Hi comrades,
As the title suggests, how do you manage your time spent online? I personally don’t use any social media aside from Lemmygrad, but I’m still struggling with being online too much, even if it’s lurking here or on other websites. I try to focus on offline things, such as books mostly that I download. My biggest problem is the refresh feature, even smaller sites such as this one just become an issue because of refreshing for new posts or discussions.
As a Linux user, I can say I tried to make my desktop as offline-focused as possible. I don’t use any “cloud” services etc., though I still find myself dealing with this. Perhaps it’s the interface.
I do like the Small Web movement, especially protocols like Gemini or Gopher. From what I see, they’re filled to the brim with conservatives and anarchists, sadly. I do lurk on YouTube via Invidious, which is probably the biggest time-waste, though there’s much valuable niche content on there. Sometimes at least.
Speaking of this, I sometimes take breaks from politics to not get overwhelmed. To get updates, I usually use RSS and the Hexbear News Megathread. For the most part, it’s enough. Though FOMO (fear of missing out) hits here too, as what if I’m not up to date with something important globally.
What’s your experience with this, comrades?
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I’ve heard setting your device to monotone/ black and white can make you less inclined to spend large sums on time using it but I can’t personally speak to that
I use that on my phone and I can say it works rather nice for me personally. Though the biggest improvement is disabling notifications altogether.
If you get rid of all notifications does that not make you more likely to actually open your phone and see if there’s notifications? I feel like that’s kind of how Lemmygrad is for me, I check more often because I might have gotten a reply or something.
I disabled notifications years ago. It’s a massive improvement. It also helps to log out after every session, because you delay your ability to get back online. You don’t realise how invasive these devices are made to be until you turn off notifications, etc.
I go on LG when I make a drink or grab a snack, etc, (and sometimes stay on for too long). Otherwise, I hide my phone. It still takes discipline; and I’m not always disciplined. But it works for me. I don’t feel tempted to check other social media ‘just to check’, but that’s because hardly anyone says anything worth reading on other social media. The problem with LG is that you lot do write things worth reading, so there is that temptation!
Still, phone on ‘silent’ and hidden behind me and I’m less tempted than I would be. (Even on loud the only noise my phone makes is for calls; yes, I often miss important messages; no idc lol.)
I generally have my phone on silent, but I might have to try turning off notifications in general.
I do it individually app-by-app if necessary. It’s a challenge, though. Every app/OS update could undo all your hard work!
I don’t know if I can turn texts, but i did turn off things i get useless notifications from. Do I need to know when a podcast i haven’t listened to in a while has a new episode? No.
For me the biggest change I did for myself was finding ways to manage my fomo and just learning it really isn’t important if I’m not up to date with latest events or whatever as if it matters enough I’ll find out eventually. This ultimately manifested for me in just simply spending less time online and doing hobbies and activities that didn’t involve the Internet as honestly without the fomo feeling I found my desire to use the Internet plummeted unless I need a specific thing or desire.
if it matters enough I’ll find out eventually
Yep! The thing is, I want to be ready to actually engage in meaningful conversation with people once they hear about a news segment, that means I should research it beforehand, not just inform myself from unreliable third party sources to say so.
without the fomo feeling I found my desire to use the Internet plummeted unless I need a specific thing or desire.
Yeah, thinking about the Internet as a tool you use for a specific purpose instead as of an all-encompassing utility really helps here.
Most news will have little effect on your life. Use screen time apps to monitor your usage and realize that you need to replace screen time with something else. I like to read stuff online. I have gone back more to reading books. Listen to podcasts over videos, or just listen to videos.
Listen to podcasts over videos, or just listen to videos.
Here I have a neat trick, I use the Whisper tool to transcribe the audio from a video and just convert it to epub. It’s useful so far and I’ve done it many times
That is a good idea, but I personally would prefer not to look at a screen. The inverse of that, what I often do is save an article or text from like marxists.org in the Pocket app, which has a function that can read it for you in a good voice. Read many texts while working using this method.
Fair, but the e-ink screen doesn’t have the same effects as a normal LED one. Although FYI Pocket isn’t the most privacy friendly one out there.
I spend too much time looking at memes, watching YouTube, and [like you said] refreshing here. I finally deleted Instagram and discord, but I still waste time on the latter two, like you. For news I generally try to read articles posted here, and listen to podcasts like Geopolitical Economy Report, and trashfuture. I’ve been reading more than before I got rid of discord, but I still should read more. I also read theory articles, have a few essays open on my browser, and need to try and use my ereader more than at night. I generally am not too scared of missing out, but if you want to get the important news rss is nice and you could try first thought in YT.
I have an ereader too and see that I can focus much more if I read on it, I usually convert any article I find online to an .epub file and upload it, reading it at my leisure. I experimented with only updating the RSS via a script at a set interval, like 24h, and only get the news from there + stuff I download and save. Would be cool if I somehow managed to get posts from here on an .epub format, probably can be done via an API.
Like I mentioned, I like the slow internet movement overall, and I think even if Lemmy is FOSS, it still inherently has some of the addictive features from the mainstream platforms. Or perhaps I just need a new pardigm to computing.
Downloading articles sounds like a good idea. I feel like if I even have my phone in the room I’ll get pulled in. I think my Pocketbook has an RSS feature, but I haven’t figured out how to use it.
You can use Calibre’s ebook-convert feature and convert a Markdown file to an epub easily. Or beforehand just use pandoc to get any of your desired formats into .md
I just save articles as pdfs and export them to my ereader’s app.
The formatting is often wonky for pdfs, at least on mine. I prefer epubs where I can change the font et al.
I live by what feels right to me, not a news report
Why does that mean you don’t need to know what’s going on? I don’t “live by” the news, but I like to keep up with current events.
Personally I avoid the news exactly because I like to stay informed. People I know who watch TV news and read corporate and state news are the least informed people. Reading the meta-news like here and other aggregators is far healthier and cuts out the noise, lies and subtle manipulation. You’re not immune to any of it.
Sounds good, I do the same. If I’m interested in a subject I can research it more, the Hexbear news threads are useful in this case, because there’s actual discussion around the subjects. Though that approach still gives me some FOMO
