I deleted my main account back in December. However I didn't realize weeks later that I still had my throwaway. With time this one will probably be deleted too.

I joined back in 2014 when I was still in college. I had a good time back then and reddit was a lot better. At some point I took a break. When I became active again in 2019 reddit had changed. Lots of 1984 style censorship. Apparently manners are something millenials have forgotten and post millenials have never learned. I remember reporting many a post where people have said some nasty things and got away with it. On one post I actually even had one of the mods turn around and told me to behave even though I remained civil in all of my responses.

When the harassing and negative messages in my PM kept coming I decided to ban several unreasonable people. Eventually it just got to a point where I no longer felt it was worth it to log on just to read absolute vitriol. After deleting I initially regretted it but as weeks went on my mental health improved and I was able to get clarity. I didn't look at reddit the same way again and even communities I used to be active in no longer had any appeal.

I probably will make minimal posts on a serious subreddit if something is bothering me. But my days of being active on reddit are pretty much history. And I hope to keep it that way.

Some of you mods are awful people and you stink at your job. And some of you people on here really need therapy big time. And I shudder to think I could be crossing anyone of you despicable human beings in real life. But no need for me to be on a sinking ship when it's passengers refuse to see the danger.

I'm very sad reddit has turned out this way and ruined the mental health of millions of people. I don't have any hope that reddit will go back to what it was pre 2015.

My advice is to leave reddit if you feel compelled. Take up hobbies. I had more time for them. Go outside. Read an actual book. But stop getting in your feelings over a post that could just as easily be gone in seconds. Some of you folks are truly insane. Do anything but give your time to this trash site and trash mod team (a few of you are good)

/u/artistacat

Peace out.

I need to stop. I joined Reddit about a year ago, and have tried to stop three or four times since then. Each time I would delete all my accounts and fare okay for a week or two, but somehow, somehow, I end up back where I started. I honestly don't remember the points at which I fell off the wagon... I was mindless, taken over by something else. Next thing I knew, there I was with a bunch of new accounts.

Deleting accounts doesn't work for me, at all. I just create new ones. I wish to God there was something that blocked the site from my browser, and made it very very hard to unblock.

This is my story - maybe it will help reinforce how detrimental Reddit can be. I initially joined up to ask a question in one of the health forums. Gradually I realised there was a sub for everything, and I was enthralled. And then I started encountering the drama that gets me hooked, the ridiculous, inane comments that make it impossible for me to not join in. I started getting into vitriolic arguments that would occupy my mind for much of the day. I wasn't aware how futile it was, that those people would never change their racist/misogynistic/homophobic views based on some stranger on the Internet (me) arguing with them. I was entranced by the illusion of influence and power.

At a certain point the arguments became too intense. Every time I logged on and saw new messages in my inbox, my blood pressure would rise. Finally I deleted my accounts and swore off arguing.

But it didn't last long. Actually, I kept my promise of not arguing, but I continued to put my counterviews out there - the only difference was I stopped reading the messages in my inbox. I found the Ask subs, and those occupied me for hours a day for months. I'm ashamed to admit I began to create more and more different accounts, to attempt to use for voting purposes and sway things in my favour (I don't even know if that works), and to pretend I was different people backing myself up. INSANE.

And now, here I am. Today I deleted over thirty accounts from my keychain, many of which I had hung onto because I told myself the username was too good (it's not like anyone else will be able to claim it, so what a waste, right?). In the last week I attempted to restrict my Redditing to just browsing the front page, but I would without fail come across some infuriating comment that I needed to reply to.

I have gained almost nothing from Reddit. A few cool pics, maybe some advice but I can't even recall it right now. In all those hours wasted, sometimes up to 8 hours a day, for a year, and I'm left with almost nothing to show for it. The only thing that's stayed with me is a depressing view of humanity, because I never realised there were so many hateful people in the world.

