Young fastlaners: SHUT DOWN ALL SOCIAL MEDIA

[heavy_industry]

@biophase
No tool or technology is inherently destructive.

Social media has been designed from the ground up to be highly addictive, but that doesn't mean that it will have this effect on you.

You can use this in a smart and healthy way. Here's a prime example:
(Happy birthday @Andy Black )

I forgot to check Facebook on Friday which was my birthday. I only realised 36+ people had wished me Happy Birthday when I logged in this morning, three days later. I spent a couple of minutes thanking each person then logged out again.

This is healthy usage.
Clearly not a person that is addicted to this.

Unfortunately, most people are not like this.

They get pulled into an endless addiction and end up wasting their youth glued to a screen for 10 hours a day. It's not uncommon for this behavior to eventually result in depression and even suicidal ideation.

This is very serious stuff.

This is the mental health crisis that is plaguing the western society. And there is a very simple fix for those that are suffering because of this:

SHUT DOWN ALL THE BULLSHIT AND GO OUTSIDE

Pick up a sport.
Make new friends.
Start a business.

Life needs to happen.

 

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[gilli]

When I was still using Facebook, I got an idea one day and removed my birth date to see how many "friends" I actually had. Three days after my birthday, I logged in to see what had happened. How many do you think congratulated me? Not a single one. From that moment on, I knew that Facebook was a huge hypocrisy.

 

[Edoardo]

When I was still using Facebook, I got an idea one day and removed my birth date to see how many "friends" I actually had. Three days after my birthday, I logged in to see what had happened. How many do you think congratulated me? Not a single one. From that moment on, I knew that Facebook was a huge hypocrisy.

I feel exactly the same way.

 

[ZackerySprague]

Aye Captain, I will! I read MJ DeMarco's email about this in the beginning of May. I have it admit, I had a social media addiction for years, but I now realize how much life it has taken from me. And it kinda hurts that I was on it for this long...

Thanks for the post ^^.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Well if the government is acknowledging the issue, you know it's bad. And those poor teens who succumb to this will have their brains rotted away by age 21, likely becoming the perfect pharmaceutical customer for life.

The bar for success will be lowered, and then reserved for anyone who has the mental fortitude to steer clear of this mental mine-field.

 

[adnanazmi]

Important note:​

The internet is the most powerful communication tool in the history of mankind.

All powerful tools are inherently dangerous and need to be used properly.

There is a huge difference between using a tool, and being crushed by it. It all depends on how you use them.

This thread is not about demonizing certain technologies, or black and white thinking.

I'm not saying anything is inherently good or bad, but what I am saying is that a lot of people are using these tools in a way that is not conducive to good mental health and positive business results.

If you're using various platforms to improve your business, further your education, connect with people, and improve the quality of your life - that's great. You are using these tools in a smart way.


However, you find yourself spending the entire day glued to a screen, heavily addicted to watching pixels move around, and you're wasting your time, energy, life, and you're feeling horrible as a result of your behavior, this thread might be of interest.

Target audience:​

Beginner fastlaners that don't have anything positive to gain from being on social media or other entertainment platforms, and are just suffering as a result of this unnecessary addiction.

The large number of forum posts in which beginner fastlaners complain about this issue, is a clear indication that this problem is widespread, even among people that are actively trying to build a better future for themselves.

If we want to be the 1%, we cannot behave like the 99%.

Let's explore this idea.

---

Young fastlaners:​

SHUT DOWN all the social media, and the bullshit apps that are not helping you on the entrepreneurial path that you've chosen.

Don't aim for moderation, don't try to find any balance, because the is no such thing.

Everything has been designed from the ground up to be highly addictive and to grab your attention for as long as possible, in the hopes of you clicking on a stupid ad or buying some bullshit that doesn't help you in any way whatsoever.

Besides the huge amount of wasted time and energy, that cannot be recovered, you are very likely to become addicted to those apps.

If you let this happen, physiological changes to the brain will occur, which will result in the impairment of the prefrontal cortex.

