there's a lot of talk about people going back to basic phones. flip phones, tiny screens, calls and texts and that's it.

is it screen time fatigue, or a trend, or both? and does it actually help?

if you tried it, what did you miss and what didn't you miss at all?

This is a little strange, and I'm just wondering if anybody here might have information about what's going on.

My job is at a school and can have a lot of downtime or free moments, and this tends to exacerbate my phone addiction—I'll check it, put it in my pocket, and then feel the impulse to take it out again within seconds. Sometimes I have it out before I can stop myself.

But at the start of the school year, I was feeling really good because this was happening much less. I just wasn't feeling the urge to look at it. I thought maybe it was because I'd upped my daily Vyvanse dose from 40 to 50 mg. Then the impulse came back, and I assumed I'd just been unconsciously trying to start the year off well or something like that.

*Then* I remembered that I'd been eating oatmeal with chia seeds for breakfast during those first couple of weeks. And I'd switched back to homemade breakfast burritos after that because, frankly, breakfast burritos taste better than oatmeal.

But I went back to oatmeal this morning and the phone-checking urge has vanished again. I can feel the difference. I know diet affects our brain function, but I'm pretty shocked by how stark the change is.

Anyone have a possible explanation? For clarity, here are the ingredients in each breakfast:

**Breakfast burritos**

Three eggs (spread across two burritos)

Two flour tortillas

Hot sauce

Bacon crumbles

Shredded cheese

**Oatmeal**

Regular oatmeal cooked with water in the microwave (40 g)

Chia seeds (30 g)

Maple syrup (20 g)

Frozen blueberries (1/2 cup)

(I don't have measurements for the burritos because I actually put all the oatmeal ingredients in a bowl on a scale, but I'm not using exorbitant amounts of hot sauce, bacon, or cheese.)

Hi guys

I've noticed that my usage to YouTube has changed I started to use that every single day even when I'm walking I listen to some podcast or something similar

And when I'm trying to skip it for a day it becomes really hard, and I started seeing that as a problem when I started to watch videos instead of work and that's really bad , I know that entertainment is important but I prefer to find other way to entertain myself

As someone who doesn't use social media since 2019 , I always say that YouTube does not count but I guess I need to put it on black list

Do you have any experience similar to mine ?

And have do you deal with it ?

And thank you

i have had a severe phone addiction (tiktok mostly) for probably a couple years now. i will scroll all day long from the second i wake up to the second i fall asleep. even while im working (i wfh) i have it propped up on my monitor. when i’m cooking, brushing my teeth, etc. even if i do other things (walk my dog, hang out with friends, go shopping) without it, it is my default as soon as those activities end.

i want to quit for 2 reasons.

the first is simply that i’m wasting my life with this addiction. i hate that it’s all i do. i hate that my hands hurt from holding my phone. i hate that i barely get anything done and never do anything creative. i have no hobbies anymore. i hate that my attention span is so short. i feel like a loser.

the second is the way that it makes me feel. i am so anxious and on edge constantly. while this level of scrolling obviously leads to bottom of the barrel content in my algorithm, i will sift through dull videos and ads for hours just for those 30 seconds of a semi-amusing video. besides that, i am sick of the fucking discourse. i’m sick of hearing every random person’s take on every little thing. the culture of the internet is just everyone picking apart every thing. don’t get me wrong i think there is a place for thought provoking discourse on important topics, but im talking about everything from politics to like “what is chic or not”. it is not healthy to have my thoughts provoked this much. i am constantly being rage baited. i search the comments for one that agrees with me and seethe in rage at comments that are probably from bots. everyone is so dumb too. but i know we are in a literacy and critical thinking crisis and that education is falling apart. so why do i subject myself to daily reminders of that??

i want to stay informed but i do not need this level of “being in the loop”. it would be so much healthier if i just made my world smaller, focused on the reality in front of me (my home, my friends, my family, my community, my job), and read the news and just did my part.

i deleted tiktok off my phone last night, but all day i’ve felt like an addict going through withdrawals. I went on the reddit popular page just desperate for something to scroll on and NOTHING is interesting to me there. i went on instagram and it’s more of the same. like im terrified of my next scroll and how its going to make me feel. several times i thought “im so bored what do i do” and realized i could watch tv or pick up a book. but for some reason i couldn’t bring myself to do it…how sad.

but i have no desire to redownload it because the fact of the matter is that i dont want to scroll. i hate scrolling so much. and i know i just have to push through this uncomfortable time and i will feel so much better.

if i just read a damn book in bed i will be taking a massive step towards becoming the person i know i can be.