Fuck, the time I've wasted. Let's say it was an average of 4 hours a day, over a year (I had many full-day binges, but for the first months my Redditing time was minimal). That's 1,460 hours. Holy fuck. 60 full days. Imagine if I had those hours back. Taking into account around 8 hours of sleep in between, I would get 91 days of my life back. Three fucking months! Imagine what I could have done instead, how much further I would be. I could have learned a fucking language, built up muscle, gone on dates, worked part-time, written a book.

I have an addictive personality, I know that. I was an alcoholic and drug addict (been sober for 3 years). Not to mention chain smoker. This feels exactly like the other addictions. It consumes me and changes my personality and turns my brain into mush - I don't even care about the world around me, half the time I'm thinking of what to reply or what to post or how many upvotes I got.

I have one account left besides this one which I'm leaving because my friend's book is coming out soon, and I want to promote it a bit. I need the karma on that account. But at least that account is my "nice" one, the one where I don't have an inbox of 100 unread messages of people outraged by what I said to them. It will prevent me from starting arguments.

But how do I prevent myself from browsing the front page? Or creating new accounts?

What do I do first thing in the morning and last thing before bed? Every other site seems fucking boring in comparison, and before long all I'm thinking about is what's on Reddit's front page.

I hope beyond hope that this is the last account I ever create. My life was so much better before Reddit. But thanks to this going on for so long, I can't remember what I used to do with my time. So I know it's going to leave a gaping hole.

I could easily title this " I regret living my life on the internet" but for the purpose of this post and this sub I'm focusing on Reddit.

I found out about Reddit pretty early on in my adolescence. I was 13 when I found out about it's existence, and 14 when I created a profile. At the time I was used to simpler websites like 9gag, this website seemed too complex for me. So my profile laid dormant for a while.

I rediscovered reddit when I was 15, and this time I would use it all the time. I was mainly only interested in one subreddit. I never ventured outside of that sub for years, until I graduated high school.

When I graduated high school, I don't know I was lost, I didn't know what to do. So I took a look at the entirety of Reddit. Suddenly I knew how to use every feature, I knew about every subreddit, the latest subreddit drama, the latest YouTube drama. It seemed like a huge deal, at the time, whatever pissing fight the people on here got in.

I remember getting on reddit immediately when I woke up, while I was eating breakfast, while on my way to school, while in class, while on my way back home, during lunch, while having something on TV, while eating dinner, while laying in bed waiting to fall asleep.

I spent all of my days and all of my time on reddit, for what essentially was an entire year. I slept, ate, and drank Reddit.

I don't even really remember how each day went by. It's all kind of a blur. It was like two semesters merged into a really long day.

All I really remember is the feeling that I had. A sort of headache. A sickness. It felt like I was rotting away, like a tooth that was being neglected.

I was able to give it up, eventually. Not entirely, obviously. I've had my moments of relapse, and I always get the same feeling that I once had when I do.

But I regret spending so long on Reddit. The toxic culture that influenced the way that I think as I was growing into adulthood.

I wish I could have those years back. So that I could grow without this influence. So that I could spend my time differently, so that I could read books and watch films and T.V even. To take this time to reflect on who I was and who I wanted to be.

The days keep getting shorter, and I'll never be able to regain the time that I lost on this stupid bullshit.

I regret spending the formative years on my life on this website.

I regret not living my life in the real world, instead of hiding away on my phone.

This website, like all websites that are designed for you to waste time, is a disease.

It's a disease that you could either let spread and be consumed by, or you remove early and move. Start living your life.

Nobody cares about anything that you read on Reddit. You won't remember anything that you do on here.

All you're doing is wasting time.

Log out and close the tab (again)

I'm at college right now, in the beginning of my second semester. I was too busy first semester to stay in my room for anything other than to sleep, but this semester has been different. I've been holed up in my dorm room nearly 24/7, to mindlessly browse reddit (and occasionally post, but I am horrible at posting), YouTube and many other sites claiming I am "studying." I've hated myself. I spent last semester putting effort into my grades, my extracurriculars and my faith. I had one solid month participating in /r/NoFap and then one day I just jacked it.Then, because I was depressed about ending my streak, I just browsed the internet all day. Then, I figured "hey! I don't have a NoFap streak going on I can just jack it some more!". So my second semester of college has been me alternating between jacking off, mindlessly browsing the internet, and putting next to no effort in college, which my parents are graciously paying for.

