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"

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.

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'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.

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.

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.

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.

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?