This will result in the following symptoms:

• poor executive function (translation: can't do the F*cking work)
• goldfish attention span
• no focus
• low energy / low motivation
• poor long-term planning ability
• bad choices

You can't be successful in anything, but especially in business, if your brain is not firing on all cylinders.

These changes are not permanent, and they can be fully reversed if you stop everything right now.

In a few months time, your brain will be back to normal, and you will be amazed at your new-found motivation and superior cognitive function.

If you want to be the 1%, you can't do what the other 99% is doing.

---

All the information that you need can be found on this forum.

Let this be your "social media".

You will learn many useful things that are nowhere to be found anywhere else on the internet.

(Just don't get addicted to the forum, and don't turn it into an action-fake)

View attachment 48584

Thanks @Matt Lee for inspiring me to write this post.
Check out his comment here.

What I did was I muted all the stories and posts from accounts (including my friends) that do not provide any value in there posts (sh#t posting). I mainly use Instagram and limit it to only a 15 min maximum. (I have an auto timer that prevents me from using Instagram for more than 15 min). I mostly use Instagram to maintain theme pages.

 

[ajakupi]

The last 2 months I have quited social media (IG, FB, Reddit). Didn't write TikTok because I don't like the platform since the beggining. I have to say my productivity has improved but I also have to admit that there are ways to still wonder around even without social media.

I would love to know how do you manage those situations?

 

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[RightyTighty]

I don’t keep snacks or ice cream in fridge. Because I can finished them all while doing work or watching something.

I loved this. I can walk past ice cream in the grocery store, but if I bring it home I find myself looking for the bottom of the cartoon.

When I was still using Facebook, I got an idea one day and removed my birth date to see how many "friends" I actually had. Three days after my birthday, I logged in to see what had happened. How many do you think congratulated me? Not a single one. From that moment on, I knew that Facebook was a huge hypocrisy.

This tells the entire story of FB.

 

[Vasudev Soni]

If you want to be the 1%, you can't do what the other 99% is doing.

Definitely

 

[Coolledge]

Thanks for this thread!

I'm going to totally delete my twitter, i was literally using it for scrolling cat videos, and then i found myself being drawn into debates, i don't actually need it.

I've recently joined Foxs Legends Facebook group, so i need to keep my Facebook (in fact, I actually reactivated it just to join). I then found myself falling into old habits of scrolling. But thanks @Andy Black for the idea of making it so I use social media on desktop only! I will only use the group on desktop, so I think my plan is to create a really complex password I cant remember, LastPass removed free access to mobile device sharing a while back, so I cant use it on my phone (Thanks LastPass!). Meaning I can easily log in on desktop when I want, but wont be able to login without my computer. I think this will help.

The other time drainer I have is a phone game. Ive been playing it for 5-6 years, in the beginning i got caught in the microtransactions trap, and I spent around £1500 on it. (Yeah i know, im a fool, i didn't realise what i was doing at the time). I havent done that for a long time, but because of this, I'm finding it really hard to delete and stop playing. I find myself spending an hour a day on it. However whilst writing this comment out, it's just dawned on me, that I'm being a total idiot, and that £1500 could be recuperated and if i spent that 1 hour a day on learning/building/planning a fastlane life. So kinda just answered my own question here.

 

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[jsc]

I've found it good to go even further and disable most notifications, remove other apps from the home screen, and automate do-not-disturb mode the whole day, only letting key VIPs though (wife, etc).

 

[Jasper_]

Important note:​

The internet is the most powerful communication tool in the history of mankind.

All powerful tools are inherently dangerous and need to be used properly.

There is a huge difference between using a tool, and being crushed by it. It all depends on how you use them.

This thread is not about demonizing certain technologies, or black and white thinking.

I'm not saying anything is inherently good or bad, but what I am saying is that a lot of people are using these tools in a way that is not conducive to good mental health and positive business results.

If you're using various platforms to improve your business, further your education, connect with people, and improve the quality of your life - that's great. You are using these tools in a smart way.


However, you find yourself spending the entire day glued to a screen, heavily addicted to watching pixels move around, and you're wasting your time, energy, life, and you're feeling horrible as a result of your behavior, this thread might be of interest.

