I feel like I'm spending less time on social media after switching to Lemmy
I feel like I'm spending less time on social media after switching to Lemmy
Maybe it's just because there's less content on Lemmy as of right now, but I remember doomscrolling Reddit, but now I only briefly open Lemmy once or twice a day.
Could this be an example of the affects of addictive social media?
Oddly enough, people are pretty adamant about demanding that we add a lot of addictive features into lemmy, just because they exist on reddit and on other big tech platforms. I usually push back, but I'm always downvoted to oblivion. I conciously wanted to avoid putting these addictive, psychologically harmful things into lemmy-ui.
So its great to see posts like this one. Social media doesn't have to be a negative experience, or addictive. The time we spend here should be short, and positive.
I have seen the same behaviour in myself. Reddit was the only social media I used and when they pulled the plug on third-party apps, I took it as a goodbye.
I see myself sometimes opening my phone to "do something" but I have almost no apps to waste time on. I've reused that time to do better things, which feels nice. I read a little more here and there, I learn stuff of wikipedia when I'm on my phone, or I get up and do something else. It's been great for me, even though I'm kind of sad to see it go. Lemmy is a great community, though I'll try not to start using it so much, just for my own sake and not on the fault of the platform itself.
Corporate Social Media are constructed to be addictive. Ever since I immigrated on July 1st, I stopped using SM like Reddit, twitter (only FB for old relatives sake). I noticed that I actually decreased the time I spend on Lemmy and Mastodon. I value it as the same kind of decision as the one that I quit smoking
I'm spending way more time!
I didn't really like the community in Reddit that much. I used it more like a news feed. So I never read 'all', I just read my subs for a few minutes here and there, but I didn't post and comment much.
Since coming here I post and comment a lot more. There seems to be more proper discussion here, despite being much smaller and quieter.
I feel like most of the critical news and politics makes it to the top political communities here, but without the 5000 articles of people rehashing the same stupid story over and over. If I read Lemmy world or beehaw news and politics, I have the gist of what’s going on.
Everything else is the meme trend of the week here. Not pooping, beans, vintage memes, Ohio, etc.
I feel like with Lemmy, it's harkening back to a period of the internet where you can approach it and put it down for later. It's not yet constructed in a way like all of the other social media platforms, that want to keep you invested, even if you know what to expect. Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, Twitter .etc all remind me of the days in the old internet, where you had web portals. These web portals were from MSN, Yahoo and AOL primarily.
They all had things there, to keep you attracted to them. They had their search engines, they had games, they had news, they had weather and many more things. All to keep you in one place and to keep you from venturing out to other places unless you used their search engines before Google became the juggernaut of that.
Social Media today, is designed now, to be like them. Except it's worse because they've got algorithms in place that they extract the data from, i.e you, to pitch to you things that you may be particularly interested in just to keep you invested.
For all of the numbers those social media platforms have, they sure do say a lot of nothing.
I feel like I am spending less time on Lemmy but am more satisfied with my time here.
On Reddit I would scroll endlessly. I'd find a comment or sentiment that was wrong and start typing out a reply, or once in a while a topic I knew about or had a story for. Then delete it because I don't want to argue with an idiot and no one will ever see the comment because of the flood of "jokes".
I feel like I can actually interact with the content here.
I feel that, my friends asked me how Lemmy is and I told them it's great, but I find that I spend a lot less time because it's harder to find new content.
I do, too. Prefer the Fediverse to anything else.
I have the same effects. But this is probably the best thing to ever happen to me.
It doesn't matter what domain you're on, break the habit of being stuck on these sites. The internet is regurgitation of content, and echo chambers that have extreme point of views that shouldn't be celebrated
Lemme isn't using some algorithm designed by an entire phycological department to be as addictive as possible for engagement numbers.
The splintering, the difficulty of the federation relative to the easy UX of the silos, the normal pickup time of any new thing on the internet, but most of all, [unlike Reddit and every other platform], there is nothing in the server code which is designed to keep you here. Go play with your cat, and post a video of it.
Ive experienced the same. The communities I enjoy are still too small on Lemmy (like 14 users/month) and the quality of content on local and all is pretty hit or miss - so I just spend less time looking at it
Same.
Although I have less knowledge now.
To me there’s less engagement right now in Lemmy than there it was in Reddit, partially because there is less content, but hopefully this will change in the near future
I probably spent a bit less time too, but the bigger difference for me is that I'm doomscrolling less but instead I'm commenting more and posting more.
Yeah this is actually preferable to how I used to open Reddit a thousand times a day for absolutely no reason :)
Same! I keep looking at R…and getting annoyed. I miss bacon reader.
I'm sure it's different for everyone but I was beginning to get burned out on social media and would have spent less time on it regardless.
