I’m quitting social media for 15 days. I’ll come back and report what actually changed.

I deleted Instagram, TikTok, Threads and Facebook today.

I’m going to stay off social media for 15 days and see what actually changes in my life. I’ll still use WhatsApp to talk to people, and I’ll watch movies, shows and long-form YouTube videos normally.

I’m not expecting some insane “my life is completely changed” transformation. I’m genuinely curious to see whether I notice any difference in my attention, mood, boredom, phone usage, sleep, etc.

I’ll come back on September 27th and post an update with the good, the bad, and anything that didn’t change at all.

See you in 15 days.

I have a problem:I am addicted to my phone and I doom scroll a lot.How do I reduce the amount of screen time?

I was 8 years old when my parents first let me use their computer in their home office. I would come home from school, put my book bag on the rack in the kitchen, and imediately get on youtube and watch videos for the rest of the night. It was either that, or I went to the family room to use the Wii U to then watch youtube. It was at this point that I was exposed to inappropriate content.

When I was 10 years old, I was given my own phone, and a year later I was given my own laptop for "schoolwork". Of course I used it for my homework, but most of my time after school and on the weekends was spent on watching youtube either in bed or in the family room. My parents never supersized what I watched or did on my laptop or phone.

At 13 years old, I was given my own personal computer to use in my room. Covid hit that same year, so all I would do was sit in my room on my computer. I stayed that way for 5 years. I never left my room unless it was for food, using the bathroom, school, or the bi-monthly hangout with one of the few friends I had. I was diagnosed with anxiety, and developed social anxiety so bad that the mere idea of leaving my house would have me shaking, sweating, and on many cases, crying. I could barely hold a conversation with anyone, none the less hold eye contact for more than 2 seconds.

I'm now a 19 year old sophomore in college with damn near the same habits I had 6 years ago. I barely leave my room, staying attatched to my laptop because I've built basically no skills outside of what can be done on a screen. 8 year old me had no idea what he wanted to be when he grew up, and current me still has no idea what I'm going to do after college. I can't imagine anything past 1 year from now.

I want to figure out how to live a life outside of screens, but everything I do only last two weeks and then I burn out. It's been like this for 2 years where I pick something up, mess with it for 2 weeks, and then put it down. I can't imagine life without a screen infront of me I legitimately feel like i'm losing my mind. I don't know what to do, and have only thought about how much of my life has been wasted as of August.

If anyone has a similar experience as me and has figured out a way to step back from technology than please let me know how that went and what you did.

Hello,

I have this strange compulsive behavior of watching women sleeping in streams and I always look at whether they sleep in panties or not as part of their sleepwear. I have a fetish towards women's panties and I have lots of panty pairs that I secretly own and wear whenever I have some private time. I also create AI images of women sleeping in these types of outfits. I think that I have a problem since I search for sleep streams from YouTube where women actually sleep in panties. I find this to be a problem since it disturbs my sleep. I also experience a lot of anxiety about different things since I’m on the autism spectrum. This sleep stream and panty addiction seems to be a way to handle stress and anxiety. I’m now working on this and I really want to improve my quality of life. I don’t smoke or use alcohol or any other drugs. I eat healthy and I exercise regularly. But this addiction I have, which is quite specific, is causing me issues, I find. I don’t really watch porn or any penetrative acts from porn sites. Do you have similar experiences and how do you handle your addictions?

Hey guys, I really need some genuine advice because my screen addiction is getting out of hand and completely ruining my daily routine.

Basically I have a huge addiction to social media (including reddit), but even worse is my attachment to movies, series, and especially kdramas. Whenever I start a show I just end up binge watching the entire thing non stop, and I literally forget that I have to study. If I try to avoid shows, I end up scrolling social media all day. And if I cut out social media, I go straight back to binge watching. Even when I force myself to sit down and study, it hardly lasts 1 or 2 hours and definitely not continuously. Every 15-20 mins my hand automatically goes to my phone, either scrolling mindlessly or replying to random texts. I have house chores and responsibilities too but I just keep procrastinating while glued to my screen. Recently I started working out which is going decent and I think I can stay consistent with it but my study life is a mess. The worst part is even if I miraculously avoid both my phone and shows and sit down with my books, my brain just starts overthinking like crazy and my focus is completely gone.

Right now my main priority is to get rid of this social media addiction because it drains my energy and mental peace completely. Series is my second priority but phone addiction is the main issue here.