Target audience:​

Beginner fastlaners that don't have anything positive to gain from being on social media or other entertainment platforms, and are just suffering as a result of this unnecessary addiction.

The large number of forum posts in which beginner fastlaners complain about this issue, is a clear indication that this problem is widespread, even among people that are actively trying to build a better future for themselves.

If we want to be the 1%, we cannot behave like the 99%.

Let's explore this idea.

---

Young fastlaners:​

SHUT DOWN all the social media, and the bullshit apps that are not helping you on the entrepreneurial path that you've chosen.

Don't aim for moderation, don't try to find any balance, because the is no such thing.

Everything has been designed from the ground up to be highly addictive and to grab your attention for as long as possible, in the hopes of you clicking on a stupid ad or buying some bullshit that doesn't help you in any way whatsoever.

Besides the huge amount of wasted time and energy, that cannot be recovered, you are very likely to become addicted to those apps.

If you let this happen, physiological changes to the brain will occur, which will result in the impairment of the prefrontal cortex.

This will result in the following symptoms:

• poor executive function (translation: can't do the F*cking work)
• goldfish attention span
• no focus
• low energy / low motivation
• poor long-term planning ability
• bad choices

You can't be successful in anything, but especially in business, if your brain is not firing on all cylinders.

These changes are not permanent, and they can be fully reversed if you stop everything right now.

In a few months time, your brain will be back to normal, and you will be amazed at your new-found motivation and superior cognitive function.

If you want to be the 1%, you can't do what the other 99% is doing.

---

All the information that you need can be found on this forum.

Let this be your "social media".

You will learn many useful things that are nowhere to be found anywhere else on the internet.

(Just don't get addicted to the forum, and don't turn it into an action-fake)

View attachment 48584

Thanks @Matt Lee for inspiring me to write this post.
Check out his comment here.

As a 15 year old I completely agree that 99% of people who are using social media are wasting their precious time and pathing their path to mediocrity. I do find myself using YouTube quite a bit watching long form content, because I believe while there is a lot of rubbish on the platform (which I used to watch), there is also a lot of valuable information which can be used to develop yourself. YouTube can be a very destructive platform but if used wisely and consumption is carefully curated, then I also think it can be a powerful tool for learning new things. The important is finding the balance and being able to separate the good from the bad. I’ll definitely try to ensure that my usage is constructive and not slip down the slow lane road of consuming for instant gratification. Hearing other people’s thoughts about this would be interesting. If you have any tips of what to do, I always like hearing things from another perspective.

 

[Shortinho]

Just deleted them all. Boy that feels great!

 

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[Lexx]

Let me share a little story: there has been a period in my life where I consciously decided to not have internet in my home for roughly 2 years. If I needed internet, I was either going to a cafe or library to connect, do my thing and then return to my internet-less life.

I cannot remember a more proactive, driven, focused, determined, imaginative segment in my life than those 2 years of living without internet. And while one can say to oneself "eh, I'll control it, I'll manage it", well, without proper awareness, alertness and self-control, it's so easy to slip. Cause later on when I reinstalled Internet in my home, I went down a rabbit hole and snapping out of it years later asking myself "how the hell did it get to this? to waste so much of my time on basically nothing productive?".

Mind you, as @heavy_industry pointed out, the internet can be a wonderful thing if used with mindfulness and moderation, it is not this evil entity lurking behind your shoulder trying to grasp you, but social media has been designed from the ground up with an army of social psychologists (+time) to make it as addictive as humanly possible. Every single thing on the screen is placed and paced purposefully to keep you "in the loop" by triggering small doses of dopamine in your brain. Sadly, this can be applied to gaming as well to some extent. Just like gambling, if left unchecked, one can wake up one day with a serious addiction problem. I know it cause I've been there.

While I do keep a very reduced amount of social media in my life (for example I belong to various Facebook groups related to my professional interests), or keep in touch with people from other parts of the World via messaging, I rarely check the newsfeed because I know it's just a pile of useless junk for the most part. I've also hidden my date of birth so I won't wake up with random meaningless wishes from people I never met nor interacted with, and turned off any sort of notifications for them. Also, for a very long time, I've used a phone which was so old that nothing new from the app store could be installed on it.

