I've been living off grid in Montana for the last 2 years, while beautiful the weather can be rough quite often so outdoor activities aren't always easy to manage.

I'm also very isolated from any kind of activity in a town such as going for food or a park to play disc golf or a safe place to ride a bicycle (2hrs from a "city")

my solar set up is limited the only device I can regularly use is a smartphone I've feel I've become way to dependent on a device that never use to take up my time at all. No internet except my data plan.

I've built a cabin,shed and separate kitchen/storage area so I've not been idle. I don't know just venting I guess. Feel ashamed of myself.

Have been so overwhelmed lately between the bad weather and getting the property ready for the long winter. Truly cabin fever.

Usually so exhausted from working around the property I just tend to use the phone to unwind but now can't seem to get away from it.

I guess I'm just amazed how easily I got caught up in it all and how it really is my only lifeline to the outside world. Such a bizarre dichotomy. Winters a pain. Anyway next clear day I'll be chopping wood ;)

I followed my girlfriend here, I've lived in the sticks most my life but never like this, we are truly pioneering. This is her dream and I want to help her realize it but I've had a knot in my chest the last few weeks and feel I'm near my breaking point.

I (22M) have been trying to stay clean from porn addiction, but it’s hard not to fall back into old habits, especially when stress or boredom hits. What do you guys do to keep yourselves on track and avoid slipping up? I’m looking for some solid advice on how to maintain discipline and stay focused on recovery. Any tips would be really appreciated.

Sometimes mantras or quotes on my phone or my wall or some place else where I will see them help me in different areas of my life. Do you have any helpful words when it comes to being more engaged in the real world/less engaged in the internet, etc?

This is the ultimate reason we aren't free today. I spent 10+ years DEPENDENT on media, internet, etc

When I finally woke up it was an empty existence with just me alone craving media, having no one

ONLY OTHET PEOPLE MATTER They are our whole world. In the end.

Sigh ... Fking depressed

Hello everyone, today I went on a nature walk in the forest with my friends. It took about six hours, and I didn't take my phone with me. I could have gone home to get it before heading to the forest, but I don’t really like taking photos, and I didn’t see any reason to have my phone in the forest. I couldn’t inform my family or my closest friend because forgetting my phone wasn’t planned. When I got home, they were furious. I had only texted them a few hours before, though. Yes, they might have worried that something had happened to me, but that doesn’t justify losing it over just a few hours. They want me to always be reachable. This is a modern-day expectation, and I’ll never understand it. Aside from this incident, they also find it strange that I don’t use social media just because I’m part of Gen Z. Given that even my granddad is practically addicted to social media, it’s pretty understandable that they find it unusual. But I’m tired of getting such extreme reactions and being seen as a “freak.” How can I get them used to this??

In many conversations I will pretend that I know a lot, because I heard it / read it on SM. Sooner or later (because knowledge is over general) I will be challenged, that it's bullshit or because it's 'missed information'.

I end up with lot of knowledge in everything, but mastery in none.

What is your BS that you do because you were influenced by SM? 👇

One of the worst aspect of internet addiction is the idea that it's entirely your fault, it is not. That nobody is glued to their cellphone expect yourself. That you are the only one who doomscroll, hatescroll, get into fight with trolls, etc.

This apps, this smartphones, everything, where engineered to maximaze engagement, so it's not your fault you are fighting against evergrowing envelopment of technology in your life, that you have up and downs. It's a fight you have to do it everyday.

I tell you because i do inderstand the feeling of guilt of time wasted, the rumination, the anger, the feeling of loneliness in your struggle.

So it's good to remind yourself it's not your fault.

For some reason, ScreenZen is blocking my settings for Safari. I can’t clear my search history in the Safari app, or in my settings, and I can’t toggle extensions in the Safari settings. After turning off ScreenZen’s access to screen time, I’m able to clear my Safari search history and toggle my extensions. Why is this happening, how do I get it so I can use these features without disabling ScreenZen? I don’t want to have to do this all the time. I only have the YouTube app and website blocked by ScreenZen, nothing else.

