I find it so hard to stay off social media if it’s on my phone because the time limits are so easy to override. I do log out sometimes but then I find it annoying when I need practical things like Facebook marketplace or finding a crafting tutorial I want to use (I use insta for following sewing accounts as I do a lot of dressmaking). I logged out of fb and insta when I went to Rome this year and it was great to take time off and be more present and not default to scrolling when at a restaurant for example. I also didn’t mind not sharing about the holiday til I got home. I think I’d do that again, deleting the app for a holiday so I can really detach from everything. Having a book on my phone or saving lots of articles to read is also good because when I have some free time and nothing else to do (in a waiting room or on a train etc) I like catching up on things I’ve been wanting to read instead of mindless scrolling
I use an android app called IChooseTo, which gives me a notification every little while that asks what I want to be doing (you choose how often, how long you wait to get back in, what the message says, and can even customise each app!). I knew I would delete hard blocks, so a soft and regular reminder that I actually wanted to be doing other things has helped a fair bit. And where it doesn't, it doesn't make me delete it in a rage and lose out later! I believe there's something similar on iPhone but I don't remember what it's called
I feel like the downside of being “out of the loop” with friends when getting off of social media is the exact reason I quit all social media (except RU-vid) 4-5 years ago. It showed me how my actual friends are aka who I want to talk to vs who I felt connected to just because I saw their stories and made me feel a lot more grounded
I was on and off taking breaks from social media for about a year or so and was finding for me personally it was very addictive and overall having a negative impact on my mental health. In July I deleted all social media (except Discord, RU-vid and LinkedIn) and although I do feel out of the loop sometimes and feel tempted back (particularly by Instagram) overall I feel more present and grounded too. I just need to get better at documenting memories 😅
It's interesting that a lot of people seem to grow tired of social media at the same time! I have recently deleted all apps (except RU-vid) that have short video content (stories, reels etc.). I still have almost the same screen time, but it now feels like the content quality I consume and my engagement with it has improved a lot!
I feel you so much on the news thing, growing up my parents always used to watch the evening news and I HATED it, always made me feel so misrable. Now as an adult myself I too get most of my news from social media, and have mixed feelings about that.
I have only very recently downloaded a new launcher, changed my lockscreen to a plain colour, and started using bedtime mode (do not disturb and grey scale from 9pm). So far not a huge difference, but it's a small step!!
I'm totally with you on late-night news and how it leads to taking dread to bed. I just don't do it. My dad used to look at the midnight headlines immediately before going to bed and I just don't get that at all. It can't be good for sleep quality...
I recognise that the news is a business not a service, and i have got comfortable going "wait, i mustve missed that, whats happening?" in conversation - that way i know what is important to my circles but dont have to hear every negative thing going on. but everyone's different. *hugs* its definitely a hard balance.
so good to see your experiment!! I've been working on my relationship with social media as well, but kind of the other way around? I'm just trying to see how I can make it work for me instead of me working for social media :) generally speaking I'm really reluctant with social media though so I find I easily get bored with it haha
I dont pay attention to the news. I have encountered some people that find it odd that I dont know about something that everyone else does. But I honestly don't care. I dont need all that extra filler in my life. If I need to know about something specific, I research it. If not, it mostly likely didn't matter to me anyway. And big news will filter to me anyway through my friends or coworkers, so...
To take a break on the weekend you can set a time limit on your social media apps and set it such that it is 0 hours on the weekend. Then make sure Dan has the password and you don't so he can give you access if you need it. I do the same but also with daily limits and it really helps me, if I do end up wanting to scroll a bit or look something up even if my time is up I can ask my partner to type in the password and give me 15 minutes. This way you could still post on Sunday evening if you want to.
I listen to the Daily Briefing by TLDR News for the news, as the name suggests it’s quick and to the point, 8-10 minutes. I listen to it either during my morning or evening routine.