To package this in a conclusion: information for the brain is like food for the body. We have to be mighty careful to eat stuff that nurtures us. Social media is for the most part like going multiple times a day to the worst fast food chain out there and slowly poisoning yourself with the highest addictive fatty crap imaginable.

A highly relevant article on this subject is Mice and dopamine , quote:

"When they press the button, a special optical sensor, which controls specific neurons in their brain, activates their dopamine neurons.

The mouse quickly start to show the tell tale signs of addictive behaviour as they happily keep pressing the lever to receive more and more dopamine.

“If after two hours we didn’t take them out of the cage, they wouldn’t eat, they wouldn’t drink, then they’d probably die quickly, but very happily,” end quote.

We are cognitive animals, but still animals susceptible to abuse of chemistry that leads to addiction, and not every entity on this Earth wants our well-being, especially when rampant greed comes into play.

 

[King of kings]

So I have been right all along to find that Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube and the others are useless to me. Thanks all of you for vindicating my decisions. These things are all addictive. You find yourself in a loop, consuming junk after junk and getting tired and lazy. To hell with all of them.

I still use WhatsApp though. Helps to text easily. I only text people I must text, for example my business partner. Serves as records. Once in a while I check on a dormant friend.

Sure, I know I'm not one of your partner. But what if we also connect on WhatsApp?

 

[Isaac Odongo]

Sure, I know I'm not one of your partner. But what if we also connect on WhatsApp?

Maybe we start with PM on this Forum.

 

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[NakedAmbition]

This is a good reminder that social media isn't doing us any good. As recent days have shown, too many people are addicted.

Yes, there's successful people on social media, but it seems like they're more focused on getting as many followers and likes as possible.

I don't care about that. I just want to focus on helping others.

Love the suggestion about using Hype Fury. I'm going to use that for my business.

As I get older, I could care less about social media. I don't feel need to post that much or share my life.

I rarely used Facebook. Whenever I shared an update, none of my "friends" would support or engage with my posts. That's when I could tell it was all phony.

I made the conscious effort to delete my Facebook account and I never looked back.

 

[Chrisrod2597]

Important note:​

The internet is the most powerful communication tool in the history of mankind.

All powerful tools are inherently dangerous and need to be used properly.

There is a huge difference between using a tool, and being crushed by it. It all depends on how you use them.

This thread is not about demonizing certain technologies, or black and white thinking.

I'm not saying anything is inherently good or bad, but what I am saying is that a lot of people are using these tools in a way that is not conducive to good mental health and positive business results.

If you're using various platforms to improve your business, further your education, connect with people, and improve the quality of your life - that's great. You are using these tools in a smart way.


However, you find yourself spending the entire day glued to a screen, heavily addicted to watching pixels move around, and you're wasting your time, energy, life, and you're feeling horrible as a result of your behavior, this thread might be of interest.

Target audience:​

Beginner fastlaners that don't have anything positive to gain from being on social media or other entertainment platforms, and are just suffering as a result of this unnecessary addiction.

The large number of forum posts in which beginner fastlaners complain about this issue, is a clear indication that this problem is widespread, even among people that are actively trying to build a better future for themselves.

If we want to be the 1%, we cannot behave like the 99%.

Let's explore this idea.

---

Young fastlaners:​

SHUT DOWN all the social media, and the bullshit apps that are not helping you on the entrepreneurial path that you've chosen.

Don't aim for moderation, don't try to find any balance, because the is no such thing.

Everything has been designed from the ground up to be highly addictive and to grab your attention for as long as possible, in the hopes of you clicking on a stupid ad or buying some bullshit that doesn't help you in any way whatsoever.

Besides the huge amount of wasted time and energy, that cannot be recovered, you are very likely to become addicted to those apps.

If you let this happen, physiological changes to the brain will occur, which will result in the impairment of the prefrontal cortex.

