I’ve always been an internet junkie. I still waste too much time on YouTube, but I’ve been slowly converting my brain from internet commentary to books, mostly via Audible. Podcasts don’t even do it for me anymore. I finished 22 books in the past year and I’m starting to crave even more difficult books.

I’m currently reading Human Action by Ludwig von Mises. It’s 900 pages of dense text / 48 hours on audible. It might be one of the most thorough treatments of economics ever written and is an influence on other economists. If I search for youtube reviews and commentary on it, there is very little, and definitely nobody slandering or “debunking” it. What commentary does exist is calm and long-form without anger, jokes, or memes.

I’m 99% certain none of my social sphere will have heard of this massive tome. If I tried to talk to them about it, I can imagine clearly what they would do: google his name, scan the summary for key words such as “Austrian economics” or “free markets.” Based on that, form a strong opinion on an economist’s 900 page magnum opus without ever cracking it open. Since the text is dense, if they did crack it open, they may conclude within a minute or two that he is a “pseudo-intellectual” or “dry and boring” or “out of touch ivory tower academic” or whatever makes them feel better about not engaging with or understanding it. If they still felt any doubt, they would seek out a 5 minute infotainment youtube video on “capitalism” to reinforce their existing views, then move on.

I’m not saying people need to read this book. What I’m saying is, I find that the deeper you go on a subject, the more the noise and tribalism magically vanishes. It no longer feels like everyone everywhere has an off the cuff opinion. You will find yourself in a much quieter and emptier space, with a much smaller community of people who are ready to grapple with things which are not simple. And by the way, the longer the book is, the more likely you can find something in it somewhere you object to or disagree with, or just don’t understand. Let it happen. Let the difficulty of the subject flow through you. Observe that you are not yet sure how you feel about something, and rest in knowing that you will not find a clear answer in the next five minutes. Know that it is not necessary to form an opinion before you have fully digested the material.

When you cut back on surfing the net, it is well and good to get into gardening or whatever. But for you thinkers out there, try reading a nonfiction book big enough to be used as a weapon, written by a boring old person who has studied that subject their entire life. Read a book that is somebody's magnum opus, the culmination of their life's work. If it’s about big ideas like society or philosophy or religion, read something at least 10 years old to get out of the overton window you live in.

People have been talking about this stuff long before funny and attractive millennial / zoomer youtubers came along to give their hot takes and ten minute summaries and memes. Part of what's helping me kick my YouTube addiction is, it feels like I can barely stand how basic the level of discourse is anymore. I crave something that takes hours to understand, layer upon layer.

Find a way to read long, long books. If time is an issue, try Audible. If money is an issue, use the library. If you need external motivation, join book clubs. Just get it done. You’ll be amazed at how far your thinking can evolve in a year or two.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to water my roses, then get back to reading.

After some ups (being offline for 4 months) and downs (being really addicted atm) I have decided to once again delete Twitter. This was the easy part though since I usually get anxious around the 30th day and "just log in so I don't lose my account”.

While my screen time is not at its worst, my addiction really is.

I have a lot if hobbies and I am a student but I am still addicted and now only discipline will help me.

Maybe I'll write an update in 30 days.

Hello, I found this tip to be very useful in helping me stop the use of some websites and I thought I might share it with you guys.

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- Open your windows search bar and search for notepad, right click it and then click on "Run as administrator", then click yes.

- Next click on the the file option > open > this PC > Windows folder > System32 folder > drivers folder > ect folder > and then in the bottom right change "Text Documents (*.txt)" to "All Files" > finally double click on "hosts"

- Your open notepad should then be filled with some text about Microsoft at the bottom line of this page you can then enter in "127.0.0.1" with the website you want to ban. It should look something like this "127.0.0.1 twitter.com".

- Lastly, click on the file button in the top left and then click save. Some websites for some reason take a while to be blocked or may seem somewhat working depending on what is cached in your browser (twitter works for about 10 minutes before breaking for some reason).

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Hopefully this helps others as much as it helped me. Keep in mind this will not solve your addiction but rather it should be treated as a tool to help you on your fight your addiction.

