This started as soon as Disney+ came out, see we don’t have it in the UK. I jokingly thought that with my love of Star Wars and the fact I don’t want The Mandalorian spoiled for me I’d see how long I could stay off various platforms.
First up I’ll address the worst offender- YouTube. It’s impossible to use this service without the algorithm showing you click bait and negative videos. Even if you stick to your subscriptions you’ll have recommendations thrown in your face. I decided this was a big risk and first off deleted it from all of my devices. I have to say that I don’t miss it at all. I use to go down rabbit holes that would either result in my feeling bad or looking at making a purchase (don’t mention mechanical watches to me at the moment …). Cutting myself off from YouTube really has improved my mood and I’m finding I have more time and focus back to my days. The time back is somewhat down to my lack of self control but the mood improvement is definitely down to not being presented with stupid click bait negativity.
Now onto Twitter. This was harder as I’d developed a habit of checking the slot machine, mindlessly checking my feed when I had a spare five minutes. Deleting the app and using Safari a few months ago has helped curb that little habit but I still checked on notifications. Turns out this habit change has made dropping the service completely a lot easier. I’m over a week now with no Twitter and whilst I do miss the interactions I’m feeling in a better place without it. Twitter has become the place you go to get something off your chest, somewhere to complain. I’m guilty of this too and not being on there I’m not contributing. Yes there is some positive but I’ve found the negative outweighs the positive, especially at the moment. I’ve also found I’m perfectly fine not knowing about stuff as it happens and I’ll check my RSS reader for my news a couple of times a day.
Quitting these services has been the best move for my mental health I’ve made technology wise for a while and I’m hoping I can stick to it for a while longer.