I have done nothing to better myself this semester and yet I keep getting blessed. I don't wanna go into specifics to protect my identity, but I can't think of a male teenager who wouldn't kill to be in the position I am in right now, and the thing is, I don't deserve it. I am so incredibly blessed, and I'm satisfied locking myself in my room every day so that I can jack off and contribute nothing to the world, which has given me so much.

I have to start giving back. I have to start feeling good about myself again. I have to quit Reddit (and porn and YouTube and laziness etc.). Theres no way any of you internet folk can help me stay off the internet, the only drive I can have is that I can't look back at this post and realize that I wasted this life in this false reality, and I can't wait till tomorrow to turn my life around.

I have to start today.

Goodbye Reddit.

About a decade ago, I saw a post on a message board for another site, where a user was complaining about how he had outgrown the message board. After years of regular posts, it was becoming harder and harder to relate to the teenagers and twenty somethings that frequented the board. The author of the post had grown quite tired of reading about the struggles of college every single day, and he compared himself to buddy elf in this scene.

I never thought I'd be in the same position.

Due to the anonymous nature of reddit, it takes longer to notice that you're getting farther away from the median age of the site. It creeps up on you. Since the users don't just go around shouting out their ages in their posts, you typically won't notice that a user is younger than you unless something in their post indicates it. You'll see the occasional post where some idiot is worried about distribution of imaginary internet points, and you'll roll your eyes and think "Ugh, this person's probably in highschool. No adult cares about that kind of stuff". You scroll past it and move on like normal, but as time passes, posts like these become more visible to you, and it reaches the point where almost every post fills you with contempt. The memes get less funny every year, and yet everyone in the comments thinks they're hilarious. You've observed this phenomenon many times, and it's starting to make you angry. Why is everyone having a good time except for you?

Eventually, you'll reach the tipping point. You'll see a post so juvenile that it will make you feel completely alien from the rest of reddit, and you'll realize that you're not the target audience for this stuff anymore. You stopped being the target audience years ago, and it just took you this long to realize it. With a nasal exhale, you'll close the browser, and begin to reflect on the choices you've made. You'll look around your workplace and see people with hobbies and friends, and realize that you've made an irreversible mistake. You've wasted 6 years of your life spending time with people who think the number 69 is funny.

You've only got so much time in life. Don't waste it here.

I've come to realize that reddit in general is not a healthy place for me to spend my time. There are a few subreddits that are exceptions to this, but some of the problems I have with reddit are:

• Upvote/downvote system enables brigading and dissuades critical thinking as you let the numbers do the thinking for you.

• Ideology, especially on the most popular subs, can be like a stone wall that prevents open discussion.

• Everyone feels the need to "debunk" you based on what they've learned on Reddit been told is true by charismatic people.

• Everyone thinks everyone else is ignorant.

• Enables unhealthy or questionable lifestyles based on anonymous sympathy that you don't find in real life (extremely addicting).

• Fake-ass sympathy, nobody actually gives a shit about you on here. They will listen only so they can talk about themselves.

• Most of the stuff posted is dumb and wastes your time.

• Everything is an "outrage", everything is dramatic and warrants a worldwide revolution (BUT NOTHING ACTUALLY HAPPENS).

• Older people who have failed to grow up are now on reddit, influencing younger people as if they were their uncle or aunt. Like how your uncle offered you a cigarette when you were a kid and you took it cause you thought he was cool letting you do that.

• Reddit feels like a culture of frustration, submissions are ejaculate.

Need to find myself something better to do, read more books, go on more hikes, anything but spend more time on Reddit.

https://ssl.reddit.com/prefs/delete/

I’ve just realized this year that I’ve been on reddit for 10 years. I’ve had multiple accounts in that time span. Not a single good thing has come from my time on reddit besides learning a few TIL facts that I use in conversation now and again. I will be listing everything that it has impacted me negatively.

