A couple weeks ago, I deleted social media off my phone. Insta and reddit was all that was left, but I noticed how much of a useless time sink they were becoming. My daily mood has also improved.
Now, I’ve been reading manga and playing chess online to fill the gap. But I’m still looking for suggestions on what else there is to do besides doom scroll. It’s not like I’m outlawing the internet entirely, I still have interests and hobbies etc, but I’m open to just about anything.
Lemmy mostly
Honestly, as someone who largely disliked social media and was typically a lurking doomscroller that was ready to quit social media altogether at the reddit app ban, what made the best change ever was becoming someone who is primarily a poster.
I post what I want, when I want, and I get to start the conversation that way. It’s always a topic I want to talk about, and it’s something there isn’t much to argue about, and all the interactions will be 99% positive.
It’s a small crowd here, so you can get people that are ready to talk with whoever reaches out to the masses first.
You can take time replying to people, and if no one is talking at the moment, it gives you time to plan a next post.
Pick a topic you enjoy and make yourself our local expert. That prompts you to keep actively learning about something you enjoy too so you can answer people’s questions they ask you.
switching to lemmy has made my social media consumption SIGNIFICANTLY less doomscroll-ey
How is so?
no addictive algorithm to keep you hooked and lemmy actually encourages you to act instead of just scrolling endlessly.
I was like most Americans doom scrolling things things like r/latestagecapitalism and a r/aboringdystopia because I was aware that things were fucked; like most of us are.
It felt like the fuckery was permanent and that there was nothing I could do but accept that this was reality and try to make the most out of it; filling me w despair about life and leading me to doomscrolling all the time.
Lemmy showed to me in writing that this fuckery was predicted almost 2 centuries ago and that there’s actually very few people perpetuating the fuckery (for their own benefit) and they’ve engineered this system to create the mass false belief that all the fuckery is permanent and that there is nothing we can do about it except push for small, ineffectual changes.
Lemmy, tiktok, and rednote have shown me that people like me are living significantly better lives simply because the ultra rich are not allowed to perpetuate the type of fuckery that was keeping me trapped in a doomscroll loop.
Rednote, in particular, was eye opening for me: I learned from them that most people on that side of the planet assume that life altering medical bills & student loans like mine were nothing more than anti-american propaganda from their governments.
us media has a way of sucking the life out of you. internet, movies and even games.
It’s like refined sugar both addicting and difficult to avoid
I do solitaire, cryprograms, crossword and mahjong, and sometimes I’ll read creepypastas from the archive like I used to do in highschool
Other than that if I know I’ll have to wait somewhere and occupy myself I bring a book with me.
Creepypasta from the archive sounds fun. How does one find these?
It has all the old really popular ones from the mid-naughts!
I also just got back on the creepypasta archive!
Very nostalgic and some of them are, earnestly, very good!!
I read ebooks.
Libby is an absolute blessing.
Oooo, I should try that! I have been using KU, which I know isn’t awesome, but did allow romance authors to break the publishing model (fascinating story: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/romance-novels/). And there’s a part of me that wants to give the middle finger to publishers who took in a bunch of money from romance books to pay for books/authors that would never recoup their costs.
My friend Anna started up an archive of some sort; you should check it out. At least that’s what she told me over dinner the other night.
Read using REadEra, play Forge of Empires - plus Lemmy via Voyager.
Post on Lemmy between meetings
NYT Games: Wordle, Spelling Bee, Connections, Mini crossword puzzles. They refresh every day
Reading, honestly. Though I don’t read on my phone, too many distractions. I read whenever I’m out and about and waiting, which isn’t much these days.
The Wikipedia app or Wikireader
Physical Games
Not sure what your personal in-person social circle looks like but playing physical games (board/card, etc) with people is great. Spent 2 weeks with family and we had a blast playing some games every night.
A few I really enjoyed:
- 5 Crowns
- Phase 10
- Cribbage (good grief the rules are nuts)
- Hues and Cues
- Organ Attack
3D Printing
A time sink hobby is 3D Printing. It’s a challenge enough, and can be so low cost per part, that it’s fun. Starting with a lower cost 3D printer means the cost of entry is not much. Once you get a printer dialed printing things for people and functional prints for home is great. You can also learn 3D Modeling enough to design your own prints. Definitely gonna take some time to do so.
Retro Gaming
If you like retro games setting up a retro handheld is a ton of fun and then playing the games is great too. Handhelds from Anbernic, Retroid, or Powkiddy is a low cost of entry and much higher quality than you think, and they can run up to PS1/N64/Dreamcast. Took me ~1 month to go from never having done one to having a great OS with a tailored UI (Anbernic RG40XXV running Knulli OS). Going over guides from Retro Game Corps (YouTube and website) was easy but took long enough to teach me a ton.
I actually made a great setup for retro gaming at home. I have my Linux PC connected to a KVM over LAN to the living room TV. Hyprland lets me set keybinds to run scripts to turn off my computer monitors, turn on the TV, switch audio (still working out a few kinda with audio actually), and then launch emulationstation-DE which is a front end for launching the games on each emulator.
It’s great running everything on a PC with decent specs, I have a 5800x and 6700 XT. It can do all the old games obviously, and up to PS3 and switch games, upscaled to 4K and with a bangin audio system.
Surprisingly, there’s very little latency issues or lag over the kvm. Or if there are I can’t notice them.
It might be worth a go to play the handheld ones on my phone however. Playing GBA and DS games on my big living room TV seems a bit silly haha
A few reasons I prefer the exclusive handheld game route.
- Gets you away from your internet connected device. No distracting notifications coming in
- It’s dedicated to it so it’s really good at it.
- No battery life hit to your phone.
- Higher learning curve (this goes to time filler which is what you wanted).
- Sitting on the couch, playing it outside/while traveling is great with it.
Organ attacks a good one.
I only technically have smartphone. its either not on me or turned off in a foil pouch.
The pouch also lets people know that you’re totally sane.
not only my phone case but my wallet. Not sure how someone could tell at a glance though.
wait does this mean your head/brain are unprotected?? risky
No its not made to do wireless communication.
guys he doesn’t know
Duolingo. My whole family has caught the bug. I hear the little ba-ding! noise from all corners of the house all evening long.
Y todavía no puedo hablar bien español 😕
I wish there was a foss option that was so good for, for lack of a better description, mindless learning
It is not as game-ified, but you can have a look at anki. There are plenty of premade decks about various topics to learn with.
Don’t replace social media with something else on your phone.
Put the phone down and walk away.
I hear heroin is nice.
Probably less addictive.
Balatro
I see you too replaced heroine with meth
I can quit anytime. Right after I see what’s after the next blind.
Have to play in moderation , bcus balatro’s hell of a battery drainer
Tighrope most days https://www.britannica.com/quiz/tightrope
Other than that just Lemmy.
Keep meaning to try learning Chess so I can play it online a little.
Is this Phil Dunphy?
Who?