This will result in the following symptoms:

• poor executive function (translation: can't do the F*cking work)
• goldfish attention span
• no focus
• low energy / low motivation
• poor long-term planning ability
• bad choices

You can't be successful in anything, but especially in business, if your brain is not firing on all cylinders.

These changes are not permanent, and they can be fully reversed if you stop everything right now.

In a few months time, your brain will be back to normal, and you will be amazed at your new-found motivation and superior cognitive function.

If you want to be the 1%, you can't do what the other 99% is doing.

---

All the information that you need can be found on this forum.

Let this be your "social media".

You will learn many useful things that are nowhere to be found anywhere else on the internet.

(Just don't get addicted to the forum, and don't turn it into an action-fake)

View attachment 48584

Thanks @Matt Lee for inspiring me to write this post.
Check out his comment here.

Thank you for this post I saw this a couple of months back. I had Instagram, Twitter, Tik Tok, Facebook, and Youtube. I deleted Instagram since, its just full of people that I know posting a ton of sh** that I do not care about which is all over my news feed. I deleted Tik Tok because I would catch myself wasting 3 hours a day mindlessly scrolling. Same with Twitter. Youtube actually has useful stuff such as follow along exercises that I do every single morning and I do tend to watch other videos to learn how to dress properly and improve other aspects of my life. The problem with Youtube is that I also tend to waste time watching useless stuff that wont benefit me such as; (sports, WW2 documentaries, traveling videos, and a lot more). Earlier this week I noticed I wasted about 4 hours watching videos and it was still the afternoon. I'm glad you bought up deleting social media because that's the only way you can quit the addiction for sure and get to your goals much faster!


I also want to add that you should change your color filter on your phone to black and white just so you are less tempted to over use your phone.

 

[Pain Brain]

Important note:​

The internet is the most powerful communication tool in the history of mankind.

All powerful tools are inherently dangerous and need to be used properly.

There is a huge difference between using a tool, and being crushed by it. It all depends on how you use them.

This thread is not about demonizing certain technologies, or black and white thinking.

I'm not saying anything is inherently good or bad, but what I am saying is that a lot of people are using these tools in a way that is not conducive to good mental health and positive business results.

If you're using various platforms to improve your business, further your education, connect with people, and improve the quality of your life - that's great. You are using these tools in a smart way.


However, you find yourself spending the entire day glued to a screen, heavily addicted to watching pixels move around, and you're wasting your time, energy, life, and you're feeling horrible as a result of your behavior, this thread might be of interest.

Target audience:​

Beginner fastlaners that don't have anything positive to gain from being on social media or other entertainment platforms, and are just suffering as a result of this unnecessary addiction.

The large number of forum posts in which beginner fastlaners complain about this issue, is a clear indication that this problem is widespread, even among people that are actively trying to build a better future for themselves.

If we want to be the 1%, we cannot behave like the 99%.

Let's explore this idea.

---

Young fastlaners:​

SHUT DOWN all the social media, and the bullshit apps that are not helping you on the entrepreneurial path that you've chosen.

Don't aim for moderation, don't try to find any balance, because the is no such thing.

Everything has been designed from the ground up to be highly addictive and to grab your attention for as long as possible, in the hopes of you clicking on a stupid ad or buying some bullshit that doesn't help you in any way whatsoever.

Besides the huge amount of wasted time and energy, that cannot be recovered, you are very likely to become addicted to those apps.

If you let this happen, physiological changes to the brain will occur, which will result in the impairment of the prefrontal cortex.

This will result in the following symptoms:

• poor executive function (translation: can't do the F*cking work)
• goldfish attention span
• no focus
• low energy / low motivation
• poor long-term planning ability
• bad choices

You can't be successful in anything, but especially in business, if your brain is not firing on all cylinders.

These changes are not permanent, and they can be fully reversed if you stop everything right now.

In a few months time, your brain will be back to normal, and you will be amazed at your new-found motivation and superior cognitive function.

If you want to be the 1%, you can't do what the other 99% is doing.

---

All the information that you need can be found on this forum.

Let this be your "social media".

You will learn many useful things that are nowhere to be found anywhere else on the internet.

