YouTube Addiction

I would add that clubs, gyms, and meetups are a good, often free or very cheap option as well. Running, biking, skateboarding, climbing, calisthenics/acrobatics, board games, maker groups, art, music… all have very low cost of entry and likely have communities in any town or city.

I feel compelled to also add that while it seems well-meant, I think the tone of your last paragraph is a bit unproductive. A lot (most? all?) of us, at some point, fall out of the habit of exercising our senses of curiosity and wonder and trying new things. This can be caused by many combinations of family, economic, and social conditions, or for some, because of chemistry (ie “serious depression”). Therapy is indeed a good way to develop the skills to work against this and identify whether it’s actually a chemical problem in need of a chemical solution. But it doesn’t help to go straight to calling this “serious depression” needing “professional help.” Literally all of us can benefit from therapy, and making it out to be a big deal and putting labels on people makes many less likely to pursue it.

Yup. That's the big time sink for me. Even after I blocked it, I was typing that string reflexively for weeks.

Get into books. No, not computer related books. Narrative. Sherlock Holmes' books are now under Public Domain. Get all of them, and try reading them in chronologcal in order.

    A Study in Scarlet

    The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 

    The Sign of Four

    The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes

    The Valley of Fear

    The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

    The Return of Sherlock Holmes

    His Last Bow

    The Hound of the Baskervilles

If you are a sysadmin, network engineer with vulnscanning experience, IT forensics expert or a reverse engineer, you might feel at home, because deductive reasoning it's right here.

ironically enough thinking your life revolves around opportunity costs, achievements and reward cycles is a much more severe form of gamification than having a good time and playing some video games.

People putting in those 80 hours to get that one bonus and the guy trying to get all the Steam achievements are spiritually the same person, whether the source of the dopamine rushes is virtual or analog doesn't make much of a difference, including in terms of resulting misery.

Games as a form of creativity, play and connection are fantastic precisely because they're simply leisure activities, something increasingly lost on most people.

(This is a bit of a thought dump)

I'm also a Youtube addict whose only active social medias are Youtube and HN. I do use Discord and Twitter but quite lightly.

I can't imagine the amount of time I have spent on Youtube. On my screen time tracking app, I have already spent 20+ hours on Youtube only. That's almost one goddamn day! Now imagine that plus my two years since I bought this phone.

On Youtube, I get pulled in for things I don't really cared or have never heard about. Last week it was Bluey (which seems pretty good), now it was about Nardwuar. Last time it was Radiohead, now it is CS:GO histories.

Youtube is so good at pulling me in and find the things I could be interested that sometimes I just wish Youtube's surveilliance tool will automagically knows exactly what I wanted and just served it up to my Recommendation, since for whatever reasion I refused to use the search bar.

In my journey of beating my social media addiction, Youtube is the true final boss (HN is also a big boss but not on the same level). I have been aggressively and gradually reduced my Youtube time. Refused to use it until it's 10 AM. Only used it as a break between my pomodoro sessions. I have not fully remove Youtube addiction in my life yet, but I'm on the way.