How detoxing fixed me (or some other corny title about detoxing) (detoxing help)

First of all. I was never really into tiktok, insta or twitter.
I doom scrolled on Youtube and Pinterest💀

Still i want to share what i have learned from reducing my phone time and not going onto youtube.

i generalize a lot, i'm sorry. this is just my experience. 

What I did to detox.

• Got a journal and forced myself to write one page a day
• Deleted Youtube of phone ages ago. (then i got addicted to YT on laptop)
• Installed a Feed blocker for youtube and made a new account where i'm subscribed to noone
• Deleted pinterest on phone (still use it on laptop for art references)
• Tbh getting a break from spacehey was also part of it😥
• I'm also not on spotify but I tried to listen to music more as a ritual

What I can tell you about it

• Your brain will definitely search for the dopamine but once I deleted youtube on my phone,
  i didn't miss it as much as i thought i would. 
• Phones work as a dr#g cause they are super comfortable as soon as you make it a little more uncomfortable, you will use it less automatically
• It was a long journey to where i am now and it really was a 2 steps forward 1 step back situation.
• you learn to know yourself better, self reflection and awareness of what you're doing is key
• It helped to go cold turkey but it still didn't happen all at once it that makes sense
• It's like you are walking down the dopamine stairs. falling and catching yourself once step at a time. You make your tolerance higher with every layer.
• The less you consume, the more the things you do consume gain in meaning.
• Don't give up on "detoxing" when you fall back into scrolling habits!! It is a marathon not a sprint. (this sounds like an actual dr%g post)
• You think deleting your doom platform of choice will give you murderous fomo? Can't deny that it will give you fomo. especially when you don't have a lot of irl friends or things to do but still i recommend trying.

The Positive effects

• My head is so much clearer
• I do more art and projects since I have nothing else to do
• I fill sketchbooks like my life depends on it
• I want to talk to people more
• I solve my problems better (also due to journaling, constant self reflection and the clearness)
• I could concentrate more on school (i still have burnout...)
• I FEEL LIKE AN ACTUAL HUMAN (to that more later)

Youtube

• Youtube was the worst thing cause it is so versatile, you don't just brainlessly scroll all the time, sometimes you also need to look up things. 
• After deleting youtube i never went back. There was literally no reason to. it was different on my laptop cause you can't really delete it, unless you really want to
• I did switch between binging on youtube and netflix/disney for a while before i really didn't need it anymore
• PUT A FEEDBLOCKER IN YOUR BROWSER, it makes you, even when you go on youtube more aware of what you are searching for. 
• I challenged myself to "not go on youtube for a week" or stuff like that a couple times. i always ended up being offline longer than i thought but i went back to binging videos every time.
  I think that that's alright and even now i woudn't feel bad about looking up a youtuber to watch a couple videos. I just don't really see why i need to activate my feed again

"I feel like an actual human"

I think one of the most important effects that all of this had on me is that I gained more
sense of self. When algorithms stopped dictating my life, I felt a little bit like I was neo waking up from the matrixx or jack frost seeing barbelith for the first time in the invisibles,
or when mike milligram woke up from the meds in killjoys california.
It may sound very cliché like but I think it still shoudn't be taken for granted.
You are not yourself when you can't decide who you are. And sometimes you don't even know that you are not deciding what you are watching.

This is why we need to get off our phones and laptops and that's why we need to start having our own adventures instead of watching people on instagram fake theirs.
The world is more boring than it used to be and that won't change unless we do something. Everything is so dull. THE COLOR OF THE YEAR IS WHITE FOR CHRISTS SAKE. 
So pretend like you are the coolest character in your 00s skating game of choice and paint the world with the colors that are you. Get out there and live before it's too late.

Links to helpful websites n stuff:

A video that really helped me

internet archives (this shit can replace every doom scrolling plattform)

get vlc player or winamp or something