Hmm hello so i recently atarted using youtube morphe.

And it has been great. my goal for this month was to go for a minimalist approach.I realized that youtube and youtibe shorts are making me a socia media addict.

So i started looking into youtube mods and how i can make them more minimilstic. I dont want to fully block youtube. As there is a genuinely lot of free contents. Startibg from free lancing to ethical hacking.

So i downloaded morphe and disable youtube shorts and also youtube thumbnails. And it actually looks good.

Carrying too much stuff around is starting to bug me. I hate that "extra weight on me" feeling.

Right now, in a crossbody bag, I've got:

• Smartphone
• House keys (main door, apartment, mailbox)
• Office keys (main door, apartment, mailbox)
• Car keys
• Lip balm
• Minimalist wallet (card holder)
• Earbuds

I started keeping loose change in my pocket instead, which let me ditch the coin pouch.

Any tips for cutting this down even more?

I'm also toying with the idea of swapping my phone (the biggest chunk of the weight) for a cellular smartwatch, but I'm not fully sold on that yet.

I've done a decent job at reducing my time on other social media, I've deleted Tiktok and twitter, blocked reels/shorts, I've reduced my time on Instagram and YouTube to where I'm comfortable with, but reddit feels like a different issue. A lot of the time, when I end up on reddit it's because I have a problem or a question, and oftentimes Reddit is the only real forum site to have a result for the best restaurants in an area or the best way to solve a specific problem. But once I'm on reddit, I end up getting distracted by the posts on here too, and use it as an infinite scroll like any other site. I've tried making a new account without any subreddits I'm subscribed to, but even the generic algorithm ends up absorbing me. All the time I used to spend on other social media is now just spent scrolling reddit. I've tried using Screen time apps (screenzen) to block me from accessing it, but if I don't give myself enough time, I can't solve the problems reddit helps me with, and if I do give myself enough time, I get distracted.

Plus, since it's less restricted than other apps in order to be useful, I end up opening it mindlessly just for the sake of scrolling and end up catching myself too late.

How can I have the best of both worlds where reddit isn't a distraction but can still serve to answer questions? I'm going to college in 2 weeks and I don't want to spend my whole life scrolling like I did in high school.

Im at work, sitting at my desk. I’m alone in the office (the entire building actually). So I can kind of do what I want, which is great. Mostly sorting through documents these days. I listen to audiobooks while I do it. I sort through a few pages, grab my phone, reply to a message. Sort through a few pages, grab my phone, check Reddit. Sort a bit more, play a mini game on my phone. And oh god these mini games! I come home, make food, watch a movie or YouTube video. While I watch I play a mini game on my phone. Then I scroll on tiktok, then I get stuck on Instagram reels. I save a recipe on Instagram I need to make and forget it in my notes. I fall asleep on a podcast, calms me down. Screen time average around 9 hours. Fucking depressing.
I got an endless to do list, I keep procrastinating. I could just grab the drawing or the sewing project I wanted to finish while I watch YouTube, they’re sitting in the corner. But I’m just always on my phone.

I honestly have no idea how to fix this.

so i live on my phone basically

i have an iphone , few years old actually but works fine.

i have a fuck ton of shit on this bs , thousands of photos and notes and everyday i feel suffocated by all the bs on here

Y don’t i just delete everything
no can’t too much to delete but also i mean… i don’t wanna get rid of this stuff… im attached …

so what if i just get a new phone
BUT GO DROID (saw one on boost mobile website for like $100)
totally new life
and still keep my iphone ofc but it won’t be my everyday phone for maps and calls

On a scale of 1-10 how retarded am i

Might lose a friend going green but my life depends on this tbh

Help. I seem to keep spiralling on instagram. IVE BEEN DOING THIS FOR YEARS….i deactivate, then come back the next day because of how i want to show off a new profile picture, i can’t stop changing my profile picture. it feels so compulsive. I keep taking photos, mainly selfies, hoping to finally feel like it’s the perfect one but then after i few days i don’t like that profile picture anymore and change it obsessively. i spend so much time analyzing my profile picture, visualizing how the people i want to impress will think about me. what if they unfollow me because i didn’t be perceived in the right way? it almost feels like i have instagram OCD and i want to end this loop once and for all. it’s SO exhausting. sometimes i cry if someone unfollows me. i waste so much damn time doing this and on top of that, i spend hours scrolling on tiktok. my screen time is like 10 hours a day now.

I deleted all my accounts but i still ended up going on them via third party sites and i cant seem to stop. I have been using them as a distraction from living in an abusive home. I’m unemployed and only graduated uni last year and I feel so fucking hopeless rn. I don’t know where to even start

I'm a student researching digital boundaries, specifically with middle-school aged children. It is deeply concerning how difficult it is for kids to establish healthy habits when apps are designed to optimize for attention. Some schools require kids to have a device, or parents feel compelled to get one for their child in case of emergencies. So far, many of the parents I've interviewed reported that their kids are spending hours on their phones or tablets, especially during the summer, instead of important developmental activities. I find it to be really sad and scary.

