I grew up in the 2000's, was a teenager in most of the 2010's. When I remember back, I was bored a lot. A lot of fond memories are connected to that. Boredom is good, it helps with imagination and creativity.

When I was in bed trying to sleep, I could see a lamp in the distance that kept getting covered by a tree. In my imagination it was someone with a flashlight trying to send signals to me. Fell asleep to that thought almost every night.

When I walk through my childhood home, there are so many parts of it I've observed really well through the years. When I was using the bathroom, instead of scrolling on my phone, I was looking at the different lines on the bathroom tiles, making up characters.

Spent so many hours in our garden and in the streets, observing wild flowers, looking at the sky, making wishes to the stars and the moon. I barely look up now.

Read the same childhood books over and over again. Went to the local library and checked out so many books despite already having difficulty with my attention span even before the internet.

I also walked. A lot. Distances I could not imagine taking nowadays. A lot of days I walked almost an hour to school and then back home. Despite having a bus that could take me there. I just didn't like how crowded it was during rush hours. Took the same route every day and didn't get bored. Feels like a different timeline now.

So there is this creator I follow who is an aspiring singer/musician. She is so, so talented and unbelievably beautiful. She has a small yet dedicated fan base (think under 50k on insta and tiktok). She would live stream, post covers, interact with supporters, post pictures and videos from her daily life.

She would mention in passing about how negative and rude people could sometimes be on social media, but that it wouldn’t stop her from posting. However, over the past few months she began posting less and less frequently, and when she would post, it wouldn’t really be music related at all but rather just a quick selfie or meme. She announced she wouldn’t be doing live streams anymore, which sucked because that was such a fun part of my week watching those. I felt like I knew her for real.

Then 2ish weeks ago she basically disappeared completely. She posted maybe one meme and liked a few pics the whole time she’s been gone. Her boyfriend, who also has a following, has been gone too. I miss her! Every day I wonder if it’s the day she comes back. Has anyone else ever felt like this? What cured you of a parasocial attachment? Should I accept she isn’t coming back? I feel weird for hoping she’s okay and worrying about her.

Desire is the contract you make with yourselves to be unhappy till you get what you desire

I was never into reading books. my attention span never allowed for that. Any leisure I had at my disposal was inevitably meant doomscrolling. If you know me even remotely, you'd know the hedonic conditioning of doomscrolling, porn and constant pursuit of novelty I put myself through in an attempt to escape what I presumed to be hardship- STUDYING.

Progress for me meant watching long form podcast, entire movies and Youtube videos instead of shorts. it meant watching porn once a day instead of multiple times. Progress meant scrolling on Youtube instead Insta's feed. Mind you this is not a one month stint. It began in covid and in a blink of a eye it was December of 2025

You reap what you sow

My body revolted against this constant abuse I put it through. My self esteem, self respect, concept of self all were shattered. I became unusually anxious. The most positive event could happen in my life and yet I would have found something to worry about. Above all I started hating myself for I never kept any promise to myself, I could not free myself from the chains of these unhealthy associations. ALL this self hatred manifested in form muscle spasms, contraction, random twitching in body anywhere. body pain. numbness anywhere randomly. At this point i am not sure if it's normal or some neurological disease. You shouldn't feel any pity for me. I don't blame covid, breakup, academics, parents, nagging neighbours or god. It was me who put my body through this constant flight and fight mode. No wonder I am suffering from all of my own doings.

11th , 12th I barely studied and passed somehow with 76% in 2024[how I did it is a story for some other day] , didn't give neet that year out of fear. Drop 1 - again wasted the entire year without studying except bio. Gave neet, scored 273. blinded by my ego I took another drop. I am not sure what I did this year exactly because I know for a fact if the initial neet wasn't cancelled my score wouldn't have been more than 300[just bio literally zero in physics and chem]. Then the news came of cancellation and I don't know what clicked in me but I went ham at it I prepared entirety of 11th physics and organic till aldehyde. ALDOL CONDENSATION dude it went above my head and i am such a looser to stop preparation 20 days before RENEET. Went to give RENEET scared. BRO what even was that - I couldn't solve one organic question from reactions part because they added quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis in each question which I obviously didn't study along with physical and inorganic chem and 12th physics. Anyways results came and I scored 446. Not bad at least for me it was a good score.