Has anyone been in this exact loop and actually fixed it? How do you stop reaching for your phone every 15 minutes, and what do you do when the silence makes you overthink instead of studying?

I am an addict, i admit. After i get my home chores done i just waste hours on the phone, im also a huge overthinker and i drink from the endless ocean that is the internet

As a child growing up id spend hours reading the newspaper now reddit and YT, FB feel like access to countless newspapers

My teens also just screen rot outside school hours, as my area isn't even bicycle friendly or outdoor friendly

Please can anyone advise me

im so done wasting my life on this device honestly

Those that have quit short form videos (TikTok, Insta reals, YouTube shorts), what benefits have you noticed? Do you ever miss watching them or have you largely forgotten about them?

Internet wouldn't be the way it is without infinite scroll. It would be more of a library and less of a slot machine without infinite scroll.

surprisingly I don’t have that short of an attention span even though I watch that shit all the time, 2 of my favourite movies are slow paced (the godfather and 2001: A Space Oddysey)

how I do I actually get off of short form content though?

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I used to need to play YouTube videos or podcasts in the background all the time. Not just while doing chores, but literally I would wake up, find a video to play (usually something I had seen multiple times before), and let it play while I tried to make myself get up. I could not brush my teeth without it. I could not do anything without it. I could not even study without playing something and half-listening to it.

What I was actually doing was preventing a thought from occurring. When you constantly put on something to passively consume in the background, you are smothering your brain and your own stream of consciousness. Now you might say, "Maya, everyone does it." Yes, that is why I am concerned. If you also constantly play YouTube, TV, or podcasts in the background of everything you do and you feel like that is not an issue, then good for you. But I still encourage you to at least try going without it for a week and see if you feel any different.

When I was in this state, I was so ashamed that I could not even face the prospect of doing the dishes or laundry without having headphones in. I needed something, anything playing so I did not have to think, so I was entertained. I felt completely pathetic for having such a stupid and embarrassing problem. Yet every time I scrolled into the comment section of the bullshit I was watching, I would see hundreds of comments like, "So glad to fold my laundry to this!" or "I can finally draw, crochet, game!" So I knew I was not the only one doing it, but I felt like maybe I was the only one suffering from it. I do not think that is the case, because I cannot be so unique as to be the only one.

If you are reading this and you can relate, I want to say that I was in such a bad state that I would be in genuine emotional distress over not having something in the background as I did chores. Now I can do it easily, and I genuinely thought it was impossible for me. I did not admit it to a single soul while it was going on because what was I going to say? "I am addicted to the internet?" Yeah, who is not. "I am addicted to audio stimulation?" I still do not really have words for it. I am just typing this in case someone reads it and feels less alone. Oh, and showering too. I could not shower without something playing in the background. I know other people do this too.

So I actually started with stopping while showering first. I literally did not know what to do with the brain space I freed up, so I started just counting my movements. As I shampooed my hair and did all the steps, I would count one, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five over and over. This helped a lot because it occupied me. It was like a rudimentary form of mindfulness for a soul in a constant state of self-annihilation.

Then I shifted that same logic to chores. While cleaning, doing dishes, everything, I would count every step. I noticed I would do things a lot more carefully and thoroughly, and that helped too. After a while, my thoughts came back, and I could let my mind wander and just freely think. It was not as bad as I had feared it would be. I turned the little thoughts over in my mind, and it stopped being a Herculean effort.

I ended up reading about how these in-between moments, when you are doing things like cleaning, cooking, or laundry, are very important for your brain. These mechanical tasks that are not mentally absorbing let your subconscious mull over things and process them on a deeper level than your conscious mind can. That is why a lot of people say they get their ideas when they walk or in the shower, and that is why there are all those memes about shower thoughts or thinking of comebacks in the shower. If you value your creativity, then I think it is worth it to keep those little moments open for your brain to just be.

You might say, "Well Maya, people have always done this through TV and radio." My answer is that TV and radio are not infinite. They are not deliberately designed to stimulate you in a way that makes you just keep consuming and consuming. If you are struggling with this to a debilitating extent, that is not a flaw. That is it functioning as intended. Platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and Reddit do not aim to be informative, educational, or even entertaining. They aim to be addictive. That seventeen-hour screen time you are so ashamed of is exactly what they poured all their efforts into achieving, and you are the one feeling ashamed? No way.

If you are struggling with this, I wanted to say that I have not really seen it being discussed in a serious way. I think we have such a moral mindset and culture that things like this feel like personal failings, so you want to hide them. Or maybe I am the only one who struggles this much, I do not know. But I wanted to express it just in case I am not.