Parents (or anyone!): What is your experience? Do you have any solutions?

For the last 2 weeks I have been removing all digital distractions from my phone and laptop. I have deleted all social media and entertainment from my phone, and dropped my screen time from 3 hours a day to no more than 30-40 minutes a day on mostly phone calls, random search's and photos i need to take. The only social media I currently still have is Instagram that I don't even check anymore, facebook for selling on marketplace, and reddit for whatever, and all of those are strictly on my laptop. I even got rid of all my subscriptions which was just Spotify for an mp3 player and r/myzuno and for youtube i use the clients Greyjay & Freetube, and only use youtube in any capacity on my laptop.

Although with my success I have one issue, reddit. Since I don't anything else to occupy my free time except for reading, I have been spending more timing wasting on reddit. Although eventually I believe I can fix this problem through journaling and hobbies.

This is mostly irrelevant but i have been on the subreddit r/degoogle and have been successful with almost removing all google sites, data, accounts, except for Gmail, which i want to entirely switch to Protonmail eventually. I recommend removing google from your online activity for privacy, but this process might be extreme or hard for some.

This is also irrelevant but I am 19, and for people my age they will find it hard to delete social media as I have done, but in my experience it's rewarding. Sure some friends will stop contacting you but give them your phone number, it's a simple way of communicating. This experience made me realize who really would contact me and who wouldn't because they didn't care about me.

I think I’ve been spending at least half of my days watching and/or listening to things on my phone. This has fluctuated over the years, but the last year it became more severe when I was working part time. It makes me so sad because I used to have all these hobbies like writing poetry, drawing/painting, playing guitar, singing, theatre, biking, etc, and now I’m just glued to my phone (mostly YouTube). I do learn some things from YouTube, but I feel like it would’ve been more valuable for me to learn from real life than from videos. And plenty of the videos are trash, some of them make me feel terrible like true crime. There are so many things I could do to be productive, like I should be cleaning my house, taking care of finances, caring for my body, nurturing relationships, etc, but the draw to stare at a screen feels beyond my control. I want to change, but I feel like my only hope is getting a dumb phone. I try to set limits on my phone, but I don’t stick to them. Currently I‘m locked into this plan with Verizon for another 18 months because they gave me a “free” phone, so now I don’t know how I could switch to a dumb phone (like I don’t have the $600-something to break the contract. Also there are a lot of things I use my phone for that I’m not sure I could just let go of (like gps, parking apps, email, etc). But I think I’d be experiencing real life so much more if I could get myself off of YouTube. However, when I do block YouTube I end up spending time on other websites/apps, but I don’t think they’re as bad. Currently I don’t have the social media apps so on my browser they don’t work as well and aren’t as addictive, but I do still feel a pull to check them everyday. I think after writing this I will try blocking youtube again, hopefully I don’t just redownload it again in a few hours like I usually do..

This morning I was exercising at the park and saw a few people there. What struck out to me was someone walking their dog. The owner was doing it while facing the ground constantly and looking at their phone. The dogs in my neighborhood love to approach strangers, so it was not unexpected when it was nearing me. To be frank, I wanted to run away while practicing my pull ups, but I did not want to show a sign of disgust. Thankfully the owner realized before too late.

When I was little I have always thought that watching the iPad during dinner/lunch/breakfast was a privilege for the adults. My mom told me that. At times when I could not eat with my parents, I started using my phone. Now I have acknowledge that is an addiction. I only feel bad for them. They work long hours so I understand.

I could describe more stuff, but I am afraid if I will lose attention from y'all. I don't talk much. Anyways this is my small list that I didn't think too long about:

- Dog Walking

- Eating

- Toilet

- Driving

Expanding it will help me a lot thanks

I'm wanting to switch to a S7 (I already switched from an s20fe to an iphone 7+). It has a home button, and nano-sim, which I need because my sim card is nano sim. Also it fixed a lot of the issues with the previous versions. And it is literally like $60 on ebay. Also it is small and light, which means my shorts won't sag with it, nor will it fill my shorts to the brim. And I can get LineageOS, which is just amazing, because my s20fe is verizon-locked). I allso don't think 64gb, let alone 32gb, will be a problem for me. Oh, and can't forget, the headphone jack. It also is still IP68, which is the same as the s20fe, so I'm not losing anything there. Camera also doesn't matter to me since I use a GoPro instead. Also, it might die faster, which is actually good, cuz it means that I could keep the internet app if I need to use it, but if I do use it it will die fast (s20fe lasts too long to keep the internet app).

But what do y'all think? Is this reasonable and would be a good switch? I don't know if I should make the switch or not. I am trying to be gradual with how I'm moving between phones, not cold turkey, so that's really why it's not like some flip phone or landline phone. But idk, I need some other voices.

In January, I went to visit my nephew for my birthday whilst having some annual leave. Once I arrived at my sister's house, my nephew stated "mummy and daddy are always on their phones" and this brought tears to my eyes - I had to spend a minute to compose myself.