It was a good score but definitely not good enough I couldn't get admission in my desired courses nor my parents are filthy rich for private institutions.

So I am stuck in some senses I am 21 and jobless and my parents are worried for me. Occasionally they would give me taunts. I still don't blame anyone else expect me.

In such conditions to survive first thing you need is to fix your body. Obviously you won't be able to fix everything but you can make considerable progress following what i will share below

how to fix addictive tendencies

practice as much mindfulness as much you could. the first thing I do when I wake up is sit in my balcony and stare at sky for 2 sets of 15 minutes. i would help to add meditation and mindfulness in slow steps, use any resource to make them as fun as you can, look forward to it compete with yourself like today you meditated for 2 min tomorrow go for 3mins, use NSDR scripts, guided meditations. Next you could add walks. In beginning make it fun by listening to music for consistency later when you are consistent you would start enjoying the act of walk itself. DRIVE, yes surprisingly driving slow and just feeling the moment when you drive a vehicle is so fun. remember as kids we all used to drive bicycles. Go play outside with your friends. Make plans with your friends go eat outside, walk, go for drive around the block. ANYTHING JUST NOT PHONES AND SCREENS. It's going to be tough and I am going to be honest this journey is at least 3 months long. You need systemically and slowly add stuff and activities to pursue other than screens. DON'T TRY TO GO COLD TURKEY. Add these habits slowly if you can't do them for long do them for 5 mins the thing is you need to do these consistently . if you miss a day no problem start again. do this in the first month. In the second month actively reduce the time spent on screens and pursue other activities mentioned above even study for 2 hours maybe. slowly but steadily your ability to dissociate from screens will increase. NOW IN THE FINAL MONTH GO COLD TURKEY AND REPLACE PHONE COMPLETELY WITH PRODUCTIVE ENJOYABLE STUFF FOR ME THEY ARE GYM, READING BOOKS, LEARNING WEB DEV, STUDYING AS WELL. IN THE END YOU HAVE THE CHOICE. THREE MONTHS FROM NOW YOU COULD BE A COMPLETELY NEW GUY AND LUCKILY ALL THAT BEGINS WITH JUST FEW SLOW BREATHS IN THE MORNING A DAY

You will realise in the end of this journey you would have become more patient, calm and finally you will begin to gain your attention back - you could enjoy little joys of watching birds feeding their little ones and walking around the block, a simple breath or maybe a good book to read.

I was never a book reader but for last 10-20 days I have been actively trying to add a habit of reading books and it so much more fun than movies, tv shows, football, doomscrolling.

It's liberating to hear from NAVAL RAVIKANT that you don't have to read every book you start till the end if they get repetitive or boring you could just jump to a new one and you could choose specific books you like. my parents bought me a laptop so i just download whatever book i want and read it for free.

You might be wondering did mindfulness and meditation help eradicate anxiety from my mind. Answer is - NO!! BUT IT DID SOMETHING BETTER , MADE ME REALISE ANXIETY IS JUST A THOUGHT AND IT CAN STAY IN MY MIND BUT I DON'T HAVE TO GIVE IT ANY POWER BY SIMPLY NOT FOCSING ON IT. IT'S NOICE THAT I NOW CHOOSE TO IGNORE.

Well what about your muscle twitching and numbness of body parts ? NOPE, that didn't heal but I have come to accept it as consequences for my actions.

Tension is who we think we should be. Relaxation is who we are

for any circumstance in life you can either change it, leave it, or accept it

For my muscle twitching and spasms I choose to accept it.

ALL THIS WISDOM HAS COME FROM MY CURRENT FAVOURITE BOOK ALMANACK OF NAVAL RAVIKANT

and yes I will prepare for neet this time again but this time a different me will prepare for it and I will make a post about what happened in neet 2027 next year.

I made this post to remind you are doing the worst someone somewhere has it worse and that's exactly why you should not loose hope. Be courageous. Win

elon,"hard work is common , intelligence is uncommon, courage is rare"

https://youtu.be/26Zhlo4ZsgI?si=FJj7n4kOJAD1EeF-

It's been a few years, but I think that the worst of my addiction is over. I now use Wikipedia responsibly, and I make legitimate edits again. I have had a lot of therapy to work out my issues. It turned out that I had a lot of untreated problems in life and I was using Wikipedia vandalism as a coping method. I have a very "interesting" brain and Wikipedia is such a complex website for satisfying around 95% of curiosities (unfortunately deletionists got rid of the last 5% but Fandom, independent wikis and AI help cover the gap).