(Just don't get addicted to the forum, and don't turn it into an action-fake)

View attachment 48584

Thanks @Matt Lee for inspiring me to write this post.
Check out his comment here.

Great advice. YouTube has taken its toll on my brain being apart of my daily schedule for years. I doubt it will reach its full potential again but something is still kicking up there.

 

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[Bráulio Marques]

Oh my gosh... Those were the words that I needed read.

 

[sendz]

Important note:​

The internet is the most powerful communication tool in the history of mankind.

All powerful tools are inherently dangerous and need to be used properly.

There is a huge difference between using a tool, and being crushed by it. It all depends on how you use them.

This thread is not about demonizing certain technologies, or black and white thinking.

I'm not saying anything is inherently good or bad, but what I am saying is that a lot of people are using these tools in a way that is not conducive to good mental health and positive business results.

If you're using various platforms to improve your business, further your education, connect with people, and improve the quality of your life - that's great. You are using these tools in a smart way.


However, you find yourself spending the entire day glued to a screen, heavily addicted to watching pixels move around, and you're wasting your time, energy, life, and you're feeling horrible as a result of your behavior, this thread might be of interest.

Target audience:​

Beginner fastlaners that don't have anything positive to gain from being on social media or other entertainment platforms, and are just suffering as a result of this unnecessary addiction.

The large number of forum posts in which beginner fastlaners complain about this issue, is a clear indication that this problem is widespread, even among people that are actively trying to build a better future for themselves.

If we want to be the 1%, we cannot behave like the 99%.

Let's explore this idea.

---

Young fastlaners:​

SHUT DOWN all the social media, and the bullshit apps that are not helping you on the entrepreneurial path that you've chosen.

Don't aim for moderation, don't try to find any balance, because the is no such thing.

Everything has been designed from the ground up to be highly addictive and to grab your attention for as long as possible, in the hopes of you clicking on a stupid ad or buying some bullshit that doesn't help you in any way whatsoever.

Besides the huge amount of wasted time and energy, that cannot be recovered, you are very likely to become addicted to those apps.

If you let this happen, physiological changes to the brain will occur, which will result in the impairment of the prefrontal cortex.

This will result in the following symptoms:

• poor executive function (translation: can't do the F*cking work)
• goldfish attention span
• no focus
• low energy / low motivation
• poor long-term planning ability
• bad choices

You can't be successful in anything, but especially in business, if your brain is not firing on all cylinders.

These changes are not permanent, and they can be fully reversed if you stop everything right now.

In a few months time, your brain will be back to normal, and you will be amazed at your new-found motivation and superior cognitive function.

If you want to be the 1%, you can't do what the other 99% is doing.

---

All the information that you need can be found on this forum.

Let this be your "social media".

You will learn many useful things that are nowhere to be found anywhere else on the internet.

(Just don't get addicted to the forum, and don't turn it into an action-fake)

View attachment 48584

Thanks @Matt Lee for inspiring me to write this post.
Check out his comment here.

Social media really is a double edged sword.

If I could just quit all of social media I would, I absolutely hate it. Being totally free from it would be amazing.

But, everything I've built is on social media. I have a personal following of over half a million, a personal brand, and all of my knowledge of how to make money and bring value is related to social media.

One thing though that I have found to be effective is this:

Delete that shit from your phone, just use it on your computer. Its unlikely that you'll get caught swiping through short form content if you are on your computer.

Using social media through your computer will allow you to use it for all of the business needs but not have to deal with the temptation and stickiness of it being on your phone.

Let me know if this works for you, because it has for me. The only problem is that my girlfriend gets mad because I never see the tiktoks or Instagram reels that she sends me anymore lmao

 

[Awoken]

I've quit all but one social media site.

The reason I haven't quit them all is because the remaining one is central to communicating with my friends and family. Whilst I'm aware this communication is only light and not very meaningful, I don't have much free time to commit to spending with friends and family (all my free time is spent reading and working atm) so I believe this light communication is important for maintaining my relationships.

Quitting social media is a big deal. To say everyone should quit social media is obviously extreme (and effective at generating conversation on this post). It depends what you use social media for; it's personal. Assess whether the positives of social media surpass the (inherent) negatives.

