Tamber

I'm makign ur pip glow do so good.

I had this information addiction almost when I was really into reddit, which I hated, but still read a lot of because it had a deluge of new shit to look at all day every day. I figured it was because of the endless and reliable hit of dopamine. I still do it to this day but I only read like 3-4 subreddits, I block reddit in my hosts file on nearly every computer I spend any time on.

Absolutely a Big Mood.

I don’t think this is so much “breaking free isn’t as relaxing as I’d hoped” as we’ve just been at this for years and this expectation of More Internet And Dopamine Pings is deeply engrained in our habits.

I’ve definitely been doing the “cycle several sites” thing too, but I’ve been trying to get on things that demand my attention, so that I can’t fall into that trap or even have time to peek at my phone.

This is going to take some time and effort to fix. Hopefully it goes well for you!

Yeah, I did the same thing and don’t really have a solution yet. I’ve been trying to sit with and diagnose the discomfort with that lack of info, and it’s challenging!

same

this has been happening to me too! instead of running out of internet though i seem to be coming back around to genuine web surfing again. i've been going through neocities sites and using RSS feeds and marginalia search and geminispace etc. basically i'm spending less time on major social media sites and more time on the "small web"

my plan to deal with this is to vanish into the wilderness for a year

same, so far the only thing that seems to work for me is to just start drawing whenever I feel the urge

Oh, I've had that a lot too. I wonder how much of it is also compounded by, if you're northern hemisphere, the early evenings feeling like interminable nighttime so filling time feels different. I too really struggle with restless scroll syndrome, and am working to try and reduce it, so will love to hear positive solutions (My phone tells me I've opened the Twitter app 115 times today. Just,, out of habit. I'm also current on cohost, because I enjoy just, the novelty of everything people are posting. I occasionally dip into the global tags, or start browsing via people's pages).

I'm trying to combat it through watching films using a "no browse just click" start. Also music/podcasts when I can engage with them (often more than I think I would, once they're actually playing). I'm enjoying playing CDs again after a too long time without a working stereo.

Good luck with your detox/un-winding?

i've replaced a good bit of doomscrolling time with book reading, it won't be for everyone but i do recommend a simple epub reader and then your local library if you got it (free), library genesis (free but differently), to start filling in stuff to read

poor dopamine starved brain just pulling at the lever even after it stops dispensing the good brain chemical drip feed

I've been experiencing exactly this as well. Lots of endlessly checking Discord, refreshing various forums, Mastodon, and Cohost, and waiting for the next interesting thing to happen. Somehow it feels more distracting and paralyzing rather than less.

Still not going back to regular Twitter usage, though. I feel dirty enough just going back there to occasionally RT projects I've been involved with.

this post, and all the discussion in the comments, is so relatable. I've been cutting back on social media (I have a blocking app on my phone to prevent me spending hours scrolling) but not limiting myself on things that don't seem harmful to my mental health, like cohost, but I run out of things to look at pretty quick. I've been trying to get back into creative hobbies, reading, etc etc to fill my time. although, there's still days I really crave scrolling and can't focus on anything more substantial. more frequently i just feel fomo. i'm assuming/hoping these feelings will subside soon.

i'm so sick of the way mainstream social media makes me feel simultaneously addicted and overwhelmed. idk if other people get this way, maybe it's just me, but it's an exhausting way for me to live and I can't keep doing it. before i had twitter I used to say "I don't have the constitution for twitter" and I think I was onto something.

well at least i can put a name to this feeling now. i've been almost constantly switching between here, mastodon, and what's left of twitter (many of the people i followed no longer post there because they either moved here or mastodon completely, and now there's much less on twitter) to get the same amount of browsing done. switching between 3 different things seems like more work than just scrolling twitter was, but i feel like here and mastodon are much better communities. i kind of want twitter to go away, but it seems like a lot of people still haven't set up alternatives and losing touch with so many people would be disheartening

It definitely feels different, but I've been more active on Telegram and CoHost as I also uninstalled Twitter. The time I was giving Twitter was immediately re-allocated to other apps - so not exactly experiencing a net positive at the moment - aside from when Twitter starts getting weaponized against the groups they are working to silence.

One thing that is nice is not limiting posts/comments to 140 or 280 characters; but years of doing so posts and replies are unlikely to be much longer than that unless they need to be.

strangely, this used to happen to me on r×ddit. but doesn't as often here really. i had basically one subreddit i ever looked at, and once i've viewed a page of 'best' posts, that is it. i have seen all the internet. i started looking at 'new' posts too but they have no comments so they're faster to get through

but on cohost i'm following a lot of people and there is constantly more stuff. lots of it is duplicated because of how reposts show multiple times but lots is new

i've been experiencing this lately too! funny thing is it took my phone screen getting so fucked up that it's almost unuseable for me to stop using it for social media. hell, lately i've been even forgetting to take it with me when i go out.

i also quit my job so i have way too much free time and i've been going between instagram, twitter, and cohost and it's got so repetitive that i'm just naturally losing interest in all of this bullshit (i will say cohost is such a breath of fresh air though, but i'm looking forward to the community getting bigger.)

i know i'll be in a healthier place if i embrace discarding social media from my life but it's been so long that my attention span is just totally fucked. i have such trouble even reading a book or writing a song. well, i guess it's a process.

It's like trying to quit smoking or cut back on drinking. There's a period of adjustment where things are hard because your system is so used to the way things are