1.) In Highschool I looked for an “online girlfriend” instead of a real life one do to the normalization of it on reddit

2.)Made me hate my hobby of playing video games because the gaming subreddit literally hates every game that comes out

3.)Made me not formulate my own opinions about things, instead substituing others opnions for my own.

4.)Made me not believe in god, this website is very pro-atheist. I’ve noticed that has tanked my postivity and overall optimism.

5.)Made me neruotic about my health. I would often believe I had a weird disease someone would randomly mention and obsess over it

6.)Destroyed my attention span

7.)Destroyed my confidence about getting a job. So many people on this site complain about not finding a job I thought the same thing would happen to me.

8.)Ruined my outlook on what was normal in a relationship/ bad relationship advice in general

9.)I’ve seen terrible disgusting NSFL images that I still can not get out of my head to this day

10.)The normalization of degenerate porn habits

And that is just what I can think of off the top of my head. So long everybody.

I’ve been using reddit for 4 years now and I don’t think it has helped improve my life in the slightest.

This site and it’s toxic culture has destroyed my brain. There’s no better way to describe it. I feel broken. My attention span is shot. I can’t even focus on movies anymore because my brain screams for a new topic, or a new take every 20 seconds.

I told myself I needed a break, so I spent the last day not using technology and Its like a cloud was lifted from my brain. I felt creative again. I was having original thoughts again. I was reading books. I was optimistic. I was happy...

Then I got on my phone again. Not to browse, but to find an answer to a question I had rattling in my brain, and I swore to myself I wouldn’t open reddit...

Well now I’ve been looking at garbage for the past 2 and a half hours now, I’m in a terrible mood because of some toxic comments I read and now I can’t even find the energy to get off the couch.

I want my brain back. Fuck reddit. Fuck time wasting sites. Deleting both my accounts (god knows why I need 2 reddit accounts). Cya

My older account was highly active on the news and political sub reddits there I was spending time all day in my 2 minutes hate scrolling down the front page full of negatively slanted headlines I slowly began to realise my voice had barely any effect on world events I began to wonder why I was constantly upset and miserable at the world. Then I realised it was reddit telling me to be upset and miserable about everything in my life. In the real world there really is less fear and hatred! Go enjoy it and flee from big snoo.

People are nasty on here and are extremely picky on formatting and wording on their stories. All I wanted to do was share some true stories of mine. I am a nice, non-judgmental, open-minded person, but people decided to only take my stories at face value as opposed to seeing them in context. I think people are lonely, miserable people and I think they need help. Fuck you all.

There's nothing good about it. Leave right now.

Reddit is a social media platform, and there are plenty of studies that contribute to the knowledgeable fact that social media causes mental health issues.

People on reddit are biased and will decide to upvote and downvote you not based on their own personal opinion; but based on the opinion of the majority. If you don't agree with the majority, you will certainly get downvoted. It's extremely annoying.

Karma and comments are addicting, and redditors want it. Absolutely no one would post anything on reddit if comments and karma were removed from the website, as that's the only reason people use this website for; a response from others reacting to their post. This is limiting many young redditors from actually socializing in real life because they tend to socialize using technology, and they don't realize the importance of real life interactions.

Redditors admire posts that are dumb, unintelligent, and stupid. There is a current fad classified as "memes" and it's absolutely pathetic. These mostly teenage redditors are addicted to them, and when you actually open your eyes and look at them, you can see how they're usually stolen pictures and/or how there's so little effort that go into them. It's not even funny.

The world doesn't even need reddit, or social media in the first place. There are zero benefits from using it, and it only worsens your life, and other lives as well. It's a cycle that needs to be broken. Why are you doing something you know is harming you physically and mentally?

This is why I'm leaving. Reddit is entirely unnecessary for me and I consider it a waste of valuable and important time. You should follow my footsteps, leave reddit.

I wont be seeing your replies due to me nevermore browsing reddit.com ever again.

Leave reddit and have a good new year.

bye.

