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instant gratification with sources of novelty i do not actively have to choose is the elephant in the room of my entire life
this is about the smartphone and social media but it is about a lot more than that. it is also about the computer and the internet and the goddamn news
it is occasionally algorithmic timelines but it is also the following timeline
it is twitter but it is also youtube and hacker news and once upon a time it was reddit
it is, from time to time, discord servers
it is various news outlets
it is my email inbox
it is more also
i am blessed that i never got hooked on tiktok but i am still spending the better part of my life with one foot on this planet and one foot in hell
or worse part, clearly
what is the worst part of it
is it the hours, days, weeks, months that disappear from my memory and my accounting with nothing to show for it
is it the thirst that sometimes can't be quenched
is it the impulse that takes me away from whatever it is i actually need to do
and despite all this i know i have it a lot less bad than so many others.
i used to think banning mobile phones in schools would be too much, but at this point i think it's not enough, because everyone in the next generation has it an order of magnitude worse than me
i've made a bargain with myself: i will finally get out of this pit, but i will do it while living only for me
@hikari damn that hits perfectly. i’ve also been thinking about (rather, dreading) this same thing lately. makes me really critically think about what i’m spending my time doing and whether i’m deriving lasting joy from it or just chasing temporary pleasures (and temporary pleasures are totally fine but when 80% of my active time goes towards those, I start to feel like crap).
or maybe it’s just about balancing my goals and reflecting more often in general. that’s probably it
@hikari@social.noyu.me ironically tiktok is the only platform I ever managed to unhook myself from, cold turkey
@asie it's so asocial that this kind of makes sense to me
@hikari@social.noyu.me actually I realized it's the only social media platform I used where five minutes turned into two hours (as opposed to five minutes before switching to a different skinner box). I was also upset that it was playing into some of my deepest personal complexes.