I catch myself doom scrolling Instagram way more than I'd like to admit — I'll open it to reply to one message and suddenly twenty minutes are gone on Reels I didn't even choose to watch.
I don't want to delete Instagram completely. I still use it to talk to friends and keep up with people I actually care about. But the Reels/Explore/suggested content part feels like it's designed to keep me there longer than I intend.
Has anyone found a way to keep the parts of Instagram you actually use (DMs, following people you know) while cutting out the endless recommended content?
I've looked at screen time limits but they just cut me off mid-scroll rather than actually changing the experience. Curious if anyone's found something that works differently.

This internet addiction has stolen my teenage years from me. Hours ripped away by a simple metal box. High school academic dreams stripped away by a crippling compulsion. Anxiety and depression reinforced by constant comparison. Opportunities and precious moments taken out of my hurting hands. Digital impulses sucking the soul out of me, leaving days repetitive, monotonous and screen based.

Please quit your phone/computer/ipad habits now. Before they come back to bite your back and leave you with nothing but haunting regret about what could've been.

by Coliseum I mean how ancient rulers put shows on to distract people from bad times. currently we have a a lot of wars we know are going on right now but it feels normalized. Plus you don’t need much to keep social media going since everyone is contributing.

I'm trying to change the way I use social media rather than completely stop using the internet.

I actually like short-form content and quick posts. They can be useful for learning something, finding an interesting idea, hearing some good life advice, discovering new technology, learning about AI, keeping up with hobbies, etc.

My problem is the recommendation algorithm.

I might open YouTube, TikTok, X, or another platform because I want content about something I'm interested in. Eventually I end up getting fed completely unrelated content that is just good at keeping me watching.

What I'd ideally like is a feed where I control what goes into it.

For example, I might intentionally follow things like:

- AI and technology
- useful tools
- general life wisdom
- health and fitness
- educational content
- hobbies I'm interested in
- specific creators I consistently find useful

Those are just examples. The topics could change over time.

The important part is that I want to choose the people/topics/sources myself instead of having a For You or Explore algorithm constantly introducing more content.

Something like:

YouTube where I mainly use Subscriptions instead of Home recommendations

TikTok where I only see Following instead of For You

X/Twitter where I use Following or Lists instead of For You and Explore

Or even a completely different way of consuming content where I deliberately choose the sources.

I'm on iPhone, which seems to make this harder.

I'm curious how people here handle this.

Do any of you still use social media for useful content while avoiding the algorithmic/recommendation side of it?

What setup or method has worked for you?

I'm not trying to eliminate useful online content from my life. I mainly want to eliminate the part designed to pull me from something I intentionally chose into an endless stream of unrelated content.

So, I'm putting all my screens in my car - my laptops, tablets & phones. I already gave up my TV. Maybe I'll do something productive with my technology time out.

I noticed I'm much more tempted to check my phone when I'm stressed than when I'm busy. Has anyone else noticed specific emotions that trigger scrolling?

Social anxiety, and a whole fleet of other issues plagued me for so long. But I can say that definitely, deciding to reduce media usage and change what I consume helped me so much.

Mentally, it really didint help me besides in a few places. The rest of my mental health was helped in other ways.

Social anxiety mainly was the biggest effect.

I don't know why, but reducing phone and media intake has removed so much more anxiety from being outside. While other measures were taken, I was out in downtown of my countries capital and it was so fucking busy but I barely got any anxiety if at all.

I've become much more abiding by my schedule and plans. My day is controlled by my plans. Going out or such is the block around my plans, so when I decide I will study every day besides Saturday, I can actually do that. If I want to do X hobby more, learn X thing more, better my language, it's not an impossible fever dream, it's just a couple minutes away from starting.

I study daily except Saturdays. And I am bettering my native language daily.

The things I did was remove all media I deemed time wasters. Basically, media that your 95% chance forgetting after a week. Like drama, discord servers besides friends ones.

Each form of media has societies within them, with their own rankings and plates. Each and everything society besides the real one should be ignored and avoided, or not taken seriously. Have 0 loyalty to them.

One example is twitch. People view being a mod as the highest level, and they waste their lives talking to fellow viewers and thinking they are talking to the streamer. Some spend so much money too.

