I spent approximately five days on social media detox for mental wellness, because once I recognized that I am the biggest hypocrite EVER here: so ...
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I left Facebook, Twitter, Pinter est, Instagram, TripAdvisor, LinkedIn and all Google stuff one year ago and I feel good 😊
Now I use some remplacements for some of them, mainly fediverse apps like Mastodon, Diaspora and PeerTube. It's a whole new sane world to discover and it's quite exciting !
Everyone should give it a go.
I looked into Mastodon. I was super-excited - i INSTANTLY thought "yeah, I'm gonna host one of these" lol - but navigating the ecosystem was a lot to take on. Seemed a little like JavaScript libs before npm.
I'll come back to it one day, though.
If you're looking to host your own instance, have a look at pleroma, it's much more simple !
I'm really surprised I didn't run into Pleroma before!
I'm team Go/Vue, and I've entertained Elixir (and rust). You'd think pleroma would've popped up in my looking.
(Backstory: I'm pretty much convinced Go took inspo from elixir when they designed goroutines - one of my favorite things ever)
Do it.
Ok. How did you leave google? Its almost like cancer. Are you sure there is no trace at all? and whats up with TripAdvisor. People are getting addicted to that? :D
I left Google little by little. Started by Gmail, which was quite easy to replace by ProtonMail, then I switched my Phone to LineageOS without Google services, and I replaced Drive by Cozy.io and NextCloud. Finally I closed my Google account.
I still use some services like Google Search and YouTube, but without being logged.
Regarding TripAdvisor, I was a top 10 contributor of my city, so yes I guess we can be addicted to that 😊
How do I install lineage IS
I just follow the installation guide that I found on my phone's manufacturer : Fairphone2. It's quite easy !
In fact I found it on wiki.lineageos.org/devices/FP2/ins...
Mastodon UI is like tweetdeck. There is a column with your feed and without algorithm, a column with the local feed of your instance and a column with the feed of all federated instances, without algorithm I think.
To be honest it's not as trendy as Twitter but it's OK for me.
I open facebook once per month, instagram once per day. It's essential just to keep my connections alive.
However, I don't post anything because it's none of their business to know what I'm doing, going out with...
I see people post pics and vids to show others how happy they are, but when I talk to these people, I see how miserable they are.
A good start was to log off all social media sites on my phone and promise myself I'd never log back in. That keeps all social media viewing restricted to my laptop so it's not very convenient. I no longer spend an hour or two catching up on everyone's political opinions and frustrations before falling asleep. I spend maybe 10 minutes a week looking at social media sites. I still tend to stare at my phone in bed (something that I need to work on), but it's either DEV or a kindle book. I read more books now than any other time in my adult life. I don't feel as connected to the strangers I used to follow, but I feel much closer to the people that matter most - my family.
I quit Facebook 8 years ago. Never logged in back. Deleted Viber (which I hate btw) and left only Whatsapp & Telegram (which everyone was using it) and I still have Instagram & LinkedIn. Seriously thinking about killing the Instagram too. I am not using it nearly as much in the last 2 years, so maybe I should just kill it. LinkedIn in can be cool (at least in Scandinavian countries) but it's not necessary to have it.
Oh, yes, I have Twitter.. I think I will not turn off that one, because I find that Twitter is the fastest source to any kind of news. Not active on it as much though 😊
I went on a pretty huge social media ban awhile back. The main thing I noticed is that I wasn't as stressed out about everything, and I had a lot more "free time" not sucked up by mindless scrolling.
The main drawback is that I was also pretty cut off from the development community, and it was very difficult to keep up with my network as well. It is, after all, social media.
I'm trying to strike a balance at the moment, but it's proving difficult.
I've never done detoxes in the sense of completely switching everything off, just in the case I do miss something I care about, but can totally agree with how much it boosts your productivity.
With how fast tech is moving, it's still useful to have these channels to keep to update with industry trends. Having said that, I noticed since I took these detox sessions, I have gradually become better at not checking my phone during work hours by having it on my desk so that in case of the odd emergency calls, it's still within my reach to pick things up.
I go through phases of enjoying different social media, but this modern stuff, Facebook, Twitter, etc. just doesn't do it for me.
I often forget Twitter exists for weeks at a time. I haven't used Facebook for anything more than getting API keys for years. I've posted on Instagram maybe 100 times in the last 4 years? Something like that.
It's just not interesting enough.
To be fair, I do shitpost on Mastodon a lot, especially when I've had a couple of drinks.
But the "mainstream" social media? Boring or unpleasant, for the most part, and I wouldn't be bothered if they closed shop tomorrow.
I said I go through phases, though, so I'll get back to that original point. Sometimes I've been obsessed with a particular forum or site for a few weeks at a time, and it takes over my free time. When I realise what it's doing - if I start dreaming about it or getting angry about arguments I see, that sort of thing - I quit cold turkey and have generally forgotten about it a day later.
I set out to quit Facebook about a week ago. Really, it was just a conduit to message/poke my wife, so it was limited value to me. But... I did all its other things, just because it was there. So I quit Facebook. It went crazy-smooth - I really enjoy the no-fb life. I immediately appreciated that I don't have the constant urge to take a photo of what's happening to show the world. Things feel more honest now. (Occasionally, I even feel "special", thinking "this is MY experience, not everyone's" 🤷♂️)
I guess there was some subliminal association there, because I incidentally bailed on ALL socials.
I come here a bit, I have a Whisper that I almost never check on, and I might spend 10 minutes a week on Twitter.
That's it though. ...and I'm enjoying it.
My Facebook replacements:
Oh, one more side-effect: I do very different things now, and I enjoy them more. Before, we'd spend a good bit of time at bars and restaurants. Now... There's more home food, grilling, and playing handball.
Wonder if the "before" had something to do with the FB influence?
It’s been more than 3 years that’s I quit Facebook. So yeah it’s possible to quit some bad habits. But at the same time I had to have some alternatives which i found I LinkedIn, medium, feedly and others during this period. I have to accept the fact though that i occasionally use Facebook, for oauth logins only though.
I use social media less than a hour per day, there are days I don't even log in. I use them to see some meme posts, Dev tips and tricks and some development setups. So I guess they don't have much influence on my life
I am a newbie here, have only 4 social media accounts, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and whatsapp. But active only on Twitter. The rest I rarely use them. Thinking of deactivating the other three
hehe I went through a similar epiphany and detox recently and I'm always on the lockout for how often I use social media and how it affects my wellbeing. Here's a couple of articles I wrote about it:
I think you'll find a lot of common themes with your article :D
Good!
Good for you! There have been plenty of studies showing social media can make you less happy. A lot of people say they are going to, few people do.
Quitting social media may seem too drastic for you? Block all notifications, at least the ones from social media. That way, your productivity goes straight to the clouds!