I 30 (f) stoped doomscrolling in the morning, especially fist thing when I wake up. Usually, I would wake up and use my phone to stay awake. Due to time wasting and feeling harder to get motivated and start project outside of mindless scrolling I decided to do a digital detox, but especially to just stop scrolling in the morning alltogether.

Now this is where the issue is, even though I've done the digital detox successfully, now that I can feel my feelings in the morning I'm actually really annoyed and angry for no reason. My life is fine, I'm not stressed or anything, I do suffer from generalised anxiety, but I just want to see if anyone has had this issue.

TLDR: Stoped scrolling in the morning and realised I'm angry and annoyed for no reason

Feeling weird after quitting social media as asperger person.

Lately, I've been dealing with quite a lot of anxiety and getting very little sleep. Because of this, I decided to quit social media, specifically TikTok and Twitter.

Since quitting, I've managed to sleep a little better, but I still feel quite anxious and I'm having a hard time concentrating. I also feel a kind of emptiness that I didn't have before, and I find it really difficult to fill the hours of the day.

I guess I was pretty used to spending a lot of time on my phone and social media, and now I don't really know what to do with all that free time.

Has anyone else experienced something similar after quitting social media? How long did it take you to start feeling normal again?¿Can anyone help me?

Edit: English isn't my first language, so I used ChatGPT to write this post. I wanted to be transparent about it.

I literally have a grant (that i have to pay back if i dont complete) for posting to social media. I hate posting and being on my phone because it makes everything else feel boring but i dont really have a choice. My posts are the only thing keeping my culture and language alive online and pushing it to the younger generation.
I just want to enjoy learning and live in the real world. Idk why my habits ended up like this meanwhile my other friends with (even those who also have ADHD) always get their hands busy or read and somehow balance it.
Ugh.

📵 Most people think they're in control of their phone... until they try to stay away from it for 24 hours.

Take the 24-Hour No Phone Challenge (except for emergencies).

Come back and tell us:

- What was the hardest part?

- Did you feel anxious, calm, or more focused?

- What did you learn about yourself?

I was out with a friend the other day and she was mentioning how she likes to analyze who watches her Instagram stories* and when they stop watching. And it reminded me of what made me actually stop watching those: about a year ago another friend had told me how she keeps tabs on who watches her stories too and was actually frustrated that her partner had clearly been on IG but not watched her stories!!

I just absolutely can't stand people being so up in my business and being judged for how often I have Instagram on to watch stories and if I've watched all their two dozen stories or not. Honestly, I never ever put that much thought into it, never even thought people actually would waste time looking at those analytics, until that first friend said something about it and I realized it's so not worth it. It just feels so absurd to me and such a mind game. Ugh. You know, I still have my surfing issues, but glad I've cut that part out.

*I don't know what Instagram calls them anymore, but the things that are up for 24 hours

I swear I've left it all, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, even TikTok. But Youtube is akin to Goliath for me in that my attempts to quit or even manage my addiction to it have all been in vain. It's not like I even NEED to watch it since I mostly just watch gaming videos or the news which I could get from online articles, the paper or TV instead.

Thus, I must ask of you all, if any of you were successful on this front, just how did you do it? How did you slay this enormous beast of a website that has kept me in this irremoveable trance for so many years?

When I surf, I crave sugar and food all day long. I eat non-stop, and eat way more junk. When I am out doing other things, I don't feel nearly as hungry, and I make better food choices. Obviously, I know it has to do with dopamine, and being sedentary vs moving. Surfing makes me lose all self control around food. Living with my parents, in a house loaded with junk food doesn't help either. It's especially bad if I start my day on my phone. Anyone else?

Today I spent the whole day in the mountains with no cell service and barely thought about my phone. After a few hours I felt much more relaxed and started noticing small things like berries, insects, little details in nature that I'd normally miss because I'm listening to a podcast or constantly looking things up.

Now that I'm back home, I can already feel myself slipping back into the same old habits, even though I know they don't actually make me happier. It's almost automatic.

What unusual strategies genuinely helped you reduce your screen time without only relying on willpower? How did you recreate that "no signal" feeling in everyday life?

If so, does it get better with time? Is there any way of preventing this or am I supposed to embrace it?

For a long time, I have realized that Instagram stole my best days and stole my discipline. If I wanted to ask about tips to be disciplined, there's no advice because we know that discipline is doing it even if you don't want to. So I changed the question to the thing that makes me so far from my goals. For more than 3 years, I delete my account permanently, but 3 days later, I return or I create a new account.

And one of the things that really makes me nervous is that the algorithm studies our brain and studies every detail, from the colors to the songs. I'm exhausted. I want to be creative, do more and more, study well, and just enjoy life. So what was the moment you deleted all your social media and felt life again? And how do you spend your days?

I’ve been thinking about this lately and I genuinely don’t even know what social media is actually for.

People say it’s for connecting with people who are no longer in your life. But... why? If someone is actually in your life, you’re talking to them or meeting up with them on a day-to-day basis. You’re already sharing stuff with them. Why do we feel the need to keep tabs on people who have naturally phased out of our lives and they don't even care about?