Interesting to discuss the way we consume news. During covid me and my flatmate banned news at 10pm. No news passed 7pm 😂 I find that if i listen to the radio in the morning then i can then look up news headlines that interest me
Re:news and current affairs, I really hate televised news. I really like my NYT daily newsletter - I know the New York Times has its issues, for sure, so I try to take it with a grain of salt and I also let myself not read it on days when I just don't have the bandwidth. But generally, I like that it's there when I am in a space to read it, and the fact that they focus on one big thing each newsletter helps me feel less overwhelmed.
I don't know how people cope with watching the news! It gives me huge amounts of anxiety and I feel really upset by it. I get news via people's posts and the occasional article as generally it means I can stop myself becoming too distressed, but even that doesn't always work. The thing is though that we have this idea that it's morally important to keep up with the news, but it wasn't that long ago historically speaking that that would have only been via the newspaper. Before that we're probably talking whatever gossip you heard from your neighbours in the village, and you wouldn't have much idea of what was going on around the world. I think there's definitely a balance where you can be an informed person and help in areas where you are able to help, without having to put yourself through the mental distress of knowing every bad thing that's happening right now.
I get a lot of my news from instagram too, and i stopped feeling so bad about that when i realised that the people in my circle who don't use social media haven't a clue about Gaza, Sudan, Congo, community activism, and the politics of other countries, etc. That's why i keep the app even though i hate getting trapped in the reels! BUT i think its also important to look at news apps occasionally to see how these topics are represented to most people.
I like to delete x and youtube (don't use instagram) when I feel myself regulating with scrolling. I feel my nervous system slow downnnnn, feels so nice, I can just look out my window, read a book, if I want to watch something I do it on my laptop or TV and make it more intentional
Have you thougth about having a seperate phone for work which you can turn off on the weekends? This way you wouldn't loose the drafts. Having a work phone made my life way easier because I could just turn it off after work and actually relax, without checking my emails constantly.
I've thought about it but the crossover between personal and work is just to intertwined... I'd be constantly moving photos from one phone to another in order to get what I need for something
Have you considered using cloud platforms that auto sync photos so you always have access to them from multiple devices if you need them? That way you could have access to all your photos on both phones Edit: some examples being Google photos, OneDrive, Amazon photos etc
@@morehannahCould you have another Google account which is linked to Google shared photos so you always have access to the photos on both accounts/devices maybe?
On the news point - I think this is where you get lucky to not work from home. I'm a teacher and I get news from my colleagues! An upside is that they'll curate the news and because they're not very judgemental I'll just flat out say that I have no idea what they're talking about and get a full overview of the event 👍 then if something seems important to me I'll look it up to get another POV!
I wonder if instead of deleting the apps every weekend, it would work for you to get an app blocking app and set it to turn off the social media apps on the weekends. I have been getting sucked into mindless scrolling on RU-vid Shorts these days and it feels so silly because I can tell the algorithm is worse than Instagram Reels so I'm seeing content that I don't like more, but I still get sucked in! I'm trying to fight that but only allowing myself to click on one short and then click back out and click on another short instead of scrolling through them, but that definitely isn't foolproof and I do find myself scrolling still.
I’m also really struggling with RU-vid shorts! Managed to rid myself of all the other social media that inspired doom scrolling but RU-vid very much remains. I really struggle with the fact that every now and again I see stuff in shorts that I really enjoy and don’t get from longform content, which really stops me from trying to set up a blanket rule not to use shorts at all. But then I end up stuck going through really shite ones for days
News - I ask Alexa to play bbc newsbeat. It’s 10 minutes & good to catch up each morning, then anything I want to know more about I can look at on my phone
RE: News. I realised at a very early age that watching the news was a very bad thing for me, and have been actively avoiding it for nearly 30 years. The trick, I think, is to let people know that you don't follow it so to tell you if something really important is going on. Then still got my trump being shot at news from a destiel meme on tumblr but hey. My sister came in half an hour later :')
oh no this video really showed me how terrible my social media-ing is ughhhhhh my screen time is >6hrs every day i really need to do something about it but idk how
I believe that is better to reduce overall daily sm consumption than doing digital detox. Since I gave birth 9 months ago I reduced my phone time and I fell so much better about my life. I try to do as many phone or video calls with friends and family and if I have some me time to spend on the couch I will think twice before scrolling on social media. It's such a waste of good free time. I will indulge in a video on youtube. I find that if I'm not diligent with how I spend my time I will not read any books or do hobbies. It just sucks you into it and you just don't know where your time went. Same with video games lol. It's mind numbing and personally I'm not happy with that.