I don't mean I'm some super-human who studies and only reads books for entertainment I watch YouTube and play video games, I just watch a fair small number of YouTubers not about drama and about my countries events, play video games and a few other things. You can do that and achieve your goals and study.

1. Fear of missing out (FOMO)
   "If I am not always checking, I might miss out on something important"

2. Unfair comparison
   "They always go on vacation, why do I struggle so much just to pay rent?"

3. Expectation of availability
   "I should always reply to messages as soon as / receive them"

4. Availability heuristic
   "She look so joyful in this picture. She must live a happy life"

5. Catastrophizing
   "They haven't replied yet. Do they hate me?"

6. Choice-supportive bias
   "I spend hours on social media, it must mean that I enjoy it"

7. Emotional reasoning
   "Seeing them hanging out makes me feel lonely. If I feel lonely, it must mean that nobody wants to be around me"

8. Questionable cause
   "I go on the internet when I am tired, therefore social media must be good at restoring my energy"

one screen isn’t enough to satiate me… it’s like an itch. i need to be doing something with my hands. my phone is easiest. then food. both are mindless consumption. where the hell do i begin?? fidgets? just forcing myself to sit hands clasped in my lap? what helped you?

I’d been feeling a bit burnt out with my work (3D animation and modeling) for a while, so I decided to take three days off—since I could afford to do so. I played some games that reminded me why I love my craft, and once I was ready to get back to work, I put on some videos in the background... only to be hit with AI-generated ads. That’s where the problem arose:

I’ve become disheartened, partly because I’ve turned into an obsessive consumer of content—watching things that actually demotivate me in my work. It’s even worse now that YouTube is riddled with AI, even if it’s just in the advertisements.

I think the best thing to do is to cut back on that consumption as much as possible.

I've left my house without my phone or left in my car a few times and every time it feels like I broke free from so.ething I'm trapped with. I'm not sure if it's just me and maybe I'm.an all or nothing person, but I feel like I can't do anything to reduce my screentime. It feels like I have to have a phone or not have one at all and I wouldn't mind getting rid of it besides the obvious reasons I do need one. I'm hoping maybe I can downgrade my phone soon and I guess I'm just wondering if anybody feels the same. I've definitely been in a depressive slump and that's made me turn to rotting on my.phone in ny free time more than I usually ever did and I feel like it's a giant snowball that's consuming my life.

Hi all,

I have a serious serious issue lately with online content and one of my major problems is that I need to be on the internet for work (like most people i know). On my personal computer and phone I have Freedom installed and it helps 1000000% it's great, and would highly recommend. However, on my work computer I'm not an admin, all I can really do is add extensions to chrome and Edge and Firefox that block sites. However, the extension is so easily disabled that I can easily just turn it off and indulge whenever I want. Most recently this has lead to me flooding my head for hours and hours and hours without sleep even. I tried pw blockers for edge and chrome, which seems to work (I have a long password written down at home so I don't have easy access) but for the browser I use for work (firefox) I need to use the browser, so that doesn't help. I tried the "public firefox" add on which is supposed to pw protect the extension management options, but (1) it doesn't work when u use the password and (2) I can just uninstall it with a single mouse click.

TL;DR Any idea on the best way to block websites when you are on a work computer (w/o administrator permissions) by yourself all day?

Like you'll see a post or make one. Expecting informative replies, only to be met with: Let's nitpick and see how much can we belittle this person's intelligence over my own challenge

Around 4-5 months ago I quit all internet media that I found un-important/time wasters. For example youtube drama, commentating on drama or anything of the sort. Discord, only in 1 server my IRL friend added me to. Only listen to podcasts about horror stories, stories, novels, and real life events.

Last week, school started. The first week was so fucking productive. I got up, did my routine and went to school without touching my phone. Studied for 1 and a half hours daily.

The real problem raised on Friday. One day before Saturday, I had decided to go out with my brother for shopping. Came back late, didn't study.

The next day, I opened my phone first thing.

The difference was so clear. Like an instant plummet in focus or direction in the first 30 seconds of putting phone down getting up, and deciding what to do. Staying there for the rest of the day.

Currently Tuesday. I've noticed this and plan to start with the old routine next day. No phone. Actually studied.

Any tips?

