Really assessing the cost of quitting and being honest with yourself about how much you want it.
This helps to do on the front side of dealing with some types of addiction or bad habits, in my opinion.
Are you willing to endure pain to quit?
Are you willing to be really bored? Are you willing to miss out?
Do you want to quit badly enough to face embarrassment?
One possible pathway forward is to tell people who love you about the addiction—specifically I'm thinking of people that you really don't want to tell. People that you respect. Tell them you're going to quit and that you wonder if you can update them on your progress with it every few days. Willingness to endure pain and embarrassment required!
Or you could take it a step further, find some app or something that blocks Youtube (or whatever site you want to quit), install it, and set it up so it can't be deleted or uninstalled and have a friend or loved one set the password. Again, you've really gotta want it bad to go to extremes like this, because it will definitely involve discomfort on your end.
Oct 17, 2024
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look up these words and figure out the best way to do it on your end. i was offline for years after a major addiction & it was the best thing I ever did for myself. I'm back now but I feel like I literally pressed "RESET" and I don't take it all so seriously anymore and actually crave being offline. The only way I was able to do this was about 2 months before I did so, I learned about this and did some research and was able to do it. The first month was hard but after that, it was addicting and liberating!!
Other things that help: turn your phone on night mode at all time OR take it one step further and make it greyscale.
Also look at WHY are you on the phone? Keep in mind, many companies and apps have paid people big money to answer that question and keep you on without even thinking about it. Figuring out your why and relationship with the device is a powerful thing you can do for yourself!!
Also fall back in love with the things you love. I promise there are things offline (& this is coming from a major online digital girlie who's basically an indoor cat lol) that you can throw yourself into. Think about all the things you love or any of your future career goals based on your interests. Even if your goal is to grow on social media/online! You will need to hone in and nurture your hobbies anyways to do so!
Apr 30, 2024
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I recently quit a drug I was addicted to for years, and soon after started quiting major social media platforms using the same lessons I learned from getting sober!
Your brain is great at eventually returning to a natural baseline. But until that happens, You'll need replacement(s) to tide yourself over
Here are some options that have been helpful for me:
1. Coloring books + music. It might seem very childish, but its super fun and relaxing without putting you at the mercy of the algorithm or ads!
2. Frame reading as a scrolling replacement. Find some breezy, fun reads to start out with. Short story collections are good for this because its more digestable to read 15 stories over 400 pages than 1 story.
3. Going on walks *and leaving your phone at home*. It's exercise(always good), it puts you into the real world, and its an activity that can last pretty long.
4. Accountability to others. Tell your supportive loved ones that you're quiting social media. It gives you purpose, you're now doing it for yourself *and* others.
5. Phone calls. Bored but don't want to scroll? Call someone! Just put them on speaker and pretend they're in the room with you, just chat!
6. Last but not least, physically hang out with people *with your phone turned off*.
Jan 19, 2025
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idk if this is a helpful rec but as someone who is chronically on their phone, at one point i just had to be like a) this is a you problem and b) you're never gonna not have this problem. idk what your specific situation is, but for me, once i came to terms with the fact that i fundamentally like the internet and the services social media offers me it was a lot easier to alleviate the guilt of being on it. BUT (and this is the hard part) there is no hacking your way off social media--you just have to do it. once you've accepted it as part of your life you just got to look at yourself every once and a while and say no this is not all i want to be obviously this is easier said than done, but the best thing is to just set a time limit on your phone as a reminder, and then by sheer force of will, keep yourself off it. setting a time limit can be helpful because to use it you have to input a password, but let's be real it's not a high bar, and if we're being honest when i really want to use it i don't think about it at all. but yeah getting off social media is like loosing weight: at one point you just have to start cutting things out and telling yourself its for the better; understanding that one doom scroll on a saturday won't kill you, but also knowing that giving yourself this one excuse puts every other one on the table. at this point, i'm sort of at a harm reduction juncture in my social media journey .
Nov 26, 2024
Top Recs from @mattshawsome
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this is worthy of celebration: the lack of video—autoplay video, noisy inane video, panicky video, algorithmic, dumb video, rabbit hole video, any video—on pi.fyi is a good thing
Oct 5, 2024
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this is going to hurt — A LOT — but it's getting to the point where there's no other option
Mar 11, 2025