Id find it interesting as a creator howd it be taking like a week every month without social media? Because maybe going for a month is too long but that’d amount to 3 months without social media of course the of a year
I've never used Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or any social media really, other than RU-vid, cause they don't seem appealing to me. I don't usually watch the news either cause it's depressing. xp
It's common for youtubers to become self conscious and comfortable/lazy with age but you never seemed to realize how obviously contradictory it was for you to vilify social media when that's your job. You just kept trying to validate your feelings, contrary to reason. And you seem to still do that. You want the money but you want to vilify where it comes from and that's perhaps not entirely thought through. When you are emotionally vested in sabotaging your career it should not be a surprise when it has consequences. youtube isn't an arm's length type of thing. Or a you go over there and mind your own business and keep giving mommy the money. the premise of this video is more of the same. youtube made you, it's a blessing (susan wojcicki aside who ironically got her punishment and then some) so try not to see it as the enemy. or at least know what you are doing when you sabotage your career.
With the News section - I’ve heard of something called The Skimm which summarises news headlines and sends them to you as an email each day. Never used it but could help to stay in the loop but not get overwhelmed?(Potential chance for a sponsor too!)
I've managed to get youtube to understand that I don't want to watch shorts, which has made such a big difference. You have to press the three dots in the corner and then 'not interested'on every short it reccomends to you a few times, but then it stops giving you shorts unless you search for them. They come back after a while, but its quicker to get it to stop giving you them again after the first time.
I've been refering to this process as the "messy break up with my phone". Personally I've found that deleting the apps isn't 100% effective long term, I tend to just find another app to doom scroll on, and I don't like feeling left out. For me what works is trying to limit overall screentime. I have a tracker in my bullet journal that I fill in if my screentime is under 4hrs (which is still crazy high I know) and tying it to a physical real thing has worked really well :)
Looove this idea. I’ve been off social media now for a couple of months (except for YT) and I’ve gotten to a point where I really don’t miss it?? I even turned off my YT history so I don’t get YT shorts. I now rely on creators to signpost other creators or SEO to find things I’m interested in engaging with. The crazy thing I’ve realised is more to do with how friends/family presume I know things because they’ve posted it online. Like no, please tell me what you’ve been up to, I still want to connect with you 😂
Oh my God thank you so much for this!!!! I'm off all social media except RU-vid and have been trying to find a balance between watching creators I love and doomscrolling and I think pausing history might be the fix I'm looking for!! Seriously thank you so much for posting about this
I totally feel you on the news thing. I don’t normally watch live tv but I watched the news at my granny’s recently and it was soooo depressing. Honestly, for my mental health, I don’t mind that I’m not super engaged in current affairs. I figure if there’s something I should know about, someone in my life will tell me
Your discussion of getting the news from social media vs. other sources around 24:30 really resonated with me. Over the last few years, I realized that seeing news primarily from social media made me feel stressed, fearful, and/or angry; I think because those are the emotions that make news compelling to share, that's the kind of content that was being served to and/or shared with me. At some point, I deliberately started checking the same three or four major news sites each day, a few of which focus primarily on international news, so that my news intake would be less inflammatory and more contextual. It has made me feel better informed and less prone to those big spikes of strong negative emotions. Not that it's a perfect solution- I still get angry reading about injustice in the news (and still come across plenty on my social feeds that causes big negative emotions), it's just slightly more on my terms 😅
Yes! Also I get not wanting to listen to daily news podcasts and I honestly think keep up to date on daily news is overrated and probs not good for our mental well-being. I like podcasts because they allow for a deeper dive into topics that traditional news and radio just don't take the time on
For news I really like short news podcasts (like ten minutes). Here in the US we have NPR which makes Up First, which usually just has three top news stories. I’ll often put it on while getting ready in the morning, then follow it up with one of their other (less depressing lol) short podcasts like Shortwave (sciencey stuff) or Life Kit (advice/how tos). Having an actual radio also is great. Easier to switch on and off than navigating to a streamed radio station and just kind of feels nice? We have a jazz station that just gives the news at the top of the hour so can be a nice mix sometimes. ALSO I’ve found weighing local news a little heavier in my news consumption to be very beneficial to my mental health. Local news tends to have a closer impact and I might have a little more influence over the outcome than global news. There’s a great indie newspaper where I live that does daily newsletters that I read more loyally than any bigger news articles. Highly recommend looking into smaller local news sources!