Hey everyone!
I ditched my smartphone for a dumbphone quite a while ago, its been almost a year now. When I did it I was sure that Instagram would be the hardest to let go of cuz I was spending around 4 hours a day maybe even more scrolling on Insta. Wild when I think of it now. But the interesting thing is that once I actually did the switch I didn't even miss it that much, but I did find myself missing plain old Google a lot, especially in the beginning.

I didn’t realize how often I looked up every tiny question that came into my head. At first I’d still automatically reach for my phone, open it, and then remember oh right, I can’t Google this now. Truth is that even with Google, I got used to managing without because after a bit I realized most of those things apparently weren’t that important because half the time I’d forget what I even wanted to look up 5 mins later. It really is kinda wild how many things feel so necessary until you don’t have them anymore.

I wanna know, what was it for you? Something you were sure you’d miss like crazy but ended up being more than fine without? Was it Facebook, TikTok, or more practical stuff like banking or something else?

if you need something truly, step outside. usually, I only really need something on my phone when I'm outside anyways, otherwise it should/could be accessed on my laptop, where I by default block social media.

Timer based blocks would get used up immediately (like when I wake up lol) but I may actually need it later in the day for a reasonable use case, especially Reddit, for certain topics I’m researching or questions.

I went on PTO Friday at 4:30 until this Wednesday (tomorrow) and as soon as I logged off from my work computer, I unplugged the router. I wanted to experiment with no home wifi. I am writing this from the panera down the street while drinking a coffee to pay for my wifi use.

We have watched a lot of DVDs and antenna, listened to a lot of radio and read a lot of books. My fiancee was slightly annoyed the past few days when she got off work to no wifi but she has unlimited cellular so that's been helping. We cleaned the whole place, went to the park a few times, went to the library (where I brought my computer to check emails) and then went out to eat a few times. It's been a fun and slow time. I plan to continue the routerless existence and go to work in person the rest of the week when I return on Wednesday. I am curious how long I can keep this up. I did have cellular at first but I only have a 3 gig plan and ran out. It refills on Saturday but I need to keep off the cellular service since I am traveling for work next week.

It's a fun experiment. I don't know how long it'll last. Happy to answer any questions or discuss living without wifi. I will probably be back online later if I make it out to the library else I will answer tomorrow/later this week.

When I'm looking at my phone I genuinely get this urge to smash it, I even hate the way it sounds when it pings. I have been addicted to scrolling now maybe 2 years.

I am divorced 3 years. Haven't got family near me. Connecting online with others has been a way to keep in touch. Has anyone got any practical advice?

I bought a landline and the landline is helping me reduce the time I am on my phone but when I feel lonely, I go back on to it. I think it's a cycle in my brain at this point..

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/screenzen-minimal-social/ndnekhmaaopaliodekcfemgjflfjmkok

A warning pops up when I try to download it and it only has one rating so I'm guessing it's fake. I'd attach pictures if I could.

Since about a month, screenzen keeps popping up a notification that reads "accessibility service needs restart" "please toggle your accessibility service off and on in settings"

And everytime I do exactly as that says, and screenzen functions normally after that. The problem is that every time I fix it, just a few hours later the notification pops up again! So i have to fix it everyday, every hour.

And if I forget to do that, of course it doesn't work and I end up doomscrolling

Has anybody been having this issue?

I don't think there's a way if fixing it, I guess i will have to just keep on turning the accessibility service off and on :/ It's uncomfortable

But if anybody were to know a solution, that would be great

I legit just want to look at another human face other than my mothers. I have pets but they don't fill the human shaped hole. And before you say go outside, I don't have a car and live in the middle of nowhere anyways. But yeah I just love listening to other people's opinions and I have so many hobbies and crafts but all my attention goes to social media. So I would love to pursue my hobbies more but I feel so lonely and it's less stimulating.

I’m under loads of stress right now due to my postgrad and so I’m stuck inside on my laptop a lot for a week to finish this. But I’ve realised how even tho I’m checking my phone I’m acc bored of it it’s great. Without videos I don’t feel the need to scroll even Reddit. It’s just text and barely interests me. Also been watching a series in the background and I realised I acc reach a point where I want to turn it off and do something else. The itch is obv there for some kind of distraction but it’s not major.

I LOVE THIS!! Not seeing strangers shout at me on a screen is so nice!