Although I still use one social media site, I control my use. I schedule when I can use it and I strictly forbid use outside those times. Do this if you're not willing or able to quit entirely.


Awoken

 

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[MartinG]

This is always a tricky dance with business especially whenever social media is a super powerful marketing tool for brand exposure, and for research to check out what competitors are doing and what people are interested in.

So in some ways you do have to scroll and learn the workings of platforms.

And I think most people aren’t disciplined or educated enough to decipher the difference between productive use of social media over the mindless scrolling element as these two things can overlap without one noticing.

I suppose setting up KPI’s and specific related tasks for daily/weekly use like posting and X amount of time for scrolling/research can be the simplest way so that you utilising the benefits social media has, whilst not drowning out and getting bogged down in it.

I think the bigger issue which is probably more prevalent on a forum like this is that the internet and social media can be provide limitless ideas and opportunities for different types of businesses to create and grow. For the average joe they can take and leave most things on social media and it can be a nice source of entertainment and distraction.

However for the ambitious and entrepreneurial it can create a quite unhealthy obsession in the mind about wanting to do 10 different things all the time based on what they consume.

It can actually be quite crazy because I could be perfectly focused on a task, and then read something inspiring from someone at the other end of the world doing something different which produces somewhat unhelpful thoughts about why am I not in that location doing that or something similar?

Now when you rationalise this, it sounds absurd, but it doesn't stop the mind wandering automatically at times to a quite unhelpful way of thinking of why you are not doing something even when this thing can be completely unrealistic.

Has anyone any guidance on quieting the mind in instances like these?

 

[Elite Ai]

30 mins social media time per day! That's my rule

Check that screen time ladies & gents

 

[MartinG]

Social media really is a double edged sword.

If I could just quit all of social media I would, I absolutely hate it. Being totally free from it would be amazing.

But, everything I've built is on social media. I have a personal following of over half a million, a personal brand, and all of my knowledge of how to make money and bring value is related to social media.

One thing though that I have found to be effective is this:

Delete that shit from your phone, just use it on your computer. Its unlikely that you'll get caught swiping through short form content if you are on your computer.

Using social media through your computer will allow you to use it for all of the business needs but not have to deal with the temptation and stickiness of it being on your phone.

Let me know if this works for you, because it has for me. The only problem is that my girlfriend gets mad because I never see the tiktoks or Instagram reels that she sends me anymore lmao

This....

Half the problem is that now you have a phone and access 24/7 to anything you want and don't want.

Part of the allure and appeal of the internet pre smartphone era is that you could only get access for a few hours in the evening. Meaning you could enjoy it for what it was and not constantly be consumed and actually focus on living your life on the outside for the vast majority of time.

Creating similar rules like this are key in finding that balance.

 

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[Roperegrine]

I 100% agree, I always used to try to moderate social media use, but by a couple of days I'd be back to my usual amount.

Also, web browser add-ons like 'Cold Turkey' that block certain sites don't work at all because the only barrier is clicking twice to delete it.

to be honest i dont have my phone for last 2.5 mounths i have only my scrap laptop, i only go somethimes youtube and reddit, but those alos seem to be huge distraction so i will shut down, however i have a game adiction that i want to stop, i only play when i have nothing to do, but there is allot to do, that i dont know

 

[Spenny]

bump - people need to bear this in mind. Don't make it a goal of dumping it, but be aware of your usage

 

[Nomads]

I've been slowly cutting social media out over the last year for one month at a time and then reintroducing it.

Each time I reintroduce it, I use it significantly less and find it less addicting but I still feel a massive shift in my mental health and focus.

While there is beneficial content out there (inspirational stories, etc), it is impossible to ONLY see the good as the bad always gets mixed in.

I've deleted all social media apps I do not use, and I plan to use the remaining two for only messaging. This is a bit tricky as I need to open one app to access my inbox but I am confident my self-control will allow me to ignore whatever post appears first.

It seems there is no balance I can find with personal social media use. Work and messaging use is fine, but as soon as I stray into personal use I experience the downsides.

 

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