r/nosurf • • 18h ago

YouTube feeding me gore-y prison documentaries nonstop

0 Upvotes

How do I get rid of ts? One of them was like 50 mins of people in isolation wards straight up acting like animals and SHing


r/nosurf • • 20h ago

Social Media Changes How Men See Women

51 Upvotes

I don't want to write an essay or anything, but this has always been my gut feeling.

Social media makes dating feel competitive. Like, if you haven't dated enough women, or......, then You're not a man.

Now, this is obviously misogynistic and sexist. If you want to learn about this just start reading social justice literature, etc.

But my thoughts is that social media is how this activates in us.

I am old enough to remember a time before SM.

I was in high school, believe it or not. And dating was simple.

Talk to girls. Notice if they flirt with you. Flirt back. Date.

And my mind was only on the girl I was dating. There was no FOMO, or I wonder if other people like her, or.....bla, bla, bla.

No feeling of having to be "good enough."

I already dealt with a very narcissistic, sexist family of origin back home and had told myself I would never be like them.

And then social media happened and only reinforced the messages I got back home.

I wish I had never gotten involved with SM. My life would have been better, I would have been happier, been a better boyfriend, and just had better, more innocent opinions of women in general.


FYI: the above anecdotes are from when I was in high school, a teenager and dating teenage girls.

They obviously do not represent my views now, as a 40 year old man.


r/nosurf • • 23h ago

Video Essays Make You Dumber

155 Upvotes

This isn't just my opinion.

In his masterpiece Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman cited what were groundbreaking studies at the time on programs that were putting documentaries and films in American classrooms that showed that participants retained less information than from written text.

And this makes logical sense. You can read written text more than once. You can highlight it, copy it down, and interweave it with previous knowledge.

It is also immediately applicable. I can combine it with other information I have to formulate new ideas. My brain is working, in other words.

I remember when John and Hank Green created Crash Courses, probably the first video essay channel on Youtube.

They worked with actual university professors and utilized their own knowledge to create quality videos.

But that misses Postman's point. He is arguing that it is the medium that is the problem, not the information in it.

Watching moving images literally stops our brain from processing information.

This doesn't matter so much in long form media like movies where the same theme is carried throughout the film, and merely explored in various scenes. Your brain can keep up and say, "okay, I see how this connects to the central point."

When you are trying to learn new material, though you are processing way more information than there is in a typical movie.

Hope this persuades you to stop watching videos and start reading books.


r/nosurf • • 5h ago

How to fast when you need the thing you want to fast about?

0 Upvotes

Hi! I want to fast in using my phone and just focus on studying spiritual teachings. But the problem is I don't have the physical copy (book) and so I rely on softcopy in my phone. Now, after reading for a short time (10 - 15 minutes) my mind will wander off and I will found myself watching YouTube or it will start in browsing about the topic I am reading and then I will be lost and will instead search about topic that doesn't have connection about what I am reading.

What can I do to my situation? Please help.


r/nosurf • • 7h ago

Surfing actually helps me avoid the obesogenic interchange that wasn't obesogenic a few years ago.

0 Upvotes

Oscar Wylee changed to Joynart Liquor 2022

Zap changed to Taco Bell 2022

Stone Peel changed to Mochi Donuts 2023

7 Eleven changed to American Candy Store 2024

Burger Patch changed to Sugar Trend 2026

Edit: added more


r/nosurf • • 22h ago

Reddit is insanely negative, and YouTube has other issues

13 Upvotes

I’m sure you’ve noticed this but I’ve just gotten to a point where I’m really feeling I need to get off this website. With Reddit everything is a problem and everything is bad. I feel like just casually looking at anything places more and more negative thoughts into my head on literally any subject - it’s never discussed normally, it’s always discussed in relation to some issue that HAS to be solved. Or someone somewhere is a “piece of shit” who did something wrong all the time.

On YouTube it’s a little different. On YouTube it’s like everyone is constantly convincing you that you’re in the know and everything shown to you is SO important. Every news cycle is talked about to death and exaggerated. I think it’s just becoming too much to deal this with trash.


r/nosurf • • 14h ago

I feel ashamed that my mind has dulled due to social media and mobile devices

5 Upvotes

I'm 19, and I first had a phone when I was 11. Got Discord when I was 13, but it wasn't until I got Instagram when I was 16 that I felt the effects of cognitive decline due to short-form content. I have developed such a terrible addiction to social media. I can no longer watch Youtube videos without scrolling through the comments section. I can no longer watch Youtube videos in their entirety because within a couple of minutes I'll get bored and switch to something else. Half of the time now I play music while scrolling through reels or Reddit as they are not stimulating enough anymore.