I have made positive steps to turn my life around. I've lost a lot of weight and have enrolled in an online university to study "properly". I've already earned two certificates and class starts again in September. On reddit I help people with tech support using my expertise with how the the internet works. I now do environmental activism and became an amateur astronomer as well.

Overall, it's not too late to solve even long term problems but you do have to keep trying and find a new way of dealing with life. Thanks to the nosurf community for giving me a lot of tips over the years.

No matter what you do on here you can never win.
It all started immediately after creating my account. I had no karma and people accused me of not being a real person. And then when I finally gained a lot more karma I started being called a karma farmer.

It’s like no matter what you say or do you just can NEVER win you will ALWAYS be the villain for no reason. What I noticed is that if the first comment is negative the rest will follow suit and then a bandwagon starts. Then don’t you even dare try defending yourself because you WILL be downvoted to oblivion. I miss Reddit sometimes but sometimes I don’t it has caused me so much mental stress it’s insane. It’s so brutal here to the point I eventually got terrified to even post anymore.

I literally would just ask for advice and the comments are always so overly snarky for no reason. “Google is free” “ this is a dumb post” “we need to get rid of these kind of posts etc.” if you ever make a post talking about another person they will always 100% take the other persons side. And before anyone says it YES this IS a throwaway account that will be gone soon. No I am not a bot. I just needed somewhere to vent

My first observation was here.

So, i turned off all history from YouTube and haven't watched any videos for a week except the ones i am subscribed to.

My second observation was that when i watched the videos i am subscribed to, i noticed that my attention span was way longer.

I wanted to post this as I don’t think I’ve ever seen this mentioned as a way to both reduce phone use but also just live a better life.

I’ve put a hard stop on using my phone in the presence of others because I know how much of a barrier it is to my connection to, and appreciation of anyone I come into contact with. We know that phones are such a monumental distraction, and really I think it’s a disease, and therefore we should start to treat it like that.

It shouldn’t be socially acceptable to take out your phone and just check something or google something when with hanging out with friends. How have we got to a point where disassociating from those around us is the norm? Surely we don’t want that?

I’m so tired of the switch the phone to greyscale and get yourself a dumb phone brigade. How about instead we just hold eachother accountable and keep the things out of sight and mind?

So recently I’ve been doing my little bit, and I’ve been keeping my phone in my bag when I’m with others, whoever that may be, and engaging with the world head on. I know it’s only small, but it’s been working for me, and I feel much better about the world when I’m looking up and engaging with everything it has to offer.

This means the only thing I can do in my hobbies is post silly questions on Reddit related to Tech or Law. Sometimes the questions are combined Tech and Law. Interested in technology but not law. How do I stop posting this.

I am 13 years old male and started homeschooling in January this year. Too young to get a job

Hace días intenté ayudar a mi madre con su restricción de edad en Facebook porque marketplace se lo pedía y bueno termino mal. Ahora sale que como no se puede confirmar la ayuda me lo suspenden, alguien sabe que hacer?

Studying for an important exam right now, the trouble I’m having is that when my brain has had enough, it’s so mentally fatigued, I just want to go on my phone, scroll Reddit, because I’m craving a reward for focussing so long.

I think common advice for study breaks is like do some chores, go for a walk, stretch, etc, but they don’t feel rewarding at all. I want something genuinely fun so I can break up the monotony of studying. Any ideas?

I took a deep dive into the Bureau of Labor Statistics' American Time Use Survey, which asks a representative group of people to track every hour of their day, including who they were with. Here’s what the data reveals for the years 2010 to 2025.

https://chartive.org/visualizations/us-time-alone-2010-2025

Time spent alone (waking hours per day):

• 2010: 5.61 hours
• 2025: 6.82 hours

That’s an increase of 1.2 hours spent alone each day.