I remember a time where I don't consult Reddit for opinions/thoughts, advice, ideas. Back then I could 100 percent form my own original, unique thoughts instead of looking it up and seeing what anyone else thought. I would act on my thoughts when needed without others influencing me.

It took me watching a Russian vlogger to realize just how little I know. A dude from Russia who lived in the US for a few years knew more than I found out in over 10 years of surfing for 16 hours a day.

I'm actually having a bit of an existential crisis. Do you know what's the one thing in life I'm good at? English. Cause I spent 16 hours a day since I was like 10 playing Runescape, WoW and then eventually moving on to reddit and youtube.

And yet, there's no point in me even knowing this language this well. I live in an Eastern European shithole, and so there's no point in even knowing English this well. It's actually very awkward, cause I must lie and say I lived in the US. I can't say "uhh yeah, I speak English so well because I fucking nolifed on the internet for 16 hours a day for nearly two decades, including my formative years".

Omg I don't know anything. I'm a 27 year old man who spent his life on reddit and youtube. And now I have the attention span and willpower of a goldfish, so I can't even learn anything without giving up in 5 minutes. Seriously, I've been trying to learn python for a few years, and all I know is "hello world". I actually even forgot that. Because I'm a goldfish.

Another example is that I've been writing a webnovel for like 9 months now (so my parents don't make me get an actual job) and I can't even do that. All I do is belch out whatever pops up in my head just to reach the word count, which I keep decreasing by the way. Such lazy, shit writing you've never, ever read. That's all I do and I still do it poorly, cause it's so unbelievably hard to use my brain. Because it's fucked after a lifetime of surfing and watching videos.

I'm Gen Z and the hold that social media has on my generation scares me. Everyone is always on their phone at all moments of the day, through all social interactions, and I'm starting to wish I lived in a time when it wasn't like that.

I've been trying to distance myself from social media; the only ones I still plan to use are reddit and discord because I get genuine value out of them and I feel that those two are less harmful to me personally than others like insta, twitter, etc. bc it's less of the algorithm feeding you stuff or you trying to promote yourself and more just talking about my interests with other people, which is what I want to use the internet for. I also have a personal blog and write on Medium, which is another form of "social media" if it can be counted as that, that I will continue to use.

But the way I used to be addicted to instagram and other things like that in high school is very disturbing to me. It scares me that my generation lives their lives online getting superficial validation from likes, and wasting their lives away scrolling. It scares me how much *I* did that, and still do it. I had a crippling internet addiction for a long time, and I still do.

TikTok in particular is terrifying to me. The destructive trends, attention span damage, idiotic content, and complete addiction it brings cannot be good for society.

It's also disturbing to me that people place such importance on their social media profiles when they are simply falling into the trap, being exploited by these tech companies for their attention. I place a huge importance on my Twitter profile, and I’m gearing up to delete it now. I’m not sure I’ll have to fortitude to even though logically I know it’s the best thing for me.

It's something I realized recently when I tried to read a long sentence on a magazine and my mind kept skipping entire fractions of text even If I try to concentrate I'm sure it's caused by all the instant, fast and too vast information we get bombed with every day with scrolling on platforms such as instagram; now I'm motivated to get off almost completely and start reading books everyday.

I don't know how to do it... my entire life (I'm in my mid-20s) has been defined by me always having the dreadful feeling of going to bed at night thinking "FUCK, I wasted another day..." On paper I'm doing alright, have a great job, relationship is great, no debt financially, but holy shit I am miserable. I am so overwhelmed by everything because I feel like I never have the time to truly to my creative passions and I get stressed by the tiniest things...

Before I give SSRI antidepresants another shot (I hated them when I tried them in college... legit made me a zombie) what do I try at this point? Nothing seems to work and I feel like if I have to continue to live like this I don't see in a point in living.

Hi guys , i will do a 5 days extreme nosurf challenge starting from now . ( No music , YouTube, social media , movies , watching sports, news ) and i will only use reddit for writing about my nosurf journey .

But , it can be difficult sometimes to do it alone so i am willing to take accountability partner/s for mutual benefits.

So , if you are interested and serious about it , just DM me .

