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.
I have a few dozen mobile games
Uhhhh
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Play the NYT wordle, mini crossword, connections for the day. I have some small simple games that can be stopeed at any time. My most played ones are cake sort, water sort, sudoku and sometimes minesweeper. Also scroll lemmy sometimes, it’s small enough that it doesn’t take long to see everything that is new, so there’s no risk of getting sucked in for long
PPSSPP and Dolphin. Playing through the entirety of Paper Mario: TTYD, Luigis mansion, Sims 2, and Killzone wasted a good chunk of idle time for me.
Mostly tiktok scrolling. It’s got a bad rep, but there’s a huge amount of seriously talented people on there doing amazing and creative things. I’m a 50-something year old guy and it quickly figured out I like videos about mine explores and restoring vintage vehicles. Once you learn to downvote stuff you don’t like, it’s quick to learn and aside from the comment bots or obvious trolls (Typically pro-Russian or Pro-Trump, if there’s a difference) it’s generally a positive thing, in moderation.
I totally get your desire about avoiding socials and have experienced the mood swings it can bring too. That’s made me quite tuned into how the algorithms are steering me. For me (and everyone’s experience is different) - Facebook is mostly bland generic stuff but quite useful for local content - just avoid the drama llamas), and use an advert blocker. Reddit is mixed. I used to be on there a lot and contributed and modded a bunch of stuff, but quit for a year after spez screwed over the app people. I skim it a bit now, but don’t give it much mind. X is awful, won’t go near it. Lemmy is less of a shitpost zone than most but still has too few people to be significant. We’re all helping with that though.
Lemmy aside, I think most algs will figure you out pretty quick. If you get involved in nasty commenting, it’ll feed you more of that. If you do the odd positive thing (as I try to) then it can be less toxic - but with all things, remember why you’re there. The more you feed it, the bigger to you it becomes. Balance is important, and be aware of how stuff is affecting you.
Anyway, beyond TT, crosswords, some news sites and the occasional candy crush.
Good question though, I’m reading other comments as it’s harder to find stuff outside of the main channels now.
yucata.de (online boardgames)
Shattered Pixel Dungeon
Simon Tatham Puzzles
Lichess app - Puzzle of the Day
Gurgle app (wordle)
https://wikitok.vercel.app/ (endless mood-scroll Wikipedia)
Doomscroll the news, play some games, check if there are any updates to social media accounts. If I’m feeling ambitious I’ll follow rabbit holes on wikipedia or google some obscure science subjects.
Emulate classic games
slap a controller on that bad boy and practice your street fighter 2 combos. That’s an easy half hour right there
Lemmy
I hang out with all y’all jokers on lemmy
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.
deleted by creator
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?
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.
Read books, comics, journalist articles, chess puzzles, crosswords
Various solitaires via LÖVE Solitaire.
Simon Tantham puzzles
And, due to a Lemmy post I saw the other day, a game called Slice and Dice.
Yes slice and dice! I would hate to know how many hours I’ve played on that game over three different phones.
If you haven’t tried them yet, slay the spire and balatro are also brilliant.Slay the spire has so many hours on my PC. I absolutely adore that game. For some reason I bounce off of Balatro, it doesn’t hook me in the same ways and I’m not sure why. I don’t feel smart enough for it lol
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.
I’ve found premade decks tend to be extremely over done in a way that makes them actually pretty ass. However, I do love anki so much. I’m using it for Japanese , 2000 words in so far.