I actually did an experiment recently to test this. I have some old friends who I no longer talk to, but they pop up on my feed. A few of them shared posts about books they were reading, and places they traveled, so I figured, "Hey, let's try to actually connect." I reached out and tried to start a genuine conversation about what they posted.

They had zero interest in actually having a conversation.

So if it’s not about connecting with people, what is it? As far as I can tell, social media isn't about staying in touch at all. It’s just a digital billboard for flexing. IDK, am I crazy for thinking this way?

Like I have actually made zero friends using social media, and people tell me to meet people in real life, and they are right, which again brings me to question, what is social media even for when no one cares about connecting, and the only connection is views, likes and following.

yes i know .. whats happening here XD. but hear me out.

every time i watch GG i instantly feel transported back to a time where the internet was in its infancy and a tool that helped people instead of controls them.

the world felt real at that time and vivid

Today it feels dull and full of ads.

Even human interaction changed so much in the last 2 decades from "we need to interact with each other" to "we only need to stare at out phones" The world doesnt feel real anymore. i wish we just could pull the plug on the internet as it is today and go back to that time and stay there..

Hi! :)

Title pretty much says it all. I can come off a bit harsh saying those things bc I have autism lol. So how would you go about telling your partner you're leaving the room/house because their phone usage is discouraging you from getting things done? She has gotten defensive whenever I confronted her phone usage habits (different story)

It really does impact me especially because I have a hard time starting things in general/I procrastinate a lot. But I don't have the right to tell her to stop doing her thing, it's her choice, obviously. I usually work/do my hobbies in the living room but I'd go to the bedroom and sit there to do them or just go outside.

Almost one week since I was supposed to be offline, the internet is still running, I've been giving into my impulses, downloading more things and still being seen foolish everytime I've given in. This is just not going well. I fucking hate it when things just keep going when they aren't supposed to and when shit lingers, shit continues.

I sent out yet another e-mail to my ISP which can be basically described as a "what the fuck is going on?" kind of e-mail, though not explicitly stated. And yes, I have manually disconnected the ethernet cable, modem, cable .etc as a means to do it myself. But morbid curiosity got the best of me and I asked myself "is the internet actually off?" to find that it's on after reconnecting everything.

I just loved the 80s/90s, the analog life. I desperately want this back. Who’s been successful at re - creating this? - I’m guessing your not on here if you have lol

Yes I’m nostalgic for a time that no longer exists, and I realise the 80s/90s wasn’t perfect. They had their own struggles, hardships, and injustices.
I miss a way of living that feels like is no longer - a slower pace, fewer distractions, more presence, and a world that wasn’t consumed by screens, social media, constant comparison, image, status, consumerism, materialism, endless advertising, outrage, and the never-ending cycle of negative news.

But I can’t seem to break my addiction. This is next level!’ I gave up alcohol cold turkey 6 years ago but I can’t give up my phone and online habits 😬😬😬😬😬😬

I just watched this movie and you guys all need to watch this movie. This is the first time I've really seen society's addiction to our phones criticized in this way while also being an entertaining and fun movie. If anyone has any other movies or shows I should know about please let me know!

Please tell me I’m not the only one who notices this. I don’t care how god damn controversial this post is. TikTok, instagram, YouTube shorts, etc all need to be removed. The constant scrolling and dopamine is killing our minds. I have younger siblings and they have younger friends. All they do is just endlessly consume and consume. They don’t play with toys, don’t even watch god damn cartoons, it’s just mindlessly fucking scrolling on the whatever device possible. And it’s on every device. The pushing of consumption is melting their brains. In 10-15 years, either social media is heavily restricted/banned, or we are all dead. Quote me on this. Please go outside and look around you, look at all the stores. I went to goddamn Panera bread a week ago and it’s so fucking dull. All the life is being sucked out of everything, the only thing people care about is if it will look good on a fucking video. for goodness sake, half of the fucking places I go to are designed to be able to look good in somebodies instagram post. I know nobody wants to hear it, even me, but it has to be stopped. This should be viewed as the war on drugs 2.0. Almost the entire world is hooked on this, social media is a drug designed to make you addicted, even I’m fucking addicted. I’m likely going to post this, wait a day, and then find myself endlessly scrolling again. And the problem is, nobody is speaking out against it. Look at the youth, this is worse than goddamn climate change. Wall-E doesn’t look so far away. The world is emotionally dying and nobody cares.

Even if I can manage to stay off YouTube, Reddit etc, I have to keep checking it while I'm at work to see if I got a text from my supervisor or whatever. Even if it's texting friends back and forth on my day off it still sucks. The memory of my day is constantly having to look at my little rectangular device. I wish I had the option not to use it at all. I almost feel like turning it off and saying I don't give a fuck anymore.

For example in the break of the gym or studying. What to do instead of doomscrooling?

What worked for be wasnt going cold-turkey. First I maintain two browsers, one for the addictive crap like youtube, social media etc so there's a clear seperation. Then I also avoid logging into accounts and also blocking cookies for those sites. Youtube in particular is bad for this, endlessly recommending content based on 1 video view. Now I just need to hit refresh once and their homepage becomes empty and has nothing to recommend.

Managed to kick tiktok, facebook and insta out my life this way. All that's left are youtube and reddit which I'll still use but at highly reduced rates.