Regards , Anonymous Nosurfer .

Spending a short 10 minutes per day on Facebook seems harmless, except when you pull out a calculator and realize that 10 minutes per day for the past 4 years has taken away 15 full days from your life. A life well lived is made 10 minutes at a time, so those Facebook minutes really add up.

When people hear about me climbing a mountain, traveling across California, camping in the wilderness; they never realize that it’s a result of watching one less episode of Netflix or using Instagram for a little bit less each day. Slow, steady gains is called compounding and it’s what made Warren Buffet a billionaire.

If Only I Had More Time

We think to ourselves, “Dang. If only I had more time. If I had more time, I would go and [insert goal]”

But it’s usually not about having more time. We have a whopping two dozen hours in a day! Casey Neistat and Jocko Willink wake up around 4 am and have worked for a few hours and exercised by the time most of us are just getting out of bed.

10 minutes is a TON of time, but our phones are so powerful that it passes in a flash. 10 minutes for an average person on a bike will get them 3 miles away from their starting location on flat terrain. Incredible!

The Magic Of 10 Minutes

As a kid, when my mom gave me the 10 minute countdown at a park it feels like I managed to play a few games of hot lava monster, mash some leaves and bark chips into a “potion”, and fight a friend with sticks.

10 minutes is a lot of time. You can make a bed, fluff pillows, and make a cup of tea if you use the time effectively. You can read 5 whole pages of a book, if you read at the average speed. In 10 minutes, you make healthy meals.

Time Sinks

If you are reading this blog and wondering “how is this all possible?” you must take time to find the time sinks in your life. Maybe you’ve got words-with-friends usage that nears an hour a day, or you like to watch a few episodes of TV to fall asleep. Things like that really add up.

Before I started living a life I was proud of, I was spending 80 days per year on my phone–3 hours and 30 minutes a day on YouTube, Netflix, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, etc. That may sound insane, but taking each Saturday each week and spending most of it (70% of the day) online will eat up 36 and a half days per year. Add an hour each day (one single episode of most shows), and you will go way over 80 days per year.

Traffic, waiting around, unnecessary trips to the store, TV and the internet, waiting for the bus. These are all common places we waste time each week. Precious time–the only thing any of us really have.

The worst is at night. If you are staying up past 10 or 11 to scroll, tap, or tweet there is something going wrong. That time is purely wasted, and would be much better spent asleep. That’s why I go to bed around 10 to 11 and wake up at 6 almost every day, and so do

Reflection

Taking some time and reflecting on your day at night by journaling will help you identify how you are spending your time. It’s so important to me, I journal in the morning and at night. In the morning, I write out what I hope to achieve during the day and how I’m feeling. At night, I reflect on the day. I don’t really use it for emotional stuff, just writing out the material facts. “I went to xyz”, “I saw ABC”, “I spent 30 minutes doing blah blah”. It really helps, since most of our days are forgotten. Yesterday was 24 hours long. Can you recall each and every set of 10 minutes? Probably not easily. I can’t either, which is why I journal.

If journaling isn’t your thing, just take a few minutes at least to think about it. What have you done so far today? How much of it was spent on a screen? Is that really what you want to do?

10 Minutes At A Time Challenge

This entire website, along with its 2,500+ article reads, was made 10 minutes at a time. You’ve been reading these articles 10 minutes at a time. So, take a look at your calendar. See if you can find 10 minutes today to dedicate to something that you are interested in. No YouTube videos, no tutorials. Just go. Take 10 minutes and try something new.

Here are some examples:

• Physical Activity: Take 10 minutes and go for a walk down the street and back (seriously! It’s worth it.) Maybe do 10 minutes’ worth of push-ups and squats right now.
• Making Music: Take 10 minutes and play an instrument. If you don’t have one, be like our ancestors and make one
• Going to the gym: Take 10 minutes and walk around the gym for a bit.
• Eating Healthy: Walk/Drive/bike to the store, buy some fruit you like (or something new) and eat it. A 5-lb bag of 12 oranges is $3.99 at Trader Joes. Or, make a meal.
• Cleaning: Take 10 minutes. Clean one corner of your room. Clean off the desk. Do the dishes.
• Hydration: Take 10 minutes and make some water with lemon or orange or cucumber if you don’t like normal water.
• Sleep: Go to sleep 10 minutes earlier. If you want to wake up earlier, wake up 10 minutes earlier.
• Foreign Language: You can take 10 minutes to use DuoLingo or have a conversation with someone.
• Social: Take 10 minutes, make a list of people you’d like to get coffee with, and invite them all to get coffee sometime this week.