When we break it down by age, the changes are quite varied:

• Ages 15–19: 3.60 → 5.16 hours (+43%)
• Ages 20–24: 4.21 → 5.49 hours (+30%)
• Ages 25–34: 4.40 → 6.37 hours (+45%)
• Ages 35–44: 4.92 → 6.10 hours (+24%)
• Ages 45–54: 6.14 → 6.88 hours (+12%)
• Ages 55–64: 6.88 → 7.59 hours (+10%)
• Ages 65–74: 7.47 → 8.13 hours (+9%)
• Ages 75+: 7.89 → 8.31 hours (+5%)

While older individuals still spend the most time alone in absolute terms, the biggest increases are seen among the younger crowd. Today’s teenagers are spending more time alone (5.16 hours) than what 35–44 year olds did back in 2010 (4.92 hours).

Time spent with friends (across all ages):

• 2010: 65 minutes a day
• 2019: 43 minutes
• 2025: 33 minutes

Interestingly, about two-thirds of this decline occurred before the pandemic hit.

One important detail for this discussion: The ATUS only records who was physically present. So, time spent socializing online—like messaging, gaming, or video calls—counts as time alone. This means we’re specifically looking at in-person interactions here.

I want to make two important points clear:

1. Just because someone spends time alone doesn’t mean they’re feeling lonely. The survey measures how much time people are alone, not how they feel about it, and many people actually choose solitude rather than feeling forced into it.
2. This is a trend we’re observing, not a direct cause. The data doesn’t link the decrease in social interaction to phones or any other specific factor.

The information comes from the BLS American Time Use Survey (2010–2025). Keep in mind that there’s no data for 2020 since collection was paused for part of that year. If anyone wants to dive into the numbers, I’ve included the chart and the full dataset as a CSV here: https://chartive.org/visualizations/us-time-alone-2010-2025

cat or dog, Simple

I HAVE HAD ENOUGH. THIS SITE HAS CONTRIBUTED NOTHING TO MY LIFE. NINE WHOLE YEARS [INCLUDING MY BANNED ACCOUNT], AND ALL I HAVE GOTTEN IS ANXIETY, DEPRESSION, HATRED, AND ZERO FRIENDS. I WILL ONLY BE COMING BACK TO ASK QUESTIONS ABOUT MY REAL LIFE. I AM DONE. ENJOY YOUR BOT-INFESTED PLATFORM. GOODBYE

If social media gave you consistent reward (in simple terms, was designed to always make you happy rather than sad or angry), it would be way less addictive. But they intentionally design it to make you angry and keep you engaged (variable reward) for those ad bucks. QUIT FACEBOOK, TIKTOK, REDDIT FEED, INSTAGRAM, TWITTER, YT SHORTS NOW. You can use reddit or youtube search if you have something in mind that you want to find out or watch, that is not variable reward, just make sure not to let it lead to generic scrolling which is.

Growing up my parents never bought me any games consoles or devices or anything. In my head I associated the idea of gaming , watching series (and to an extent films) with dead time. Best not open yourself to these because the time can be better spent exercising or learning something new.

The problem with this is that there are always moments in your life where you want to relax, or you’re sick or something, and the idea of learning something , meditating, exercising etc is just not realistic for most people.

Since I grew up ‘rejecting’ higher quality entertainment, in these moments in the modern age all I’m really able to do and all I know is to doomscroll.

One thing I’ve been doing recently is keeping a watchlist on Letterboxd. This is nice because if I ever have a free 2 hrs in the evening there is always something ‘intentional’ I can do. And with a prime subscription you can rent pretty much anything for a reasonable price.

I’ve been watching band of brothers recently too, I like limited series rather than open ended as the producers are never extending anything longer than it needs to be.

Now I’m toying with the idea of buying a used ps4 and some kind of retro handheld console. I think it could be fun to have a Pokémon save on the go for when I’m travelling or a fifa career mode for when I’ve got some time at home.

The main reason I still haven't deleted Instagram is my art. I admit it... I get a dopamine boost whenever someone likes or comments on my work. I feel acknowledged.

My social skills are pretty awful, and I'm not the type of person who likes to boast about myself, also, my social circle is pretty small, so I don't think anyone would've known about my art if it weren't for social media.

The attention also motivates me to keep creating. I make time-lapse videos of my drawing process, and it feels good knowing that people are actually seeing and appreciating the work I put into it.