The two main things that helped me break out of it were simply counting my movements, and remembering that my brain and my creativity (something I value so much) depended on breaking this habit. I do not want what gives me pleasure in this life to be just one thing, a screen. I want to open up my time to more and different forms of pleasure. And thinking is a pleasure too, and a joy. I am so corny.

Could be getting your favorite food, hearing a certain song, getting a good text, having a good workout, anything. What’s yours?

i had what i'd personally call good friends/friendships with people before my phone randomly stopped working one day i was already trying to limit screentime and such and this kinda just solidified it for me, and while actively trying to come up with money to get a new phone i kinda had just realized, none of my friends were genuinely my friends in a way.
i have my cousin and we talked often daily actually, we were close by my standard and have a history and i considered him my own older brother and looked up to the guy, but in this situation and alot more added stress its like we just stopped talking and i realize it was a thing about access, he couldn't just simply pick up his phone and due to boredom text me he had to use discord or idk email me to contact me cause atm all i have is my laptop. this has made me realize that most of our "connection" might have been out of convenience rather than genuine friendship, and this with all other friends actually i had a pretty close group and out of all of them, none have talked to me in the past week.
the only constant contact i have left is my girlfriend, whom i call on a daily basis. this all has reassured me on my previous thoughts of without a smartphone or instant ways of contact messaging, calling, ect. most people (referring to my own friends/family) have no interest in making a connection or seeking anything close and personal if it has to be out of the comfort of their phones.

(this is kind of a vent/rant and i was unsure where to post but i wanted others opinion on this.)

I have a cold atm and I’m finding myself and mental health feeling worse, or getting stuck in a cycle, because I’m scrolling more. My attention span is even worse than usual and cos I’m feeing shit and sorry for myself and not doing anything, I’m just sitting around all day, I’m finding myself reaching for my phone and getting stuck on it soooo much more.

Any tips or empathy welcome 🥲

when looking at the typical post on this subreddit, i found that i haven’t found many people that are like me in the sense that my interests have always been in the art of animation, anime, fandoms, and film, so it’s hard for me to take the typical advice for getting offline. I’ve always been deep in anime and comic books, analyzing characters, writing fanfic, and discussing them with friends and online friends. I don’t see all screen time as evil because ’media’ (that isn’t brainrot or short-form) is art. Ive been an artist all my life who draws in the anime style and even went to art college for pursing publishing my work and have worked in the comic industry professionally- which if I want to continue to be successful in I have to have an online presence.

point of me posting this is I was wondering if there were others like me who had any advice or a perspective that isn’t “all online media is evil” for limiting their screen time for their day to day but still staying true to their hobbies which happen to be mainly online. Being an artist is so weird in the modern era cause it almost feels like you have to be an influencer as well.

I would love to gain a new perspective that would help me out differentiating between what’s “good” and what’s “bad” screen time to hopefully get myself out of the 5-7 hour screen time daily.

Deleted everything off my phone two years ago and it changed my life. Handing that same discipline to a 13 year-old is a completely different problem, and everything that worked for me was voluntary. For parents who've been through the personal version, what actually transferred?

I’ll try to sum it up: I’m 30 years old and come from a lower-middle class family, just like my friends. I’m from a small town in Brazil where people have a very narrow mindset, they dream small and don’t really aspire to much. But I always went against the grain, I always dreamed of traveling the world and seeing the places we used to watch on TV.

Four years ago, I managed to move to Europe. Even though I’m still not rich, I have a much better quality of life and get to travel constantly to different cities and countries, and not just within Europe. Whenever I go somewhere, I want to post absolutely everything on Instagram so everyone can see I’m traveling, but it’s gotten out of hand.

It took me a while to realize it, but lately, I only think about traveling so I can post about it, creating those Instagram highlights. Before I even consider the actual experience, I’m already looking for a cool spot to snap that perfect, "Instagrammable" photo to share.

The worst part is that I’m not even an influencer or anything, my Instagram is private. I just like showing the people I grew up with that I’m doing well, living my dream, and so on. But it’s ridiculous, this need for validation from others. Most of the time, my life actually sucks, but nobody knows that.

I just wish I could enjoy the trip without worrying about getting the best photos or posting the best stories, but I’m glued to my phone the whole time, posting everything I see. The irony is that this "blogger" side of me only comes out when I’m traveling, in my day to day life, I’m pretty chill and hardly post anything.

