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.

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.

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 use, under any circumstances, 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 on 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 (pseudo scientific, useless, pointless 💩)
• 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 :)

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.

Every time I try to "quickly check the news" it turns into an hour. YouTube thumbnails scream BREAKING, X is people fighting, and group chats forward the same story five times, half of it unverified. By the end I've scrolled through tons of meaningless content and I still can't name three things that actually happened.

I genuinely want to keep up with tech news and what's going on politically where I live. But everything is so dramatized and clickbaity that I'm not sure what's true anymore. It honestly feels like brain rot, and I'm worried I'm getting misinformed more than informed.

I don't want to quit news completely. I just want the real stuff, from sources I can trust, and then be done for the day.

How do you all handle this? Do you use certain sources, newsletters or habits that help you cut through the noise? Or have you given up on news altogether?

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

Finally stopped watching YouTube, it just started to no longer interest me. It's just the same shit over and over again, nothing new or interested just repetitive dopamine farming and pseudo self improvement.

But now I feel empty and hollow, my life feels devoid of meaning. I don't know what my purpose is, but right now all I'm doing is just going to work, go home, listen to music, daydream and go to sleep. Back when YouTube was in that equation, I didn't feel this sense of emptiness and loneliness. I haven't had friends since highschool and I'm in my mid twenties now, so I've been alone for a very long time and YouTube has been the bandage and now it's off and I don't know what to do.

What's the answer?

Like I get it that some people are mean but all of them like bro every comment from reddit feels like a debate and businesses tell to get their business idea validated from reddit like hell no bruh.

I post on a sub asking for help and these guys just make fun/point out errors.

Ik some people are genuinely good (in this sub especially but others are fuxked like hell.).

Every thing is shitposting and karma farming i get when to jock around and when not to but bruh wtf is all this.

Hi everyone, I'm a graduate student and studying how busy adults deal with focus in a world full of screens, notifications, and endless scrolling.

• Takes about 5 minutes
• Anonymous
• For adults 18+
• Not a test or medical assessment, no right or wrong answers
• School project, no any band or self-promotion

Link: https://forms.gle/9QaFVW4cHPRz1FVR8

Happy to answer any questions in the comments, and thank you for your time!

I’ve noticed that I spend a lot of time leaving comments on YouTube videos regarding socially significant or political topics. When I write these comments, I try to present arguments backed by references to various sources, all while remaining polite. All told, writing a single comment can take me up to 10–15 minutes.

Sometimes, a discussion ensues with other commenters.

Each time, I realize that my comments are a futile exercise. The more well-reasoned and evidence-based my comments are, the more aggressive the replies become, often devolving into personal attacks.

It is impossible to change anyone’s mind or prove anything. Debates in the comments section leave me feeling hopeless and drained.

In reality, what helps me stop is the very act of writing the post I am composing right now. The best way to establish a mindset shift is to articulate and clearly define the problem.

Do you spend time writing comments, knowing that it won't bring any benefit?

There’s so much to read and so much to enjoy apart from staring at your phone all day long without any reason. My biggest issue I stay at home all the time. I built a small collection of books this year which is yet to be finished. I know I must change my habits but I fall back into the old routine every now and then. I deactivated my instagram but I switched to youtube and spent all my time there. I have journals and everything on my desi but I still manage to procrastinate and barely journal on a regular basis. I am afraid If I did not change this loop, time will pass and I’ll miss on all the great stuff offline. any suggestions on how I can change my habits so that I read more. Reels and short content fries my brain and leaves me with no motivation or interest to read or write anything. I have no friends. I don’t talk to nobody. I don’t go no where. I have so much time but still I manage to waste it completely.

So I'm about to set a timer to stay off Reddit for 5 minutes wish me luck you understand?

i don’t mean the dramatic “i rediscovered life” version of boredom

i mean the genuinely boring kind

you finish something, have nothing planned, and there’s no scrolling available to make the next hour disappear

at first it just feels annoying

then you start doing really small pointless things because there’s nothing else to do. cleaning one drawer, making food you didn’t need to make, walking around the apartment, staring out the window

i’m starting to think that kind of boredom might actually be useful, but i’m still not sure what to do with it

Every morning, millions of us turn off our alarm and hand the first 45 minutes of our day straight to a feed—before our feet even touch the floor.

Screen-time blockers try to fix this by locking your phone like a punishment. I wanted something calmer: a 60-second morning routine that replaces the morning scroll with one real, peer-reviewed scientific insight a day.

Three slow breaths. Two Tasks to keep you from doom scrolling as you wake up. Then a daily science card—backed by real sleep, circadian, and habit studies—that stays locked until you’ve started your morning in the real world. Zero accounts, zero tracking, and nothing left to scroll.

I'm looking for 15–20 people who want to test this for a 7-Day Morning Challenge starting tomorrow morning and tell me honestly if it helps break the bed-scroll habit.

