtube shorts on the bottom of your phone in the app, I initially thought that was the way of fully removing it.
But i've learned two ways to remedy this:
But how I did it was that there was a part of the youtube display system where it was for shorts (where you can see the thumbnails), and in the three dots there, you can say "Not Interested". It will still appear if you restart the app though so it's not that helpful.
Another good way is to curate your algorithm by disabling your Youtube watch history in a way that it won't feed you videos that you're into. To me this is really helpful because even in the shorts they can still recommend you videos you're into and you might go into a scrolling spree. It also really helps if you're cutting down on phone time or social media.
I used this tutorial for the watch history: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosurf/comments/1killea/youtube_addiction_turn_off_and_wipe_your_watch/
by pandesal; ; Report
Jackie
the thing that ruined social media might have been the smartphone. for me, the internet used to be a place. i'd get on my laptop after school, sit in bed and scroll meme websites and tumblr, and it was good because there was a designated time and place for it. now, they want you to be on it 24/7. i got a real dumb phone and the only social media i have on my ipad is youtube, so now whenever i wanna post i have to sit at my desk and turn on my pc. and for the first time in 10+ years, posting is fun again and doesn't feel like it's melting my brain
i honestly think the best way of interacting on the internet is really the laptop/pc, physically tapping the keys when you want to search for something or want to reply to someone is a good way of exercising your brain to think of the best possible answer imo. I also think the big screen it has allows for pretty good reading, when you don't have to squint when using the phone. It's why research for me has always been a fun activity to do on the pc and writing little school essays.
by pandesal; ; Report
this is why, i imagine, opening AI on a computer must feel silly. i don't use any chatbots, but if i were the kind of person who does and it stared me in the face from the big screen i think i'd never use it again
by Jackie; ; Report