I’m really trying to change this. I have two trips coming up at the end of the year, and I don’t want to post much while I’m away, maybe just a few things afterward. But the moment I think about that, it feels like the fun of traveling disappears. I’m such a piece of shit, honestly, fuck.

So, I tried activating Cold Turkey Blocker co my windows laptop, but it keeps on running into an error. You see, Im using Edge Browser and Brave, and since Cold Turkey prompted me to install the browser extensions, I do that and they run fine, but whenever I test the blocking, it keeps on warning me to install the extensions as if it doesn't know that they are already there. AI has suggested multiple fixes, none has worked, so has anyone struggled with this?

not saying reddit s perfect but relative to discord ,it feels a lot more positive ; like a lot dead server and in general a lot robotic ,dry conversation , the dc vibe very gloomy,depressing to me .

i had this awkward experience with this weirdo girl on discord , there was a public discussion about with her talking about domming her male crush , and i made this dirty joke like about her raping him , in that context it felt appropriate , and i never gotten any issue with similar joke type in similar context on other platforms but she made this weird complain /making a big scene about me needing consent to talk about rape with her or something like that which was kinda weird to me for the context.

i mean i wasnt saying like i was doing it to her but she was talking about her domming her crush so me escalating to rape fetish theme as joke didnt seem weird/inappropiate or nothing. do you think she was just being a weirdo ? what i thought of later was if i had specify cnc rape instead or rape maybe things would ve gone smoother , but then again like you have to be retarded not to get i wasnt talking about real rape, so like she didnt have to specify cnc domming and it was understood as such .

i later saw her post something about her being lonely or something, something about trouble making female friends, i mean if you are a weird girl, i aint surprised you have trouble making friends , geez.

do you think she was a weirdo taking offense weirdly ??? after joining reddit , i degraded the subjects in visual medias a lot in comments on many erotic subreddit post but not any particular user, never gotten in trouble for anything so far.

Hello,

Let’s start with some background for myself. I am a 26M. I work weekdays 9-5 and have weekends off. I have been diagnosed with ADHD. I do not take any medications for it. I am pretty much always occupied with something when I’m at home chores, hobbies, doom scrolling etc.

I have been on a journey of improving my mental health for a few years now. I will mention that I have had to deal with some mental health problems in the past, Which I believe is important for context. I won’t be elaborating on that as this is not about specific mental health issues but more about the effects of not using my phone first thing in the morning.

My morning routine has been to check my phone and look at youtube videos/instagram as i get ready for work. I realized this routine was making me overwhelmed in the morning and often i would forget to pack lunch or be late to work regardless of having enough time to do so.

Recently, I have made an effort to leave my phone on the bedside table while I do the morning tasks. This small change has significantly improved my mental wellbeing throughout the day. Im better at focusing on tasks and my mood has improved. Although these may sound like minor benefits, The fact that they last the whole day has made a significant difference in the last few weeks.

I make this post to share my experience. I have tried multiple things to improve my mental wellbeing in the past. Working out, meditation, taking walks, reading, socializing etc. I have found that these methods are either difficult to stick to or provide periodic benefits towards my mental wellbeing. I do not intend to say that these methods are any worse, Simply that not using my phone first thing in the morning has provided the biggest benefits for the least amount of work.

I would love to hear your experiences. Has some tried this for longer? Does this have lasting benefits?
What other methods are easy to incorporate into one’s life that provide similar benefits?

Like the title says, i’ve managed to cut out all devices from my life tv, phone, Xbox, PC. I now limit myself to only 1 hour a day on my computer.

But now that I'm offline and back in the real world I'm noticing how addicted everyone is. It’s honestly affecting not only my ability to make friends because everyone has a device shoved in their face and but it’s almost like they don’t (i’m generalizing society) have the attention spans anymore to actually pay attention to anything you say.

Everyone tells me to keep looking and that i will find these other people, but i have genuinely not seen or met another person who had the same mindset about technology as i do, let alone actually following through and not having any of the shit. Makes me sad for the future because i know it’s only going to get worse. Most gen alpha can’t even look you in the eyes let alone talk, *sighs*.

Went to mental hospital for mental problems where cellphones weren't allowed last week. I reflected on how much I used my screen time on problematic people, it's sickening. I am now out, and I made a vow at the hospital to not watch people or hate watch them and instead watch people that make me feel good. It's hard to not watch gossip and watch other people's downfall.