I finally finished the internet
I've never made a fuss about spending too much time doomscrolling. I get that it's technically an addiction, but as someone who's been through real addiction, like to things your body actually becomes dependent on, I never took it seriously. Like at all.
And I still don't think watching a few too many TikTok videos is even in the same universe banging heroin, but that doesn't mean it's something you should do all the time.
I have a lot of downtime throughout the work day, so I was stoked a couple years ago when I realized I can dissociate through a bunch of short form content and suddenly it's time to clock out.
That's definitely addict behavior right? Again; different universe, but it's kinda like huffing a can of Reddi-Wip to get high instead of eating it on a slice of pie or topping off your sugary morning mocktail with a dollop of it like a goddamn adult.
Both things are bad for you in their own ways, but one is considerably worse and has no benefits whatsoever.
And not to mention these platforms are all being flooded with AI bullshit, and before that you couldn't scroll more than a few videos without landing on brainrot or entirely made up clickbait stories.
I remember a few years ago when TikTok was the cool new thing that no one could get enough of. I'd find videos so absolutely ridiculous that I'd have tears running down my face from laughing. I honestly can't remember the last time I've found any Vine level videos there, come to think of it.
They used to be everywhere. Silly little songs from people like Nicholas Megalis or even that guy who used to slam entire bottles of liquor. Maybe I'm just getting old, maybe my algorithm has hit the point of no return; I don't know. But I do know it's rotting my skull from the inside out with product promotion after product promotion, brain dead memes, that guy who fills his apartment up with piss jugs; you get it.
It's a wasteland of low effort content and commercials. Insidious commercials that feel like normal videos until the little orange shopping cart pops up. Or like on Reddit, where it looks just like any other post made by some random person until you see it was posted by Whirlpool or The Daily Beast.
There truly isn't much of the internet that remains unfucked. Everything is fucked. Everything's commercial.
And no one is immune to it. I work in sales; I work pretty closely with our marketing director for fuck's sake, and I still bought a Magic John screen protector from a dumb ass TikTok video. I don't even use screen protectors! I stuck with it for a week and promptly ripped it off and threw it away. Came with a nice little cheap microfiber I use on my watches now though.
So I deleted TikTok and Reddit both from my phone. I'm not going to kid myself and say I'll spend significantly less time using social media; I still really really like Lemmy and Tumblr, and I can't forget about my trusty RSS reader and random blogs I follow, but all of that stuff is more genuine. Lemmy has its share of bot problems and it's a ghost town at times, but I've had more interaction on there than I ever did being on Reddit for what, like 15 years? And it's genuine interaction, not just some neckbeard shitting on me for trying to participate in a conversation.
I have a growing stack of books I've been meaning to read for two or three years that keeps getting neglected because I start scrolling and travel through time, all for the sake of making myself dumber. I used to pick up my guitar and screw around for a little bit if I was waiting on something. Lately I just scroll.
I'm well past salvation when it comes to this magic rectangle in my pocket; I don't think I could ever fully switch back to a flip phone. But I wanna be more mindful of where I'm letting my attention wander. There's so much shit you can do without being tethered to your router or 5G connection.
Write a song. Read a book. Doodle on a scrap of paper and throw it away when you're done. Listen to music and daydream. I can't remember the last time I did anything without listening to a video or podcast in the background. Literally even just play a video game without scrolling TikTok through loading screens or playing a YouTube video in the background. We weren't meant to multitask 24/7 you know? The mind needs a break every now and then. The endless stream of content will still be there if I ever want to plug back in.