Youtube: There are a few long-form creators I watch, maybe 4 hours a month of content. Besides that, viewing history is off, no apps, browser extensions block mostly everything (comments, suggestions, etc.)

Instagram: I have a 15 minute daily timer, because I sometimes post, and I sometimes receive DMs.

Reddit: Fully blocked, I think I ublocked everything.

Tiktok: I won't even download it ever again. It has an algorithm like no other for sucking me in. Dangerously addictive.

Facebook? Deleted it completely around 2013, so no idea what's going on there.

Its the endless shortform videos. The brain was not meant to switch contexts every 20 seconds for 3 hours straight. I replaced most of my screens with e ink, and only allow myself to scroll through text based sites and rss feeds

Why were you scrolling, what were you scrolling for? Were you trying to fill some void? :D

I do scroll on Instagram, but it was mainly to share some reels with my girlfriend, no other purpose. It was not addiction. I tend to forget to check hers (which she does not like so I try not to), and when I check hers, I look at some reels to send back, then I close the app.

I did scroll on Facebook when I started using it recently, and it might be leaning towards the addiction side, but I stopped myself from doing it because it is a waste of time and I realized everyone is arguing there, and their arguments are horrendous. I feel like were I to read it all day it would dumb me down.

But yeah, I think the best move is to not play at all. Use Facebook only when you absolutely must. Same with anything else. If you have Discord, you may use it for discussions, whether technical or not, but it can be just as addictive as the other website.

This is so true. I can't signal boost it enough.

I'm also a recovering social media addict, it was a slow and painstaking transition but the benefits in terms of attention, concentration and attitude have been profound. The main metric for me was going from almost 5 hours a day of phone time 2-3 years ago, to about 1 hour today. Of course the socials still snuck in on other devices but that was the main thing which killed the poison at its root and then eventually all the offshoots withered.

The apps condition you to come back through a feedback loop. Once I broke the feedback loop enough times the whole idea of going into one of these apps or sites and watching my life disappear into it started to feel revolting, like I just knew it was going to make my day worse not better, then the hold was gone.

The next battle I see on my horizon is that I sometimes watch 20-30 minutes of YouTube subscriptions in the morning with my coffee. There's some good content, but sooner or later Google's going to try and kill my ad blocker and probably look for new ways to creep that time up into hours instead of minutes. I know it's coming and I'm ready to die on this hill rather than lose my morning. I will do absolutely anything to continue blocking ads, up to and including saying goodbye to YouTube, to Google, to a web browser, putting only TUI interfaces on my TV, anything.

My favorite small act of defiance this year was purchasing a $120 deluxe hardcover edition of the Lord of the Rings trilogy - that's a great work I enjoy enough that I'm happy to read it many times over the course of my life, it improves my attention span instead of worsening it, and it won't show me a single ad ever. So I figured in terms of recreation, it's one of the best investments I could make. Perhaps several of such omnibuses on a shelf next to a comfortable armchair is the best defense against Big Tech.

6 years and counting for me

How'd you do it?