YouTube addiction, one month sober

I feel like something bad is happening and I am unsure how much of this is me being negative. I "quit" the internet in late 2018 due to severe addiction and years-long disengagement in my hobbies (reading, programming, thinking, music, art, ...) and only recently have started reintroducing it into my life, for example, catching up with what people do on YouTube, trying to get an idea of "what people are talking about". It feels like a fever dream and I am unsure whether this is due to me picking up my extremely unhealthy internet browsing habits that I had pre-2018, and I wonder whether there is a "healthy" internet that I am not seeing.

I made a twitter account recently and followed Jonathan Blow, Sebastian Lague, and 3blue1brown. I just scrolled through the default twitter page and I got karen videos, a naked woman in a car caught cheating, israeli soldiers harassing someone, a police dog mauling someone. I made an instagram account to see 3blue1brown videos on my phone and went to the default page (I assume it knows nothing about me) and I was given videos of disabled people doing sports which are clearly meant to be "funny", with extremely hateful comments apparently from children, spelling out the N-word with separate letters, etc. That was in 3 minutes of using Instagram and I gave up. I am interested in game development and a google search of "game development" gives me absurd "industry knowledge" youtube videos and r/gamedev. r/gamedev is just "meta-commentary" pointing out "societal problems" of game developers, you won't make money, noob assumptions, angry at the world, even mixing in discussions of depression, self-hate. It is a mess. Where are the people talking about neat collision detection tricks? I am aware that this is the "surface level" and I will eventually need to find and curate a variety of incoming "feeds", such as group chats with good engaged people, great forums, etc., but I just don't feel like it is "natural" to find them. I feel like I need to start a project for myself to intentionally build my own "algorithm" which leads me to find enriching content. I feel though that that is actively going against what "the internet" wants me to do. It is so easy to find such hateful things, and I am worried it will bring me back to being as depressed as I was before quitting the internet.

My wife and I have been playing chess, and I'm usually reading a light book of some kind between moves. We also usually have some relaxing music playing and not many lights on. We even turn all the lights off and just play chess using a kerosene lamp or candles. It's quite relaxing.

> I wonder if we just started talking to each other less as well.

We have. Sadly people aren't allowed to be bored long enough to decide that they should see what other people are up to.

It used to be common to call or even drop by unannounced to check on people. Doing these things is now seen as some great sin.

It's like we are all eating plain ramen every day, and aren't getting our vitamins. Sure we are full but we have deeper needs.

> I’m so addicted to the internet that when I block social media, I find I get quite the similar fix from work Slack. Like browsing channels I have no business being a part of and constantly checking for validation of my comments via emoji reactions.

Seeking validation from others is very human, and many people do that in real life as well. The difference with the digital realm is that the response is represented as emojis on your screen, so it gives you something direct to focus on. In real life the response requires interpretation, social cues, etc., and is not as immediate.

If you work remotely then don't feel so stressed about this behavior. Tools like Slack can be a huge distraction, so you can try disabling notifications when you want to focus on work. Just like you blocked social media, you can reserve specific timeslots to check Slack. I'm sure your coworkers would understand, as they likely also feel the same way.

At the end of the day, like any harmful habit, you have to break it with willpower and sometimes force, but this is manageable with digital tools. You're not _physically_ addicted to this.

Avoiding clickbait is easy, you just need to realize that some scumbag is trying to get you click on their trash so they can make money. So why would you do it?