what helps me is not putting some of the apps on the first phone home page or whatever they call it when you first turn on your phone and it's the first thing you see. and so in order to access them, I have to slide to the secondary spaces and so because it's not this instant access, I use them less and sometimes forget to use them because it's not in front of me. that said I removed tiktok ages ago because it fucks with my brain and makes it harder to wind down lol. its like digital crack
I wish this worked for me. Whenever I've done it, it has helped for about half a day or so. And then my brain just gets used to swiping to find them. :/
Interesting to see that so many people are feeling the same way about social media and I've seen a lot of people talking about it. Sometimes I feel kind of conflicted about influencers and content creators talking about how they feel that social media is not good for them or their mental health and limiting their consumption of content but then continue to create/post content and make money from it which in turn is drawing users into the apps and probably making them feel shitty too. Absolutely no shade to you Hannah because I think you are a positive voice on social media but I just think it's interesting to think about and wonder if anyone else feels the same ☺️
I deleted social media off my phone years ago and never looked back really. I definitely miss whats going on with friends day to day lives but i like living in my own bubble and removing comparison from my life. It definitely makes you realise who your actual friends are , who you check in with IRL and who you thought you were friends with because you are connected over an app! I have the radio on a lot so i get the news through that mainly! My main vice is RU-vid, especially now RU-vid shorts is here but at least I have majorly cut fown my social media usage, got to take the wins where you can! 👍🏼
According to my phone, I pretty much NEVER use social media. I only have Facebook (and Discord, Patreon, RU-vid) but I never use them (except watching RU-vid). HOWEVER I spend like 6.25 hours daily on my phone. YUCK. Mostly mindless games, with a fair amount of Amazon. I play games while doing EVERYTHING. Like all the time (unless I'm driving). I don't know how to fix this. My mind wanders if I don't.
On the news, totally know what you mean about listening to it and it making you feel shit. I can only listen to the news in the morning, after I've gotten ready for the day and meditated (so it isn't the first thing I take on in the morning) and before I start work/ get to the office (so it doesn't consume the rest of my day). I can't even listen to it at lunchtime or it just ruins my mood 🤣
One thing that I would really recommend is turning watch history off on youtube! It makes finding new channels harder, but I feel that I am subscribed to enough to keep me occupied and sometimes get recs from friends. It takes away the endless scroll elements of youtube shorts.
I do audio books either while driving, or doing color by number on my phone. It keeps my fingers busy but requires no actual focus or thought processing, so is the perfect background activity.
The BBC, Newsweek, and the New York Times all do pretty good email headline digests. You can click the links when something interests you and otherwise just skim headlines. Edit: nvm, should have kept listening .