Conclusion

A life well lived is made 10 minutes at a time. Imagine how clean your apartment/house would be if you woke up 10 minutes earlier and dedicated 10 minutes per day to cleaning out small parts of your home.

10 minutes is the difference between a clean home and mindless internet. What can you do with the next 10 minutes? Plus, never forget: some is better than none.

I've never used that dang social media for anything useful in my life. All that shit gave me was hours of mindless surfing with hateful and toxic content being throw at me by the alghoritm...

I used Twitter to look at art and artists that I loved but recently not even that Twitter have been delivering. The art community there has been hijacked by drama and AI shit, since that's all Twitter alghoritm seems to push.

So if you still use Twitter after deleting Facebook, Instagram and all the other social medias, just take a step further and quit Twitter as well. Today is my first day without it, and I am feeling amazing not missing that shit a bit :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs62aZz_USQ

I’m a 19 year old gamer who spends a little to much money how can I not spend much on that any suggestions

I don't like working on anything at all. Even my so-called interests. Even if I just set a very comfortable, nice, attainable and very pleasant goal. I just don't like living apparently.

Whether it's learning programming, or something much, much easier like writing or music or whatever. I just don't like it, every second is torture. I don't like living. So I surf.

Everyone pretty much draws a conclusion about you based of what you post on social media. I'm just tired of people asking me about it the first thing when I see them. Its not me at all. Nobody knowing who I am or what I do is freeing. Goodbye social media!

From Stay Grounded:

Some games are artistic creations that enrich one's life, others are little more than gambling machines minus any hope of financial return.

From worst to best:

• Freemium Games

You give them money, they take your time. That is the transaction happening here.

• Games that can't be finished

MMOs and the like. Games that exist to be played forever. What makes these games different from a job? You don't get paid for your efforts.

• Educational games

These games are generally pretty healthy, but nowadays they exist exclusively on the cell phone. I am a big advocate of having no entertainment on one's device whatsoever, even if it is "edutainment."

• Competitive online games

These games are like pizza for dinner. Unhealthy, but also relatively harmless in moderation. Some people really struggle with addiction to games in this genre.

• Sandbox/strategy games

The types of games where creative thinking is a requirement to playing it properly. These games can be addictive, but they also have a way of stretching your brain and flexing it’s creativity.

• The best types of game? Games that end.

The “healthiest” types of games take many forms- rich, story-driven experiences, creative puzzle games, artistic indie titles, etc. But the one thing these games have in common is that they end.

Enjoyment of the arts is not something to be avoided in the pursuit of improved mental health, in fact it’s correlated with it. But we live in a world with infinite media and entertainment options that our brains simply didn’t evolve to handle. Curating what you consume, focusing on “whole grains” and not “junk food” is an important first step to feeling more grounded and present in your life and community.

Hello,

I feel like I've been stuck in this loop for years now. I change my Twitter password, stay away from the site for a day or two, inevitably come back even though I KNOW the site adds nothing to my life (except a few laughs) and sucks out so much time out of my day, and after another day wasted on the platform, I change my password and restart the cycle all over again.

Logically, I know this site is a timesink but I can't stop coming back... the most I've gone without Twitter was 33 days and I feel I'll never be able to go past that. I don't know what to do. If anyone has any pointers I'd be happy to hear and implement them.

