Don’t scroll vertical video feeds

I didn’t read you whole post but can’t you just use lemmy instead of big tech websites?

Reserve time during your week to leave your phone at home, and leave your house for 1-4 hours. Bring a paperback book, oe visit a library and check one out. Go out for coffee and pay with cash. Go to a park with your book and coffee. Maybe bring a sandwich. Promise that you will not leave for an hour even if you start to go crazy.

There’s a church in my neighborhood at the top of a decent sized hill. I’m not a churchgoer but it’s a beautiful building. So I try to take a picture of it every day with my phone. That requires me to get out of the house during the daytime and get some exercise trudging up the hill once a day. It helps.

For someone who spends a lot of time alone and on a computer this will seem anathema, but go find some sort of physical activity (sport) and start engaging in it a few times a week. Not only does this get you out of the house, it creates opportunities to engage with people socially and it is good for your health.

I am very much a stay at home, be in front of my computer type hermit. I was this way most of my life and even being married didn’t help much as my wife is the same. A good Friday night for us currently involves playing Baldur’s Gate 3 until much too late. We have a very small circle of friends and don’t get out much at all. However, now in my late 40’s I am having some health issues and that finally gave me the push to get out of my gaming chair and get my body moving. I took up climbing at an indoor rock climbing gym and I really enjoy it. The regularly changing routes on the walls mean that I get to engage the puzzle solving part of my brain, and I am pushed physically as I try to get better. In between climbs I’m near other people with an obvious shared interest and can practice talking to other people by discussing the routes (social skills are like all skills, they take practice). And the exercise has made my doctor visits a lot less “you’re going to die horribly” and more “we’ve got things pretty well controlled”. I also just feel better.

So ya, go out and find some sort of physical activity you enjoy. Don’t be afraid to try new things, you’ll suck at them but that’s to be expected. The first step in being good at anything is sucking at it. Use that suckage to engage with other people and learn how to suck less. This will help you suck less at socializing. I won’t say that any of this is easy, it’s not. I know there is the hermit piece if me which always wants to fall back into just hiding out in my basement (literally, my office is in my basement). But, I’ve also made a habit of climbing 2-3 times a week and 3 years into doing that I am now looking forward to that time. I get excited when I walk into the gym and see one of the walls changed and now get to solve a new set of climbing routes. I still kinda suck, but not anywhere near as much as I did on my first day.

What I did was buy a phone-sized e-reader (Bigme Hibreak Color), and use that in combination with some focus mode app blockers to switch my habits during the day from doomscrolling to reading ebooks. I get through so many more books now than I used to and it’s wonderful.

Poor social skills/social circle: It’s never too late to start working to fix that.

YouTube addiction: I love YouTube…but I only watch through NewPipe and only my subscribed channels which are all long form content of substance. You don’t have to ditch YouTube, you can just use the good bits. Never look at algorithm recommendations (main page or suggested videos).

Offline life: pick something new you like. I’ve been building things (DIY, handmade mechanical keyboard, woodworking). If you find something you like then you can find a club or group and that makes you socialise too. Some people join hiking groups, or weekend park run. Or even if you’re starting solo, you can walk through a city and practice photography (this can be on your phone, don’t need any fancy equipment). There are literally a near infinite number of cheap/free options to consider, the difficult part is deciding what’s of interest to you and finding ways to make it happen.

Add more friction between you and the social media. On a computer, this can be done by adding lines to your /etc/hosts, or C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc/hosts files, completely blocking off specific sites. On a phone, add stupid long passwords to open certain apps, don’t accept biometrics, leave the password written down on a paper and hide it - resist the urge to save the password somewhere for easy copypaste or to uninstall the app that allows the password locking.

Other than that, leave your phone at home and try walking around the nearest park or any spot that has more than 10 trees, at least once a week. Touch grass, trees, flowers, leaves, sit down and just watch.

Another important thing to keep in mind while outside: people will forget your existence in 5-10 seconds

Hasn’t been slop on Lemmy (yet)

Get involved in a hobby that has a welcoming community: photography, book clubs, cooking classes, running clubs, maker spaces, etc. If you really believe you have agoraphobia, consider speaking with a therapist (most work over video chat).

For me it is, wearing myself down. It is about the only thing I feel that I can achieve peace from being online. I’ve been online for a long, long time. You just suddenly become so tired, so worn, so repetitive and so beside yourself that you do eventually just do it. You don’t plan it, you don’t announce it, you just do because at somepoint, something is going to make you do it before you realize it.

I think it is advisable that you get hobbies that don’t involve a computer or the internet. Like go thrifting, just find something that piques your interest and that you want to pursue it. It is like entering a store full of hobbies to choose from and the entry fee is cheap by whatever you pick up and want to learn more about or get into about.

You can try going to your local library as a sort of practice. They also have events and not just books (though getting book recommendations is way better than AI!)

For youtube, start by uninstalling the app and watching youtube only in the browser (on the phone too) with the plugin Unhook that removes recommendations and shorts

Read more.

Social skills are like any other skill; they can be learned. I’d suggest volunteering. It’s usually okay if you’re a bit weird and awkward so long as you’re contributing. I’ve done a fair bit of volunteer work and been on both sides of that. Plus it gives you a common goal and instant common ground with people; there’s at least one thing you all care enough about to do it for free.

Stop using anything with algorithmic feeds for a start. So no Instagram, Reddit, Facebook, TikTok, etc etc.

For YouTube - turn off watch history in your account settings. It turns off the home page. Bookmark the subscriptions page and use that and only that so you’re only watching channels you’re subscribed to. I also use ublock to turn off the comments and the suggested bar on the side. I’ve never used the app and I don’t watch videos on my phone.

You can also set an app timer for your Lemmy client, I’ve done it for Jerboa in the past and while it didn’t really work for me, it’s something that may work for you.

With local media that’s a really good idea you got going.

You do need to replace the stuff rather than leave a vacuum, so this would be a good time to pick up a new hobby or get back to an old one, something nice, chill and fairly passive so you don’t feel you’re too exhausted to do it after work, in the same way you’d scroll sm passively.

I may not agree on the whole divorcing from screens thing as IRL really is just a different type of brainrot IMO and an even more biased self selecting echochamber, but I do think divorcing from big tech is a good thing because fuck corpos and regardless I wish you luck!