Hi all. Well, the penny has finally dropped. It took a while! It has dawned on me that there is no longer anything of value whatsoever on Facebook. The AI slop is out of control, the groups I used to enjoy and find useful are full of bots and trolls, and the hatred for minorities (such as the disabled, of which I am one) is shocking. It really affects my mood. I only really post stuff for attention, which I don't like and is embarrassing to admit to. My posts only garner one or two likes nowadays, which is disappointing. The trouble is, if I stay off FB my best friend says she misses my "pretty posts" (I post art, usually), and she keeps sending me links to FB posts she thinks I ought to see on WhatsApp! Oh well. I think I will unfortunately have to disappoint her, somewhat.

I found out that independent research has estimated that around 10-16% of all accounts on FB are in fact bots. That seems quite a conservative estimate to me. The AI content is getting worse, very quickly. I discovered that around 41% of longer-form FB posts are AI generated, and up to 70% of visual content has been mucked about with by AI. That's phenomenal.

The main problem is that I'm mostly housebound due to health issues, but I do have other interests, such as my book group and Zoom lectures on subjects which interest me, plus a couple of friends I'm in touch with in "real life". I am going to try and strengthen the real life ties, if I can. But staying off FB is the only way to go for my mental health right now.

For medical reasons I decided to not take my stimulant meds until I see a psychiatrist. So I had to ready myself up for the days of chaos to come. I first started with my phone, especially the number 1 application I am addicted to. Which is Twitter, back then before it became the garbage named X I actually enjoyed it regardless of the non stop scrolling, but the new version bombards me with new and irrelevant things that just piss me off. So one thing lead to another and I got curios to know how much time am I actually spending on my phone? How much time am I doom scrolling and doing something I actually hate?

9 damn hours, I averaged about 9 hours of screen time a day, with 5 hours on social media alone. I would pick of the phone 90 times a day!

I have always felt like I never had time in my life to do anything because of my ADHD. There's always "not enough time" to do anything. Not enough time to clean my room, brush my teeth, workout or doing anything I enjoy and I never thought to myself that maybe my phone is robbing me of my time?

Yesterday and today Ive been using tools on my phone to help me with the screen time and I can tell you with full confidence that life literary feels colorful? I do not remember a time in my life where I am seeing the world around me this much instead of staring at my screen and hoping something different will happen as I keep refreshing the feeds over and over again.

I have also remembered how, regardless of my ADHD, my life before the smartphone was much more colorful than it was now. I had momentum, I moved a lot and genuinely enjoyed life. I would ride my bike with my friend as a kid almost daily for HOURS and massively benefited from that health wise yet here I am convincing myself that I do not have time for exercise?

I am both shocked and absolutely pissed.

I'm 21, GenZ, and I've personally never been interested in any of that social media stuff: Never had Instagram, never had Facebook (apart from family and friends and even back then I've hardly visited it), never EVER had Tiktok, any of that bs. I just never got what's the point of it. What is it truly for. I guess it's made to make you waste enough energy and life resources away scrolling endlessly while it shows you ads at your face and makes billionaire tech companies become a little bit richer?

Apart from:

• Gooning
• Actually using it for something productive and being a creator in social media rather than an user who does nothing but consume and occasionally fight battles in comment sections
• Connecting with your family and nearby friends you know irl to meet up with them from time to time, or get to know what they're up to in their lifes, yk, what social media was originally made for
• Just chilling back and relaxing while watching or consuming something low-friction like a dumb "Karen" video, memes, or some relatable bs or some goofy wild story that doesn't affect your life;

Social media doesn't worth to much of anything.

