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I managed it to delete nearly all of my social media except Youtube - and that´s the problem. Some weeks ago I had such a good routine like 30 minutes a day I can watch Netflix or Youtube videos, 40 minutes to spend time on the laptop besides that doing anything that doesn´t require a display.
It´s so hard to keep on right now. Maybe it´s the cold and grey weather, the tasks I have to do I don´t know. Right now I have way too much freetime but the thing is I can´t change it right now. It´ll get better in summer but until that I have to keep myself busy.
So many opportunities but my brain still craves this fast dopamine kick. I do house chores everyday. My appartment is clean. But it´s done way too fast xdd
My birthday is coming up in two weeks and I asked for a 1000 pieces puzzle and a coloring book. My plan is to search for a jar, write activities on paper and put it in. So everyday I can pull out one piece of paper with an activity or hobby I will do for the whole day. Like reading, painting, puzzling, anything. I hope this will help a bit because I need a plan. Maybe I have to give myself a plan I will follow.
The last days it was a mix of both. Lot of Youtube AND crafting gift boxes.
Do you have any tips?
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Unknown Pseudoartist
Congrats for how far you went with the digital detox! Even if maybe not as far as intended, that's already a lot, and unfortunately not a common thing to do nowadays, so that's real cool. :)
As of tips... it's not for everyone because it might be a bit too radical, but what works best for me is to simply have no access to internet in a phone or tablet, but just a desktop computer (a laptop is okay too tho). That, and also using different devices for different purposes(ie: a computer for computer and internet stuff, a portable audio player with earphones to listen to music, a digital camera to take photos, etc), instead of a single device for everything as usual. This way you lose the convenience but also the temptation to stay online 24/7 and so that constant crave for dopamine is not such a big and constant thing. Very much the 2000s way, which is funny considering the nature of this site haha.
Even though I have a Youtube channel I rarely use it actively, but instead I use yt-dlp (a command-line based application) to download the audio from videos I'm interested and I later listen with earphones with the portable audio device (we call it as "the mp3" here but not sure if that applies worldwide), usually while doing chores or anything else. So this way I'm not that hooked to the screen. After all, more often than not the stuff I'm interested in from Youtube is only the audio.
Anyways, you did a more than good work with this digital detox already, and I applaude that! :)
Thank you so much! It´s good to know I´m not alone with that!
Might be radical but the most effective! It takes away the convenience our phone or tablet gives us but in the long-term it helps us to get back to the real world instead of escaping into the virtual world. So I think your tips are pretty useful!
Right now I´m watching my Youtube stuff on TV. I think I should go back to watch it on the Laptop as you do. I mean that´s what I did a lot of years ago when I still had my fliphone.
That´s such a good way to deal with it! Instead of scrolling, you search for something interesting, download it and listen to it while doing house chores!
Thank you so much I really appreciate your comment!
by Alex; ; Report
Hey, I'm glad to hear that! I'm used to everyone telling me I'm too radical and crazy with that haha. Either that or the usual cliche of asking me to just to move to the mountains to live alone there with no technology at all. But I think an average term and a healthy usage is possible, and technology can be awesome just as it can be extremely toxic.
TV is okay if you can simply plug a pendrive or something to put your stuff downloaded from computer, so this way it's very much like the old days with VHS tapes or DVD discs. I think the problem is more with Youtube's official interface and "apps", which is literally designed to be addictive and trap the users to spend as most time as possible. So even if you want to be selective, avoid clickbait stuff, etc it's just not that easy when you have all the stuff reachable in 1 or 2 clicks, and then more and more recommendations, links and whatever popping all the time (or next video starting automatically when you finished watching one, which can be the worst).
So the point is to be more in control of what you decide to watch, listen, read, etc and not to be guided by algorithms, interfaces or whatever, as well as being more selective. Downloads, even when considered "piracy", worked pretty well on this regard in the 2000s and early 2010s. This way you are not that doomed to scroll and click all the time, but also you valuate and pay more attention to the stuff you decided you'd check later. That frantic paced lifestyle we are used to nowadays, both online and offline, is just not mentally healthy at all.
But hey, with today internet connections we can download pretty much anything, from music albums to movies (and Youtube videos and more) real fast. So combining that with watching/listening online can be quite convenient in a healthy way. In the case for music and podcasts I personally love how that also helps to make chores more fun, and you are not wasting time since it's a time you wouldn't use in anything else otherwise.
Anyways, I'm glad to see you liked my radical tips haha, and good luck with that! :)
by Unknown Pseudoartist; ; Report
No, I really admire your way of thinking! There are a lot of people out there who complain about things they want to change but never do something against it. And you do it!
I agree! The middle is the way to go! Might be weird but I´m so thankful for the invention of ChatGPT. I don´t know how much hours I struggled in the past with writing important e-mails or doing phone calls and it makes my life a lot easier since I´m extremely introverted.