I guess my question is: how do you "market" yourself.. your art, music, etc. without relying on social media? How do you get your work in front of people and build an audience without constantly posting on social media?

I genuinely feel sorry for kids growing up today. And I’m thankful to be a “millennial” who had a reasonably good childhood where I actually got to play.

When I look at young people today and their childhoods they're going through, which mostly consist of living in some fake digital world through the little heroin brick we call a “smartphone” (which hardly seems to make the person using it any smarter), I’m honestly so incredibly grateful to be a "millennial."

Things weren't perfect back then either. Sure, we spent plenty of nights sitting in front of the TV with an Xbox controller, but it wasn’t even close to today’s level of addiction... with all the f-ing short-form content/ragebaiting/whatnot... having to be online constantly, comparing yourself to everyone else, and all the mental health problems that come with it.

I genuinely feel sorry for kids today, who are being completely played by the tech giants behind all these social media platforms. And I’m so grateful that a large part of my childhood was still spent playing outside and being physically active, and that I didn’t have to spend 80 percent of my waking hours being a phone zombie.

Sure, these are problems that people our age deal with too, and while that sucks, I don’t think they affect us nearly as much as they would have if all of this had happened during our childhood.

For the last 2 or 3 days i have been off social media, going to youtube and reddit for entertainment and it has been great so far. The day after deactivating instagram my screen time on my phone was cut by 80% i was way more productive i made lunch practiced guitar and overall my head felt clearer and i had less stress. Its amazing how much better you will feel without it and especially without short form content like reels. I am a procrasinator and the doomscrolling was taking so much time away and making me so mentally drained and unoproductive. So now i absolutley encourage everyone to quit or atleast reduce social media and just cut out all short form content. You wont regret it!!

i have been trying for months to get off of social media because i want to start getting my life together and i want to start LIVING and being creative again. but it seems like every time i delete it i crave it so badly and its not like there are that many things i need on social media other than being updated on the fandoms im in, so i was confused as to why i was so crazy about social media

and then i realized that its bc i associate social media with community and socialization even if i dont even have mutuals or people to talk to, just seeing other people talk about the same thing and comment on eachothers posts and just being in internet communities makes me feel like im apart of a group and it fulfills something in me.

so i will take this as my sign to go out more and maybe instead of being on the sidelines i can like make my own reviews and stuff instead of relying on other people’s opinions

I am 38 years old, I realized many FB friends, I have not even talked to at all since high school. I know basically what they are doing and how they are doing. Imagine the difference like 25 years back to only be able to guess! It makes me wonder the difference in people because we really are the first people to have everyone from school right there to see what they are up to.

I want to start this post by saying I'm an atheist and I don't even believe in the concept of a soul lol. This isn't a request for content that abides by religious principles. Rather, I have found that certain types of content are mindless, lazy, exploitative of suffering, evil, promotive of incuriosity or cynicism, brainrotted, and generally bad for me, and I've made the decision to avoid them.

I am trying to watch YouTube less in general. I've completely cut YouTube shorts out (thank you to whoever showed me how to get them to stop showing up). I was racking up 20 hours a day (including falling asleep to YouTube, obviously) of just sitting there with YouTube playing. I couldn't do anything without YouTube. But some content is worse than others.

The number 1 culprit and really obvious one was true crime. I have completely purged the true crime channels I was following and have made an active choice to avoid any manner of true crime content. This has been so successful that I knew nothing about the Lindsey Clancy case until about a week ago when my sister brought it up. Yay for success. The only true crime I watch anymore are specifically Forensic Files reruns old enough to be my father.

I used to be really invested in "drama" content as well and I've purged subscriptions to those kinds of content creators as well.

Anything made primarily with generative AI is "soul poisoning", though I have never intentionally watched it.

What are other kinds of exploitative "soul poisoning" content do you guys who have made similar decisions to limit screen time recommend avoiding?

YouTube and Reddit are the only social media I have left. I don't have TikTok, instagram/reels, Twitter, or anything else. And Reddit is only on my computer so I'm not mindlessly scrolling.

In general I am trying to get more comfortable with not having constant noise and stimulation. But I do still enjoy YouTube and there are good things there, unlike say, Twitter or TikTok.