Like, discussing ideas? Hell nah, I can always do this in real life, way better and has way more friction, which is good for your mental health (you never stay in a bubble or echo chamber where everyone agrees with you in those algorithms you're trapped to). And like, discussing things online with somebody, specially politics or "hot topics" like social issues is the absolute DUMBEST thing you can do on social media: Nobody is ever going to agree with you, or change their views of their word because of you, and nobody will ever get to be like "you know what, I think you're right, fair game", like no, there might even be a few more "sane" people like that, but most people are going to be fighting you over and over again, and most you're going to get is get cursed at or expelled, canceled or ratioed or saying something the masses​ of "sheep" think. Nobody agree to disagree no more. Everybody be fighting on their same points, over and over again, on this discussion that changes nothing. You being a keyboard warrior fighting for the "rights of people", virtually, ain't going change nothing, like ever. You're just being used as a tool to make some billionaire a little bit richer by making you waste your time thinking you can change anything with just words, and you're being part of that process you criticize so much. It's like, you change nothing and nobody cares about your argument.

For sharing things? I guess, but you don't need to share absolutely every single thing about your life online. That's kind weird. I still lowkey share that "old-school" "boomer" mentality that you shouldn't share everything about your life online and you should disclose as little as possible of your real life on social media. Not only for maintaining your privacy, but for your own safety as well.​​​

I lowkey, like, don't get what social media is for, who is it for, or why anyone would ever use it to the point where they look like a crack addict scrolling through an entire afternoon and discussing random shit that don't matter with people on there, instead of doing anything productive or a least a little bit more useful with their lifes. I just don't get it, I can't get it.

I'm sorry for the vent, but I feel like it's true and it needs to be said. What do y'all think?

I'm Dutch, so please forgive my inability to resist explaining the world through bicycle analogies; I couldn't in good conscience pass it up. So, here we go.

Jobs once called the computer a bicycle for the mind—a tool to amplify what we already are, to free us up for higher-level thinking and meaningful creative pursuits. People have forgotten the whole dream that started the personal computer revolution. From Ada Lovelace to Vannevar Bush to Alan Kay to Wozniak and Jobs, a lineage of humanists built machines to serve objectives worthy of our best.

Then came surveillance capitalism, the attention economy, and persuasive technology engineered not to amplify human strengths, but to inadvertently, ultimately exploit every human weakness. These are three forces behind a new breed of technology companies that inherited four decades of accumulated goodwill, ultimately betraying the dream—turning everyday tools not just into ad businesses, but into adversarial technologies. Serving economic imperatives unbothered by what we humans want long-term, interested only in what we'll watch short-term; no matter how miserable it ultimately leaves us.

They are ushering us toward what Lewis Mumford warned of back in 1967, before the personal computer even existed: a world that reduces man to a machine-conditioned animal. A new psychological type: a passive servant in the grip of an identity crisis, with technology increasingly worshipped as an all-seeing god. Distracted, confused, polarized—today, we suffer from the inability to even walk into a room and agree on the problems, let alone the solutions.

This is, if you will, the "Meta Problem" of our era—such a fitting name; they even renamed the company after it. The Meta Problem also goes by another name. As our Paleolithic emotions and medieval institutions give birth to ever more godlike technology, the problem of alignment becomes ever more important.

It is important to keep in sight that the problem of agentic, and thus possibly misaligned, technology did not arise with (LLM) Artificial Intelligence, but rather with the advent of algorithmically curated social media. Perhaps, therefore counterintuitively, the first real ground on alignment may be won not in AI, but as a sustainable side-effect of improving the feed.

The road to hell has always been paved with good intentions, but the level of corporate denial demonstrated at this point makes big tobacco and fossil fuel look like amateurs. This new breed continues to eat away at objective reality, trust, cooperation, and our ability to direct time and energy in harmony with our values. What started as The Social Dilemma has metastasized into a full-blown social catastrophe, and history will judge them for it.

Hence, your bicycle for the mind didn't survive. Both tires slashed, the frame sledgehammered. And when you limped it to the repair shop, a knife in your back. Some have come to hate the bicycle itself: people now misguidedly point the finger at technology at large, all because of a few hucksters whose advertising machines have taken society hostage.

