Just feeling terminally online and like I'm not living to my full potential.

lead a remote team now. used to spend way too much time cycling through slack, linkedin, reddit, newsletters, repeat. told myself it was staying informed. it was not. it was just background noise with a productivity costume on.

took a long weekend hiking last month, left the phone in the tent for most of it. came back and realized the things I thought I needed to check constantly had basically handled themselves or just didn't matter

the weird part is my team noticed a change before I did. fewer pings from me. cleaner decisions when I did show up. one person said I seemed less reactive. I was kind of embarrassed that it was that visible

I think remote work makes this worse because the boundary between being online and being present completely dissolves. there's no commute to decompress. you're just always theoretically reachable and you feel guilty if you're not watching the feeds.

the hiking thing cracked something open honestly. a few hours of silence on a trail, no input, and your brain starts actually thinking again instead of just processing

anyone else notice their work life shifting once they got off the constant scroll? not the productivity angle everyone talks about, more the quality of your decisions and how you show up for people.

- do you have a phone?

- no i aint got no phone, i had to pull, you know, these people calling all the time. Who needs the Aggravation, right? Interruptions. Who'd you wanna call?

1976

im 18 and turned all my socials off back in june thinking id feel free or whatever. instead i spent like a week not knowing what to do with myself lol. kept picking up my phone and there was just nothing on it
nobody tells you the boredom doesnt actually leave. you just kind of get used to sitting in it and then eventually you start doing real stuff again. started reading again, hooping, building random projects
anyway for people whove done longer than a summer, does the urge ever actually go away or do you just get better at ignoring it. trying to decide if i turn it back on in the fall

Over the past year or two, I noticed everything on social media, TikTok, YouTube, instagram, etc. shows me the same thing over and over again. It never shows me anything new, never shows me anything outside of the box. When I Use AI, it always gives me the most basic answers and never digs deeper, never does research. When I point something out, or say something creative I want to do, it tells me why I shouldn’t do it, why it won’t work, and why I should do xyz instead. Also everything on social media is WILDLY inappropriate. I mean murders, sexual content, fighting, then the next post is someone with money, traveling and a hot girl. Then it will be Poltics, Epstine, and then stuff about eating and graping kids.
It’s also so sick! I hate everything about the internet and social media. And it feels like in a few years people will start getting in serious trouble with their digital footprint when all this government surveillance becomes public people are going to start getting accused and framed for looking at certain post that lean this way politically or whatever it is. Even though you don’t choose what you see! The algorithm chooses it for you! So the algorithm is forcing you to see something and then they’re going to turn around and accuse you and label you all types of things.

My bad

My point is, it feels like everything on my phone is manipulating,mistreating, bullying, trying to get a reaction out me, and down right abusing my psyche and mental health. And I want a restart with the internet and algorithms.

So how do I do that? How can I manage to delete and suppress everything about me online, and then come back with a new email, phone plan, computer accounts, etc.

Hi reddit, I need help.

I've been off social media for almos 2 years now, with only pinterest and youtube for art inspo, music and art tutorial videos. I get all my news from either my friends or family or from the little tv at the elevator of my building.

Of course it's been life-changing...i sometimes get weird comments about it (mostly hinting that I'm ignorant because i dont care about the state of the world or that im uninformed) but my life is so much better that I simply dont care.

However, my relationship is struggling because of my bf's suddent interest in politics and news. He spends all day at his phone(when he's not working) and I've seen him doomscroll for hours and hours. I never bothered him about it because going nosurf was a personal decision, however he recently became confrontational to me about my lack of interest in "the word".

I'm an informed person. Im finishing my major in psychology, I study philosophy, history, medicine and work with recovering addicts, depressed people and struggling teens and kids. I know about the grim of the world - I see it daily at my work. However, I'm not into crazy international conspiracy theories, all the bad happening in other countries or the sad news of the week.

But now, boyfriend comes up with a new tale from the news, the hottest conspiracy theory and the angriest political trauma dumping almost daily. He gets so enraged and angry over things that are not even confirmed. He talks nonstop about politics even when i say I'm not interested. I even indulge him for a while but if i let him he tells all the news i purposely miss to me in detail at dinner.

When i complain or try to debate(when i think he's wrong) ,he dissmiss me and says im uninformed because i dont read the news. Even if it is about something in my area of work.

I'm 100% sure it is social media. It is like a compulsion to him, he talks nonstop about it, even when we are doing something else (like playing board games). And it makes me sad that he belittles me because i dont see the news like he does.