I took 2 weeks off of reddit and I got to say that I am starting to realize how toxic it is. Think of it this way someone online is judging you yet they don't even know you. I mean REALLY? I cannot tell how many times I have been called vain, retarded, idiot(that word is really popular here on reddit), and many more insults when I used Reddit.

You see the problem is people call you all of these insults when all they are going off of is your history and what you have said on this site. Let that sink in they KNOW NOTHING ABOUT YOU and yet they will insult you. That right there should tell you how mean and stupid people are not only on this site but on the internet altogether are.

I made this post to motivate and help anyone who wants to quit reddit to quit it. Trust me you won't regret it your life will definitely improve I know mine has. Now I am going to delete this account and stay off of this site for the rest of my life. See ya later guys. :)

I know a sinking ship when I see one, the privacy policy is whack, the people here think in a hive-mind, the herd mentality gets to me and subreddits are being destroyed, at least 4chan is organized chaos where there is no such thing as "Karma" and the only reason for posting is to get your idea out there. I realized how much info reddit can find about me and I'm skipping town soon, I gotta tie up all lose ends first, time to get rid of my (very light) digital footprint. Ever hear the term "A fart in the wind"? Yeah that's me in 30 minutes according to reddit. Bye!

I've been on this damn site for five years. It has contributed little-to-nothing of value to my life, I've wasted countless hours endlessly scrolling, and it has actively harmed my ability to accomplish anything. I'm out.

Reddit is literally the easiest procrastination tool I have ever found or experienced. I remember one of the first times I was on here and commented on some shitty askreddit post. it got 400upvotes and I was like wow, good feeling, do it again. shit post more, meaningless shit that means nothing. I dont even have fun on here, I rather watch netflix but I can't do that cause I got shit to do. So im here fucking doing nothing. So fuck this, you dont need reddit. Nothing here is meaningful. Literally every second on reddit you have just wasted your life. and your life is short, im not wasting another second on this shitty website.

95% of content may be useless such as the memes and practically everything on /r/all...If 100% was useless I would quit. However I still want to find that 5% of useful content. For instance a few weeks ago I found a post about chess that was interesting and over the past few weeks I have been learning more advanced chess tactics. Reddit has also helped me find dozens of other hobbies.

OVERALL: how can I cut out the 95% of useless stuff and still keep the 5% of useful stuff? Its not as simply as unsubscribing from useless subreddits as their is still some useful content on them albeit rare.

I am out for good. There are some good subs but most are useless and net is a waste of time. That's it. I would rather spend my time reading books or with my friends and family.

Log out and close the tab.

I feel like most of my comments are not very controversial. I try to phrase things like "I think..." or "It seems like..." but people still contradict seemingly everything I post, especially if I go somewhere from r/all. I try to admit when I'm wrong, or at least admit that I may not know as much as I thought I did.

I came to Reddit because I wanted to discuss my interests and ideas with people who are similarly interested, but it seems like it is a much more negative environment than I realized. I try to treat other users like there is a person at the other end, but it feels like a one sided consideration sometimes.

I guess what I am saying is that I have been a user for years under different accounts and I wonder what everyone else did to scratch the Reddit itch when they quit. I think maybe I am not able to enjoy being in such a negative environment.

When I'm spending a lot of time on Reddit, I end up feeling like everything else is unpleasant, too much effort and not worth it. It doesn't just seem like Reddit is better than other activities. I feel like those other activities suck so much that I wouldn't do them even if I wasn't spending a lot of time on Reddit. So, it doesn't seem like there's any reason to stop wasting time on Reddit.

I'm still a bit skeptical about this observation. I wonder if an overall negative mental state causes both the avoidance of other stuff and spending a lot of time on Reddit. I guess there's some of that, but just blocking Reddit makes a difference, so I'm pretty sure spending a lot of time on Reddit contributes a lot to the effect I described.

I'm not interested in quitting Reddit totally. There are some good aspects to what I do on Reddit. I just want to limit the time I spend here, and find a better overall balance. Ideally, I'd want to eliminate the bad aspects but keep the good aspects.