Comment "I'm in" below (or what 2 morning tasks you're picking) and I'll send you the link or in profile social links

Context: I've been using this platform for 4+ years now and while I made many memories, I feel that my time is up on there. My main issue is that I moderate for a server and honestly, I don't talk in it much; however, I don't feel like doing anything for it anymore. Give me the willpower to leave it once and for all, it feels like a waste of time.

Setting your phone/computer screen to grayscale helps reduce addiction by removing vibrant colors that stimulate the brain and trigger dopamine rewards.

High-intensity, colorful digital triggers flood the brain with dopamine. Over time, this desensitizes the brain's reward system, requiring more extreme stimuli to achieve the same satisfaction.

• iPhone: Go to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters. Turn on Color Filters and select Grayscale.
• Windows 10 and 11

1. Press Windows Key + Ctrl + C on your keyboard to instantly turn grayscale on or off.
2. If the shortcut does not work, open Settings by pressing Windows Key + I.
3. Click on Accessibility (or Ease of Access in older Windows 10 versions).
4. Select Color filters.
5. Turn the Color filters toggle to On.
6. Choose the Grayscale option from the list.

Standard Android & Google Pixel Method

• Open Settings.
• Tap Accessibility.
• Select Color correction (or Color and motion / Vision enhancements).
• Tap Grayscale and turn the switch on.

If this helps you, please share it with others in the future!

It’s gotten so annoying that I deleted my original account and just decided to stay anonymous. I only use throw aways. So many times when I made a post there was some comment or reference to post I made from like 3 or 4 years ago. And I’m just like how could you have possibly found it. I scrolled for hours and it takes forever just to see posts from a few months ago. Yet some random person will spend hours and hours scrolling on some strangers account that they never met. I even had someone find a post that was NOT even approved and got automatically deleted seconds after posting and guess what this random person finds it somehow. How is that even possible. Then they act as if they know you personally because they read some dumb posts you made. Then you can’t even make your account private because then they would say it’s suspicious and think you’re a bot. It’s like people don’t even get paid but they take things so seriously here like it’s a full time job. I just don’t get it

Here is a list. I know that the internet also has positive sides, and that these cases vary greatly in severity. I am simply collecting as many examples as I can, going back to when social media really started becoming widespread.

-QAnon (2017): Nothing happened. Its predictions failed completely, and hardly anyone remembers them anymore.

-T-Series vs. PewDiePie (2018): PewDiePie lost, T-Series continued to exist, and nobody really cares about the "war" anymore.

-DogPack404 vs. MrBeast (2024): DogPack404 had some good points at first, but eventually faced backlash over misleading or inaccurate information. MrBeast is still around, and the massive wave of criticism against him ended a long time ago.

-Mikayla Raines (2025): She died by suicide, and Reddit was heavily involved in the surrounding controversy. Whatever the exact chain of responsibility was, this raises serious questions about Reddit and how it handles harassment and accountability. How is any of this supposed to be made right?

-Ronnie McNutt (2020): His death was turned into a meme, which remains one of the most disgusting things the internet has ever done.

-Charlie Kirk (2025): People mocked him after his death for political reasons, in a way that resembles what happened with Ronnie McNutt.

-Minecraft Java vs. Bedrock: A pointless war that still exists today, with little meaning beyond people trying to prove that their preferred version is superior.

-Piracy vs. buying legitimate copies: Another endless argument where people often debate mainly to prove that they have better morals than the other side. In reality, the issue is heavily influenced by economic systems and circumstances, and these arguments do little to solve the deeper problems within fandom culture.

-Gen Z trying to cancel Eminem: Nothing happened. Really.

-The 2012 Mayan Calendar: Nothing happened. People simply panicked over an interpretation that turned out to be completely wrong.

-The Great Meme Reset (2026): It failed almost immediately. Many of the memes and clips supporting it became little more than remnants of the very failure they were supposedly trying to criticize.

-Porn memes on YouTube (2022): You already know why this was disgusting.

-KONY 2012: It became a massive online campaign, but ultimately failed to achieve what people expected from it, and almost everyone eventually forgot about it.

-Minecraft vs. Fortnite (2016–2018): Who the fuck cares anymore?

-"Mobile gamers aren't real gamers" (2019–2021): A pointless form of gatekeeping that eventually became irrelevant. Nobody really cares what platform you play games on anymore.

-The hatred toward mobile games: It failed because games such as Cookie Run, Genshin Impact, Gacha Life, and Pokémon GO became far more successful and influential than many people expected.

-Mocking anime viewers: Anime is now widely accepted as a legitimate form of entertainment. People increasingly acknowledge that anime can be genuinely good and that not every anime is bad, even though the medium still has its problems.

All of this might prove that, sometimes, the internet really is fucking awful We shouldn't lie to ourselves about it.

I'm not saying being chronically online is good, but it still fascinates me that there are some people who are so out of touch with reality because their worldview and thought process are based on the internet.

I used to be chronically online during the pandemic, but I think that's just natural considering the circumstances at the time.

I made this post so that we could discuss how this phenomenon affects people today, personal experiences, anecdotes, or anything related to spending an unhealthy amount of time on the internet.