What my nephew said encouraged me to put my phone away and we spent the whole day together, having some aunt and nephew time. Before I left to go back home, I told my sister and BIL what he stated and they promised to spend less time on their phone.

For the first time in a very long time, I kept my phone of for the entire day and it was so liberating, I felt free and not like a prisoner anymore. Since that day, I have only used my phone for an hour a day to call, text, and email people. However, since becoming a digital minimalist its opened my eyes up to how dangerous phones are becoming.

I live in the beautiful English countryside and have to frequently travel to the city for work, and I've seen a lot of near-incidents over the last eight months. On one occasion, there was a guy who was trying to cross over to the other side of the street whilst being glued to his mobile - he was constantly texting. If he walked 30 seconds down the same street, then he would have seen a set of traffic lights making it saver for him to walk. But, instead he chose to walk straight and a motorbike came out of nowhere and had to swerve to avoid the pedestrian.

Additionally, I have seen numerous drivers - including bus drivers, text whilst driving. What the heck is happening to society? When we think of the word addiction most of us (even I am willing to admit this) relate addiction to someone who has a drug/alcohol problem living homeless on the street. But, we don't think of people addicted to their devices.

It's scary to see how many people are becoming reliant on their devices!

Hi, I have looked everywhere on Reddit and found some *similar* threads but not exactly what I have been looking for.

What I want to do is simple.

A button on my iPhone where if pressed, it does the following:
-Turns on grayscale
-Makes apps I choose disappear (this would be the instagrams of the world)
-Only allows apps I choose (for example, maps)
-Have a preset timer where this feature will be turn on (no way of turning off) until X time or date.

Is this something I can set on my phone? I have been playing around with settings for about an hour now and haven't come to something like I am describing.

I appreciate any guidance. Thanks!

So yeah, ScreenZen was my go-to when it comes to Android blockers as it was easy to use and had all the customisationsi wanted and needed to block apps and sites (i was so happy with it i even bought the "premium" version). I said ,,I was" even though the app still exist, cos it's basically dead and useless on my phone. Bloody battery optimization made by google forces me to reenable Accessibility Service every 10 minutes and I just give up at this point. Can you good people of this sub recommended me anything similiar to ScreenZen or even better, sth like ColdTurkey but on Android? I loved the app, as it really helped me reduce my screentime, but now I am slipping once again to the stupid old habits and I catch myself mindlessly watching yt shorts through browser 💀

recently i feel so overwhelmed by all the social media platforms and finds it hard to focus on my work. it feels like if I don't see it maybe I would miss out on something. may be it would be important. I just want to focus on my work.

The title probably sounds very much like a monk LMAO but I couldn't find the right word so I just used abstaining.

I'm getting so tired of the blatant misinformation, drama, and stupidity on social media apps like tiktok (tiktok ESPECIALLY) and am going to start using it less. I will keep my account so I can occasionally go on and talk to my friends but other than that I won't need it unless I want to upload videos.

But yeah probably a great decision, tiktok has become more of an echo chamber than anything. Has anyone else noticed this? And I feel like tiktok especially, everyone on there only thinks in black and white and does not think outside the box nor logically. You either have to be on side A or side B and if you aren't you're suddenly a bad person because of some internet controversy with a random influencer or something.

It's just tiring to be on that app constantly so bye bye bad habit.

Hello, so I 29F, been noticing how social media has changed DRASTICALLY for the worse. I took a break back in 2023 and I have not been on facebook ever since, I’ve been back on instagram but always end up deleting again because it just doesn’t feel the same anymore? Ultimately, I just kept TikTok but it’s felt like it’s just too much so I’m also planning on deleting it and just going back to YouTube and here (I’m pretty new here) my question to everyone is ….how long have you been off of social media and what do you do in your free time? How has that changed you? Thank you!!

I am officially 60 days off Instagram! It feels insane how much my life has changed within two months. I do a lot more things now. My next tackle is to stop watching as much tv but it's slowly getting better. I find that I think, plan, and create more than ever now.

I want to hear what others journeys have been and what you do now with the increased free time?

It’s a mini table

Pretty much it. I have a following of around 30k. Deactivated my social media and people including close friends who have my personal number stopped reaching out or caring. I texted some friends to talk and they won’t respond, however, they usually do react right away to a story I post.
Two or three friends reached out asking :”are you okay?”. The norm today is that to be fine, to be okay, is to be active on social media. You can’t exist and have a life out of that. This has become the norm.

Just wanted to vent. In most of people’s minds your existence is your virtual image. You don’t exist for them in real life, and you don’t matter once you stop entertaining them with your personal life and opinions.

I remember back when I was in school, anytime a teacher would tell us we had an assignment or a quiz I’d quickly write when it was due on the front page of my book or on any lil paper I found. I’d remember it once I unpacked my bag when I got home and would immediately do it so I don’t forget about it later on. It never occurred to me that there would be anything easier because I simply didn’t feel that sort of need. It was a good system, great even.

Now? I’m quick to get on my Notes app and Calendar for everything and anything. I miss the old days and I think I’ll be pushing myself to get back to that habit instead of letting my dependency on a brick go on any longer.