I'm the same, used to spend hours scrolling but use it only about half an hour. Quite happy about breaking the cycle.
Same. And I’m quite happy with the reduced time. When I tried to quit reddit cold turkey I found myself back almost immediately. But lemmy is a nice substitute. Content gets replaced at a slower rate, moderation is looser or less annoying. Fewer bot nonsense. And tough there is a crowd here on lemmy spewing a lot of nonsense, I almost prefer that they never get concealed. Shows more truly the divide on the issues. I almost don’t want lemmy to grow to Reddit size, tough I feel it might, with time.
Yes, this is quite homely.
I'm spending way more time online in general and on SM in particular, just not on one platform. I think it's because, in searching for something new, I've found all of these other places each with their unique culture, atmosphere, etiquette, and language. And each place is introducing me to new things (new search engines, browsers, streaming sites and apps, podcasts, RSS feeds to subscribe to, etc.) If I had stuck to Reddit, I just would've been doomscrolling instead of exploring what's out there.
Meanwhile, I'm spending way more time here than on reddit. Ouch.
Same here, indeed it's for the best
Doomscrolling used to have a meaning of browsing /r/collapse and /r/collapsescience rather than /r/worldnews
I've been spending less time on Lemmy and Kbin overall, but I'm more engaged and commenting more. Basically, I'm getting more out of the conversations here. Not saying the conversations on Reddit were any less meaningful, because there are a lot of intelligent people that posted and are posting over there (I'm assuming they're still posting over there, I honestly haven't been there since the 3PA Purge). Maybe because the amount of comments here are fewer so it's easier to read more comments and respond vs the wall of comments and still missing a lot of information. I don't know. But I feel like I can spend less time here and get more out of the posts and comments.
You can look up dark patterns and compare the two based on that if you want, that would be very interesting!
Reddit was repetitive. It felt like the "edge of tomorrow". Lol You see the same shit everyday.
Not sure if that is a diss or not
Same, and I don't think that's such a bad thing either.
I don't have to scroll a long time here to find the content I like. I scroll through until I find things I've already seen and then I do other things. I've had a lot of time to be creative without addiction-fueled social media scrolling.
I'm spending more time. I never browsed beyond my niche subs on reddit.
The algorithm of reddit would add content to your feed that you don't subscribe to. Even if you visited the s ti b to block it, it would suggest subs similar to it, because you once visited
The subreddit I was active have not migrated to Lenny at all so I guess I will have to not scrolling like crazy anymore
Well I didn't spend all that much time on Reddit, I actually spend more time here because I reply a lot more and find stuff I'm more interested in reading.
The same has happened to me, I’m taking it as a good thing
I always browsed r/all, I subbed to a bunch but only went to them occasionally. I'm in it for the mindless scrolling in downtime and news.
I miss always having new content. I was almost 100% reddit anyway and now it's 100% Lemmy just with less content so inherently I spend less time.
I know technically I could be a contributor to content but it's just not me. I think I had ten total reddit comments the whole 14 years I was using it. It's not my thing.
I'm the same too, was whipping out reddit on the phone at any chance, or browsing while doing something in discrod with mates. Now it's Voyager for a quick blast (honestly, I kinda hate the feeds, I don't have a comfy one yet, understand they're reworking it soon-ish) and for a good read, I'm back on friggin...SomethingAwful and reading some legendary threads from past and present, it's like a magical book of schadenfreude. Way better than mindless nothing on Reddit [Apollo].
Thanks Spez!
Me too since lemmy.world is crashed more than it is up lately.
It's a good thing, you don't need to be on social media 24/7.
Good thing that's probably nice is you probably feel like you're not missing out on anything if you're off for a few hours.
Really goes to show you how much they've made social media truly addictive, and not in a fulfilling way.
Same. I enjoy it
Me too! I really like it. It makes me feel fresher and more open to the world around me.
Lemmy still has a small user base compared to sites like Reddit. Some of those features came out of managing huge user bases. And naturally when you have a huge userbase, you have people wanting to make money. Some honestly, some not. The site itself sees the potential to make money. Over time good intentions tend to melt away and the demons run amok.
The trick will be if places like Lemmy and Mastadon and whatever are able to over come this and remain pure.
Maybe. I feel like I like scrolling lemmy a lot more and I get that old reddit vibe of "lets go scrolling" pretty often. I'm excited to chat about whatever on here.
After spending a couple years barely online, I honestly have no idea what the hell is going on anymore onlilne.
Same here. I dont know if it's something connected to the switch to Lemmy (since I also deleted my tiktok and Instagram account), but maybe it's a contributing factor as more people here are feeling the same
Yeah Lemmy is a wasteland and nothing to see here. Reddit is so less usable without Boost I rarely use it now either, also some of my communities are still in blackout or even non existing.