Glued to Your Phone? Here's How to Rethink Your Relationship with Social Media

I solved the problem when I went to facebook and deleted all groups (except two - both related to family events: I personally know in the real world everyone in both groups). Often when I check facebook now it has no idea what to show me as I've seen everything, and it has to revert to showing me pictures of classmates I haven't interacted with in years - which is what I'm on Facebook for in the first place! Even then it runs out of things to show me fast.

I'm starting to get annoyed with these articles. Most people cannot use things like smartphones and Facebook "responsibly". To think you can compete with companies that have virtually unlimited financial resources available to highjack your attention and get you hooked is completely naïve. It's like telling a heroin addict to "rethink your relationship with heroin and use it more moderately".

The only realistic way to reduce the grip of the these technologies on your mind is to use fewer of them and completely opt out of the worst offenders, like FaceBook, and TickTok.

I've deleted most of my social media accounts at this point and gone back to a more basic phone and my life is noticeably better for it. Sure there are some inconveniences and some people think I'm a weirdo, but it seems like a small price to pay to get my brain back.

So much of the power these technologies have over us is not that they're so useful or wonderful, but that there's a social expectation that we use them, i.e. people sending social invites via FaceBook, stigma against the "green bubble people", etc. We use them initially because of social pressure and then get hooked. If even a small and stubborn minority opted out of some of these technologies, say 9% of the population, reasonably distributed across ages and demographics, a lot of these expectations would disappear or at least reduce.

The propositions in the article are good, although the tips proposed by the Center for Humane Technology [1] are much more tactical (they are apparently mentioned in the audio version, but I only read the article).

Also, as a complete aside, I'm not sure if the third passage [2] in the article is facetious or what, but I'm always surprised to see credibility-destroying statements like these in legitimate publications. In this day and age readers have to be ruthlessly efficient in discerning reliable information/advice from nonsense. They are on the lookout for any reason to abandon articles and content to avoid wasting valuable time and attention. There is an old direct-response copywriting dictum: "The purpose of each sentence is to get the next sentence read." The aforementioned passage does the opposite, even though the subsequent tips are pretty good.

[1] https://www.humanetech.com/take-control

[2] "I'm a Libra which means I was born to find balance, and I wanted to apply that principle to my social media behaviors and consumption."

The Sunbeam F1 Orchid: https://sunbeamwireless.com/

It's WAY more basic than most people are willing to live with, but it's been working surprisingly well for me. Like I said in my original comment, there are definitely some inconveniences, no way around that, but it's been worth it.

Honestly, the biggest downside to using a flip phone is that you start noticing exactly how much people are on their phones and it becomes both creepy and annoying. You start to feel like you're the last man standing in a zombie movie.

One thing I particularly like about the Sunbeam phone is that it's sold my a small American company with amazing customer service. I asked a question about the phone via the contact form on the website and got a prompt and very thoughtful answer from one of the owner's of the company.

Um, I use social media "responsibly" and it's quite easy. I look at various social media sites I'm on perhaps two or three times a week. Takes up maybe 30 minutes of my time a week. I feel no addictive urge to use them more. Most people I know may use them a bit more, but not much. The only adults that I know who use social media a lot more do it for work.

I submit that the majority of adults use social media sites are using them "responsibly" (i.e. occasionally and non-obsessively). My opinion (with no real evidence) is that the addictiveness is overblown for most adults.