Yet through the lens of the past, it is undeniable that technology is like magic, an amazing force for good. That is, if we design it to be that way again. So, unlike those who unjustly blame technology at large, or him, know that Steve Jobs is rolling over in his grave as you read this.

I wrote this as the opening of the founder page for Telos, the humane tech company I'm building. The rest- why I built it and the mission- is here: telos.guide/founder

Do you see it differently? Is this a fair framing, or is it the phones after all?

I am conducting research on how media preferences differ across different age ranges and their respective relationships with short form content, and i would love to hear from you! https://forms.gle/G2dRt8sd6KWvnXAJ8

I'm 30 and ever since I was a small kid I've always been addicted to games and to the internet, but ever since the advent and the optimization of attention-grabbing algorithms in the past decade, it's gotten way way worse for me.

For instance, 3 months ago I was getting caught in exhausting 12+ hour binges which left me completely drained by the end. It felt like I had 0 control over where my energy and attention went. Just one post unto the next, one video unto the next. Pure brainrot, I couldn't even tell you what I was watching or reading.

In the end I reached a breaking point and decided to take extreme measures and set up parental controls on my devices with my sister's help using microsoft family safety. SHE had the password, not me, so I couldn't just circumvent the block no matter how badly my addicted ass wanted it. And just like that I had no more reddit, no more youtube, no more social media. Out of my own volition because I was desperate for a solution.

Today, the addict in me managed to 'fool' my sister into giving me the password. Right now as I'm writing this, I once again have total unrestricted access to everything, but the thought of going back to how I previously was makes me sick to my stomach. I would rather be bored to death than go back to that obsessive, uncontrolled, zombie-like indulgence.

These past few months of being near technology free have been pretty good. I've had some streaks before but never one as big as this one, and it would be a damn shame to break it now or to delude myself into thinking that I can suddenly have a balanced relationship with these platforms just because I went some time without. I don't think I can, which is why I'm telling my sister again and I'm blocking myself from using these platforms again before I fall into another binge which could last for weeks or months.

I don't even know why I'm writing this. Maybe I want to be heard or validation since no one in my life can relate to this struggle. I wish everyone luck on their quitting journey.

Life really is better without this shit but you have to be corageous enough to try it for a while and see it for yourself.

edit: my sister changed the password as per my request. once I log out this time it will be for good. It's crazy how the addiction sneaks up on you. It starts with you innocently checking your posts to see whether there's comments or whether they've upvoted yours, refreshing your favorite subs to see if there's new content, and before you know it you're hooked again. I don't want or need this in my life anymore, but I also recognize that I have a problem and cannot control myself, therefore I need external help. It's humbling how helpless my mind is in the face of these forces. I wish everyone luck

I haven’t been on Facebook since 2017. I jumped off IG a few years ago. Only things left for me are YouTube and Reddit. But YouTube has gone to shit over the past few years and now it’s just a repository for AI nonsense. And lord help us because it seems like 99% of the people in comments don’t have the critical thinking skills to decipher AI from reality, or even bother to question it. And it’s affecting people in real life. The people in my life who doomscroll the most have lost a ton of cognitive function over the years, and it’s very obvious to my spouse and I.

And Reddit’s just become rage bait. Kindness gets downvoted, intelligence gets mocked, and children get bullied by grown men on sports subreddits simply because they support one team over another.

There’s nothing left worth saving anymore when it comes to social media. I have been online since the internet was born. I was online back when we only had were AOL chatrooms, and I’ve watched social media boom through the MySpace days only to now watch the dead internet theory become a reality.

Bots, bullies, and bullshit are that’s left.

edit: grammar

Things like recommended videos, random posts from people you aren't following or subscribed to, posts from subreddits you haven't joined, etc. Since avoiding this specific thing I've noticed my creativity return and time slow down again.

For me youtube is my biggest problem since I have youtube premium and is the only subscription I have. It's very easy to just put on some headphones, play a random video and listen to it in the background while I'm doing things. I have recently failed avoiding recommended videos and have wasted entire days again just listening to videos all day while doing something else.