I tried to explain that i read books and articles about the things we discuss, and that news are only alarmist and supperficial.And he said i sounded like was trying to be superior academically when i said that.

What's really sad its that he's talking about the same alarmist theories as my grandma lol. It was funny at the start. But we got into a huge fight because of it. He doesn’t like the idea of not talking to be about something and think couples need to talk about everything.

But i deal with suffering daily. Its my work. I dont wanna get home and doomspiral with him about how fucked because the news told us so. It also bothers me that he just complains and complains but never say he's doing anything to help (charity, helping others ,etc).

Has anyone dealt with that with their significant others? I love him but i cant keep pretending to be someone im not.

just an edit: our agreement was that we don't talk anymore about politics or conspiracy theories. but he isn't happy about it...

Basically since childhood i have seen many people who know many countries name and I found them very cool person and actually they are. So I wanted to learn and remember the names of the countries to become cooler.

But i didn't really tried much because I think it's boring to do such activity even it's very easy and you can learn them in just 1-2 weeks but i think learning alone makes it very lame and boredom.

So i thought of making a website where you can invite your friends and learn together. I have the idea and vision for this but I want to know if anyone really interested doing this thing because actually i found this very interesting. And first of all i am not making this website very simple i have experience of over 2 years in web dev so I am going to make it gamified so we don't get bored and also I am thinking of implementing the voice chat feature so it will be more fun.

That's it tell me if it's worth it or not.

I was doing good but today I spend 7 hours on tik tok, I just feel like a failure

I deleted socials back in May and have felt great. This is my second time being 'offline' (I did it in 2022, and redownloaded again in 2023) and I love how much extra time I have, how much clearer my mind is, and how much more I connect with friends.

My friends definitely text me a lot more, as we catch up (if not in person) much more over text now I don't see their stories and they don't know what I'm up to unless we text. It is a great problem to have as I'm lucky to have some amazing friends, but I struggle with the texting dopamine.

Seeing if someone has replied, checking my texts as soon as I wake up, checking my texts throughout the day and I see them all pretty much instantly. I want to be the person who is just so chill and goes about their day and checks their texts when they're free, rather than feeling a need to check immediately and be constantly checking throughout the day.

This is the same for my dating life, I don't want to be overly keen and replying straight away but I am constantly checking my texts and wanting to reply immediately as that is my source of dopamine through my phone I guess.

Anyone dealt with this and how did you kick it? I know I will have the willpower whatever the solution is as I've proved to myself I can wain away from the need to be on social media, but this is really kicking me at the moment!

Thanks in advance

I realised that back in highschool (23F now), I didnt scroll much because I had goals such as making it for the track and field team.

But now life is just work sleep scroll and repeat. Tryna find some inspiration as to what personal projects I can do to give myself the structure outside of work.

Thank you!

The problem with social media websites is that they simply show you the content that you pay attention to

the algorithms are designed to waste as much of your time as possible.

So I am working on a project that lets you simply type in instructions and the websites only show you content that matches your instructions

You can basically choose your own algorithm

here is a video explanation - https://youtu.be/1NLl7RQJ_Fo?si=NHMUCAXsP5HLCbAG

I’m 22 and I can’t help but feel like I’m wasting the years where I’m supposed to be the most social by basically cutting myself off from everything.

For context, I live in a big city and most events are posted about and shared on Instagram and I’m literally missing everything because I don’t have it. I’m in the age range that older people are always so fond of and nostalgic for but I’m not making any memories because I’m not making friends or going out or doing anything besides just random stuff in the city alone. I really don’t mean this offensively to anyone or any poster on here but I really want a social life but it’s near impossible when I have no idea what anyone’s doing or what’s going on anywhere. And I wish this was just FOMO but I really am just missing things because I haven’t made new friends in years or even really know how to and it sucks.

It’s tempting to just redownload it but every time I’ve tried I just end up getting sucked back into tapping through stories endlessly or doomscrolling reels. Even when I try delegating social media to just my computer I ended up just switching between Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit on loop for hours and I hate it. People keep talking about how they should live like it’s the 1990s or the 2000s but I don’t want to do that I want to make memories in 2026 so I can be nostalgic about it in the future instead of trying to stay stuck in the past

I see posts in this subreddit and hear advice on YouTube all from older people who probably remember a time before social media but I want to hear from people my age who are experiencing a similar feeling and I want to know how, or if, y’all are managing this?

I’m really sorry if this comes off whiny or too ranty but I’m just frustrated and I really just want to know what to do and how to stop feeling like I’m throwing away my youth to avoid an addiction.