Unfortunately I have a smart TV so I can watch literally everything on it and as it seems I can´t delete apps like Youtube.
Oh, I already have solution for that! You can download several add blockers on your browser. With that, you can turn off literally everything. Recommended videos, shorts, auto-play, ads. It´s amazing! You can also deactivate your search history so you have to specifically type down youtuber or videos you´re searching for instead of getting stuck in the algorythm loop.
Yes, exactly! I also think we´re no meant to have so much stimuli around us. It´s constantly overwhelming for our brain to process. I saw a youtube video of a girl who took 15 minutes a day to look for videos that look interesting. Then she writes the titles down and watches all of the videos from the list before she continues to look for new one´s. I think that´s a pretty good way to deal with doom-scrolling.
The internet is a love and hate relationship. There are good but also bad sides. We have to focus on the good one´s. What kind of podcasts do you listen to if you don´t mind me asking? :)
by Alex; ; Report
Hi again! I just added you "as friends" now because this conversation sounds like it might go for long, and when it goes this way maybe public comments in a blog post aren't the most comfy for that, especially since the interface isn't designed with long comments and threads in mind (can't even see the comment I'm replying to while writing my own comment! unless I alternate between tabs of course).
I hope you don't mind. I hesitated to add you before because your warning about "don't add me if you don't wanna text", since honestly I'm not often into the mood for real-time conversations (more of a long, letter-type mails actually), but at this point I wouldn't mind.
Anyways, I hope you are having a bit more of progress with this digital detox plans these days. I totally agree with all this tech and internet stuff having two sides.
I don't agree with AI and ChatGPT being a good thing, tho lol. In fact I think this is one of the bad things of today internet, actually. Everyone talks about some of its common issues like art theft, jobs loss, etc but there is so much more than that... including serious environmental problems and a potential loss for creativity and cogtitive abilities in the long term.
So, well, not gonna blame you for relying on that as a tool to deal with introvertness, especially if that's in a job scenario (since job can be such a tedious, repetitive mess and waste of time so often anyways...), but hopefully you can find alternatives to deal with that eventually. I'm introvert as heck too, as well as dealing with social anxiety and that's oftentimes a problem to stay in contact with people, so I totally understand that.
Honestly I have no idea about how far TVs are going with "smart" features nowadays, since I was never too much into TV (I think I only watched anime and occassionally family stuff at home long ago) and the latest TV I used had only very primitive computer-type tools, so it was more of a device to just watch ordinary TV channels, maybe plug a pendrive to watch episodes copied from the computer, etc and that was a comfy middle term. I assume nowadays it's more like a big tablet, and that sucks. In general to buy new devices that are meant for a specific use seems to be harder and harder as time comes, and that makes me more cautious about my still old devices potentially breaking, since it's not that easy to find a proper replacement :(
As of Youtube's official interface, yeah, I know of plenty of browser addons to mitigate many of its issues, but I don't use Youtube often anyways, and when I do I either use Invidio.us as an alternative interface or yt-dlp to download the video/audio as commented before. So fortunately I don't have to suffer its overbloated interface often anyways.
Regarding podcasts... what's your native language? My understanding for spoken english isn't in pair with my level to write and read english, so unfortunately I'm limited to only podcasts and spoken stuff in either spanish or catalan, so not sure about recomendations. But in recent months I'm listening a lot to a spanish one named "Todo Mal", which is basically 2 folks talking about all kind of diverse subjects but always with something interesting to say, no specific themed at all.
by Unknown Pseudoartist; ; Report
elliot <3
I know the feeling, I'm also in the middle of a digital detox and somedays its hard! And i find myself feeling like an addict on detox which i guess i technically am. Used to have screentime on my phone at like 10 hours a day and opened instagram like a 100 times a day out of pure instinct. But to combat this social media addiction i'm doing a "watch a movie a day". And it's a super fun way to try and also better my attention span while also watching a bunch of good movies! :D
We can do it I believe in us! :D
I feel that sooo much I´m glad I deleted instagram last year. Still addicted to screens but it´s getting a bit better I think?
Oh I love that idea! I find it very difficult to do something without a screen because they´re literally everywhere. I mean there are plenty of activities to do but I couldn´t resist watching TV or something else. I´ll keep your movie a day idea in mind!
by Alex; ; Report
Lily
Exercise and nature I have found fill the time well when puzzles and and music doesn't. Good luck on the puzzle!!
Thanks for the tip! I already go for walks and do exercise. It´s just I can´t spend the whole day with it. Maybe one hour or something.
Now the doomscrolling shifted to playing Animal Crossing now that the update was released last week xddd
by Alex; ; Report
Hey that's alright!! Nothing wrong with a good gaming console. I consider those more productive than doom scrolling any day <3
by Lily; ; Report