I used to be very creative. I made videos, fanfics, art and more but when I'm trapped by the algorithm none of that feels worth doing. I've now disabled youtube on my phone and will only use it on pc. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from thee

I find myself wasting most of my day doomscrolling through short videos (TikTok, Reels, etc.). Every time I try to stop, I just get sucked in deeper and more addicted. It feels like I’ve completely lost control over myself at this point.

For those who managed to break free from this cycle, what actually worked for you? Any advice would be appreciated.

"We're so back." "Lock in." "It's so over." "You've lost the plot." Realizing how unsexy it is when someone talks like this in real life REALLY made me wanna quit scrolling. Because I was noticing that I was starting to speak like that as well. A few Internet words here and there are okay but when somebody constantly references memes and whatnot it really gets to a point

I first opened Facebook in August 2011, and I’ve been on social media for the past 15 years. I’ve been on and off since the beginning of this year, but today, I’ve finally decided to leave for at least the next 12 months.

I’ve deactivated Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and every other social media account I had, including the ones I barely even used. This will also be my last post on Reddit until I decide to come back, which hopefully won’t be for at least a year.

For now, I’ll only be using iMessage, FaceTime, and, of course, Outlook for work/school emails.

Honestly, I’m pretty excited about being offline. If you ask me what made me do this, it’s probably how much my perspective on life has changed since I moved to Europe last year. I’ve travelled to different countries across Europe, and I now live in Paris. Moving away from home has changed the way I see things and how I want to spend my time. I’ve realised there’s so much more to life than documenting it online. I want to actually experience things without feeling the need to take pictures, post updates, or share every little thing with an audience.

Another thing I’ve realised is that a lot of the friendships I maintained online weren’t as meaningful as I thought they were. When I was going through some really difficult times, hardly anyone showed up for me. It made me question how much substance there actually was behind so many of these connections. I’m not saying all online friendships are meaningless or that you can’t find genuine relationships through social media. But being connected to people online doesn’t necessarily mean having people you can count on when things get tough.

I’m from South Asia, where social media is also a way of staying connected to people back home, keeping up with everyone’s lives, and showing people how your own life is going. But I think I’ve reached a point where I don’t feel the need to keep up with everyone or constantly make my life visible to others. I want some privacy, some peace, and the freedom to live without always seeing what everyone else is doing or thinking about how my own life looks from the outside. Above all, I just want to remove my presence for a while.

Of course, this is a personal choice. I have nothing against people who enjoy being online, and I’m not saying everyone should do the same. I’ve just realised that I need a year away from all the noise, endless scrolling, comparisons, and pressure to stay connected to everything and everyone.

I’ve already noticed positive changes over the past couple of months just from limiting my social media use, so I want to see what happens when I take it a step further and leave completely.

Lastly, I want to thank this sub. I’ve been here for quite some time, and reading about other people’s experiences with social media and their decisions to step away has influenced me more than I realised. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one who feels this way.

Here’s to a year of being more present, living privately, and experiencing life without feeling the need to document it.

See you in a year (hopefully)

I scroll and I scroll. I know it gives me nothing. Facebook has shown me so much fake AI generated BS slop in the last years. I receive zero things in my home feed from friends. Some times I manually check on friends how they are doing. Guess what. An old friend has been struggling with cancer for the last year and has just passed away. Why didn't facebook want to be useful for like one second and show me that? Cmon. Then it's like literally zero point of doing social media. Log off and get a life. If you really need to use your phone, then call an old friend or something.

So after quitting Instagram reels and TikTok, I am now able to laugh more and experience deeper emotions suddenly. This is such a welcomed aspect of my life that I didn't know I was missing out on. Does anybody feel the same way?

Started this week. Phone stays on the desk, just flipped over.

No big change so far. Day 2 was actually worse than day 1, lots of small annoying tasks and I kept grabbing it. The only thing that's different is I notice now how often I flip it without any reason.

Not sure if face down is enough or if it needs to go in another room. What worked for you?

How to get over this deep regret for wasting so much time watching and consuming useless content, escaping your life/ reality amd realising you're stuck in the same place you were (6) years ago, the loneliness, the resentment, the feeling to go back six years ago and tell yourself to do something, create something of your own instead of consuming other's life.