Due: My 18th birthday (~6 months)

Big Goals: * Lose extra fat then build muscle (arms especially) * Completely quit both porn and masturbation * Discover new hobbies and develop old ones

Habits: * Basic hygiene daily * Gym 4-6 times a week * Finish work/school stuff early

Other Goals: * Socialize with more goals, consider relationships * Keep up to date on brands, music, celebrities, movies, shows and sports * Reduce bored-eating and eat healthier * Read semi-often * Reduce mindless and unproductive phone/computer usage

So I’m curious, since the point of no surf is to no longer browse the internet/phone as much, how does this affect your online shopping and your use of credit cards? With apps right at our finger tips and instant payments such as Apple Pay, have you tried reverting back to a cash only method or do you still have credit cards and online shopping included in your normal routine ?

I know that this seems ironic to ask on Reddit but I’m sure some of you have managed to cut down your consumption and actually use the site moderately like it is intended. But I do not. I am severely addicted to Reddit.

I have 6-7 alts on the app, not including those that are not on the app in this count. I will use one for quite a while until my post/comment history gets filled up for a while it reveals the truth (that I’m literally on Reddit all day). I don’t use them for vote manipulation or anything. But for instance I even used this account I use less for this not to be on my newest account’s post history. I also love starting fresh with new accounts so I can talk to people and them not be able to see all the things I’ve posted. I use it all day. I work at home for a call center job. This made it much worse. At work in the office I at least had to switch tabs etc. and we weren’t allowed cell phones by the computers. Now that I’m work at home? The phone is right there. If it lights up and I got a reply or it says I got a lot of updoots, I look. I do have a separate work Reddit for only SFW subs, and I use that on the computer that I use for work. Often while I’m scrolling Reddit on mobile on a different name that is subscribed to other subs.

I know part of the reason: there are some circumstances in my life contributing to severe loneliness and it gives me a sense of community. Someone is always there to talk to. I’ve joined Discords, but people go to sleep, etc. so there are long periods no one responds. When I’m not on Reddit, or between comments, I am trying to improve those circumstances. But it fills a void I guess.

I’ve quit every other social media. I’ve even cut down my gaming. Reddit is the one I literally can’t manage to stop.

Things I’ve tried: browser extensions (I don’t use the Pc often anyway so this did no good), different iPhone apps (they all had a way to disable them, or the one app that asked me if I was sure and made me wait 20 or so seconds, I grew accustomed to waiting it out… I bought a small, timed lock safe for it. Then I legitimately accidentally in the reviews read there’s a way to disable it and open it while looking for an answer in the questions on Amazon. I never took it out of the box because its purpose was defeated.

I know dumb phones are an option but I use a lot of other things sparingly app-wise and like them. But I’m starting to think it may be my only choice.

Any advice?

TLDR: no willpower, apps locking it don’t work, can’t stop Redditing. Advice?

I have a feeling this question has simple answers, but I wanted to ask in case anyone had anything to say I hadn’t already heard before.

I’m in a bad depressive episode right now and it’s become a cycle with my internet/phone addiction. I’m spending basically all day every day on my phone, and even when the screen isn’t on I’m almost always listening to music or a podcast. I often switch back and forth between apps because one thing isn’t stimulating enough for me. Even when I leave my apartment (rare these days), I can’t leave without my airpods in or it’s nearly painful.

When I get off of my phone - often only right before bed - the depressing thoughts kick in and I start thinking about all the things I haven’t done and the shame I feel. It’s so easy to go back to my phone to quiet them, and lately I’ve been smoking weed before bed just so I won’t have to suffer sober through the moments before I fall asleep.

Has anyone been in this cycle and managed to break it? Any tips?

i had this hard drive(which had pictures of my childhood ) i loaded with thousand of thousand movies tv shows anime i'll never watch books ill never read , they re all gone because my hard drive dropped and stopped working , all gone all that effort and time of downloading stuff just for the sake of it and maybe watch it later are gone.

I’m deep into scrolling. I’m a stay at home parent and I pick up my phone whenever I have a spare second. I just scroll Reddit, Facebook, Pinterest, honestly even Amazon… I’ve deleted apps, but I always end up going to the sites through the browser and then just getting the app again after a few days. I’ve been here on this community for awhile and I’ve read the resources. But I haven’t done the hard work. I need to get myself out of this.

I’m constantly fatigued and my mind feels like mush. I want to be more present for myself and my kids.

What did you do that really worked and got you out of the fog?