I recently deleted the vast majority of my social media. Pros are I concentrate on my kids more and screen time has gone way down. Cons was the news thing for me too. My husband bought me a guardian subscription and I love reading the actual physical newspaper now?!? My anxiety is also a lot better. I had a big issue with my daughter who is now 5 knowing what instagram was… not sure how that will develop! It’s definitely interesting
Taking into account the state of traditional media nowadays, limiting your source of information on current events to 1 publication is not a great idea, unless you want to develope a major bias.
@@kikiTHEalien ha yeah I know, im a history graduate so know the importance of sources. My point was that reading a newspaper solved my problem of keeping up to date with the news- thankfully other news sources are readily available if I want to see other perspectives. Plus I like the crossword. 🤪
I feel I really need to do this. I’m especially prone to just pointlessly scrolling due to ADHD. Especially the last month I’ve found I’m getting hardly anything done.
I've been thinking of/trying to "break up" with Twitter for a while now so this was very timely and inspiring! A few weeks ago I unfollowed most of the accounts that I previously followed there and left only a couple of creators that I don't/can't follow elsewhere, and while watching this video I deleted the app from my phone so I'll have to access the platform on desktop. If it wasn't for those few people that I can't follow on other platforms (because they're not on RU-vid or Instagram and I don't want to download other apps and create new accounts just for that) I would have given up on Twitter months ago, but alas. But at least I'm spending way less time there now that accessing my account is more difficult, so yay!
Samsung phones have this thing called "modes" and you can schedule to auto turn on at certain times. After too many nights ruining my sleep falling into social media rabbit holes, I created a "wind down" and a "sleep" mode. When Wind Down turns on I lose access to most of my social media apps other than youtube (i like to watch long youtube videos before bed sometimes). When Sleep turns on I lose access to most of my phone except my notes, calendar, music and one water sort puzzle game. If i have any late night ideas I can note them down. If i wake up mysteriously in the middle of the night i can put on music or play the puzzle game. But the goal is my phone becomes super boring and I fall back asleep or read a book and then fall asleep lol. This system is not perfect cos sometimes i just manually turn the mode off but it does generally help me heaps.
I'm actually off Instagram (and end up scrolling on RU-vid shorts instead ahh) and barely really read/watch any news. I know you said you don't really listen to podcasts that much, but I do have a weekly deep-dive news podcast that really works for me. Fingers crossed you'll find the thing that works for you!
I find it unreasonably funny that you say "oh if you uninstall/log out of instagram it deletes all your drafts" because instagram deletes all my drafts if i breathe too hard. Nonetheless, interesting video and the first one of its type that I've seen that doesn't feel like it ties having low screen time to Being A Good Person! Congrats 😆
Good reflexes on the X email about a russian login. It probably was a scam. A tech youtuber got fished with a similar one. You did exactly the right thing by not clicking on links and doing it directly from the site.
Can you set parameters so an app locks after so much time on it, or during certain hours of the day? I think iPhones can do that somewhere in the settings. Deleting and redownloading would be so obnoxious to me.
One of the things that keeps me out of the “doom scrolling” loop is playing phone games-just like simple ones that give my hands something to do while I feel like using my phone but prevent that scroll feeling. It’s always prefect, but it’s a substitute that has worked for me for years!
The news is tricky. I made a conscious decision to read online newspapers daily for my mental health and it's been great. I read the economist "the world this week" summary. I'd love a similar format for my local news, but haven't found one yet.
I heard of someone who bought a cheap second phone to have social media on so they could still use their phone but had to actively choose to go on social media, could turn it off/leave it outside the bedroom, etc
You can use a setting called 'focus time' or similar to deactivate certain apps at certain time. I used to use it for bedtime but I'm sure it would work for weekends too
Depending on your phone you can implement locks and screen time so you could just put a timed block on apps and have your partner enter the code so you cant access it unless they unlock it
I’ve been off social media for a good few months now and my phone has even stopped opening reels I’m sent in a browser. Now people have to save up reels they would have sent me and show me in person 😁