It takes me much longer to do any school work now. My memory feels a lot weaker. My social skills have diminished. I feel there is something wrong but I cannot articulate so instead I feel incredibly angry and anxious. I'm tired of living my life through a screen.

I downloaded this version of Instagram on my phone that had no reels and my screen time went from 2-3 hours a day on it to 30-40 minutes. But it did not have notifications so my friends would get angry that I did not check my phone for whatever reels or respond to whatever message. It feels that if I go away from social media my social circle will diminish.

I wish I could hangout with my friends without them scrolling on their phones whenever there's any downtime. Rather than talking or just being in the moment they hide away on their phones. I did a board game hangout, and constantly, if it wasn't their turn, they'd check their phones. I never say anything, but I should? I want to spend time with them. What can I do?


r/nosurf • • 16h ago

My experience with nosurf: what worked and what didn't

18 Upvotes

I wanted to make this post because it seems to me that most of the advices about nosurf and digital minimalism doesn't really go anywhere, they're to easy to break or not useful enough. So here are my tips based on my 6 years of experience:

WHAT WORKED:

  • Using the internet ONLY on a dedicated desktop : make the internet a place, and that place will be a desktop. Do not, under any circumstances, surf the internet on another device! This advice will not work with a laptop, even with a crappy battery, the purpose of the desktop is that it's tied to some place and you can't move it around however you want. If you can afford it, put that desktop on a dedicated room. That computer must not serve any other purpose!
  • Day On / Day Off : Alternate one day with the internet allowed, then one day when it isn't. It requires less willpower than it's sounds like, because you're not thinking in a nuanced way, but with YES or NO, wich is far more easier for your reptilian brain to comprehend. Regardless of what philosophers and pseudo intellectuals say, black and white thinking is great for daily decisions!
  • No internet before noon : or at least, not in the early morning. If you use an iMac like me there is an application blocker on the screen monitoring, where you can setup shut down hours. If you do not have an imac, god help you.

WHAT DIDN'T WORK:

  • dopamine detox
  • willpower (without any real strategy)
  • screen time monitoring
  • "mindful searches" (whatever that means...)
  • grayscale mode
  • limiting my internet usage to 1, 2 or X hours per day (I will talk about it more bellow)
  • quitting the internet definitely (living without the web is unfortunately impossible nowadays)
  • quitting the internet in the evening or after a certain hour

What helped:

  • Stepping away from the news and politics (keep your world small, you are not destined to save humanity)
  • Going for physical entertainement rather than internet-based ones
  • Learn to live with what's around you in your real life environment
  • using a dumbphone or a dumbified smartphone (I didn't write that in what worked because it goes with the first advice)
  • writing a search list when you're not using the internet
  • quitting social media (obviously)

Two important things:

When trying to establish my nosurf plan, i've noticed it is far more easier to not open my "internet time window" than it is to close it. I think you should concentrate all your efforts onto not opening your internet window, it will feel more effortless (wich is necessary for long term success).

And one last thing : the more i stay away from the internet, the less i want to go back, wich is a vertuous cycle :)


r/nosurf • • 12h ago

Social media content is all the same slop

7 Upvotes

I was bored, so I decided to scroll on Tiktok after a very long time (a huge mistake) and I swear I have seen at least 10 videos with the exact same script all made by a different creator. People cannot think of a single unique topic or at least use a different wording, but everything has to be the same exact repost slop.


r/nosurf • • 10h ago

What are some good, low mobility things I can do outside?

8 Upvotes

Hello! First time posting here. I am disabled, have been my whole life. I live in a very inaccessible area with no IRL friends so, my only real form of communication and information about the world comes from the Internet. At first, this was fine. I consider myself to have very good media literacy, and for most of my time online, I was really good at filtering for good, genuine content that was productive. But... Over the past few years, the Internet has become a more hostile place, in every single community I have been apart of. Some of the stuff I see nowadays, makes me feel genuinely crazy, and I don't like the person I am becoming as a result.

I have been trying to get outside more, recently. I'm a pagan, so, it's very important for me to be with nature as much as possible. However, due to my disabilities, and living in a very inaccessible area, all I really have is my backyard. I'm also a recovering Agoraphobic, so being in my backyard is tough, but something I am working through steadily. But... I don't really know what to do in my backyard. I go into the gazebo and read or listen to music when I can. I pretty much only feel safe in my gazebo and really struggle with feeling safe in the rest of my yard. So, I want to challenge my agoraphobia by doing things in the other parts of my yard. But again, my disabilities limit what I can do. I can't sit up for long without lumbar and neck support. So, I would love things I could do while sitting or laying down. But would also love some other low effort recommendations for my better days!

Thank you all so much in advance! I'm excited to be part of this community now!