Just a quick tip on how I've been tackling too much screen time. Setting limits on my phone was a start, but mixing in fun and good habits really did the trick.

I've been reading more (actual books!) and taking daily walks without my phone. Then, I found this app called BeeDone that gamifies my to-do list—think points and rewards for doing real-life stuff.

It's helped me stay off the screen without feeling like I'm missing out. Plus, I'm actually getting things done. Who knew productivity could be this enjoyable?

Anyone else finding success with similar strategies?

I deleted all my social media account except for reddit and youtube around 5 years ago. I found it rather easy to delete facebook and instagram back then. Youtube and reddit however felt like it was informative and actually not all that harmful.

I have both adhd and autism and youtube just feels like a slot machine to me, refreshing and scrolling over and over until I hit the jackpot. ("Good" Video)

Lately I feel like Youtube is becoming more and more of an issue for me as I compare myself way to much to people I watch on Youtube. Constantly filling my mind with crappy advice that people are giving on Youtube.

I already took the step to cancel my youtube premium membership and I have unhook installed on my laptop and pc. Sadly I watch youtube primarily through my TV and I don't think I can use unhook on my chromecast.

Have any of you been able to fully quit Youtube to the point where you never use it at all?

Any advice is welcome for sure.

Was reading Byung-Chul Han earlier today and this quote struck a chord. Thought I'd share it here:

Today the entire globe is developing into a panopticon … Google and social networks, which present themselves as spaces of freedom, are assuming panoptic forms. Today surveillance is not occurring as an attack on freedom, as is normally assumed. Instead, people are voluntarily surrendering to the panoptic gaze. They deliberately collaborate in the digital panopticon by denuding and exhibiting themselves. The prisoner of the digital panopticon is a perpetrator and a victim at the same time. Herein lies the dialectic of freedom. Freedom turns out to be a form of control.

This will mean

- uninstalling instagram.

- deleting all the reddit accounts I use.

- deleting my youtube account.

- deleting my Ao3 account.

- deleting my tumblr account.

- deleting my webtoon account.

I'm leaving for an indefinite amount of time - BUT I will allow myself to return to this subreddit from a new account (after a year's passing, minimum) if I have managed to sufficiently turn my life around by then.
I hope to see you all again, a new person, on the 3rd November 2025 or however long this journey will take me.

You've got this, guys - you owe it to your future selves. Farewell, and wishing you all the best. :)

I probably will sound super addicted rn. But everytime I try to get off my phone for a day I get so bored. I feel super unfulfilled, like nothing is as exciting as being on it. Does this ever get better? When? How?

A couple things got me to thinking about this. The first was I watched Home Alone the other day. They did things like eating, the mom was doing her makeup, the dad was shown reading a book. Maybe just the sitting, thinking, being bored is what led Kate McCallister to figure out they left Kevin lol. Since the movie is from 1990, I got to thinking wow that's almost the 80s not even computers were really a thing yet. Besides reading or eating or something though what did people do?

Besides that movie though, I saw a video someone made that was something like seeing how long my toddler can last without an iPad on a 7 hour flight. The baby does stuff like eat snacks, take pictures, read picture books, take a nap, draw on a doodle pad toy, play with a seatbelt. Then finally the last 2 hours she watched a show on the iPad or something, so she lasted about 5 hours so pretty much almost the whole flight being entertained without a screen.

It got me to thinking, what other kinds of things did people do to pass time on airplanes back in the day? I'd imagine that it's a lot different from a road trip because you can pull over and get out of a car, stretch your legs, get a bite to eat or sit down at a restaurant, go inside a gas station for snacks. But with a plane ride, you're pretty much stuck in the air for what could be hours 5+ or more without being able to really go anywhere but the plane. What did people do back then?

I really really don't understand why so many people on this platform gripe and complain "that I spend to much time and life online" like ok? Then just put the dam phone down and go outside it's really not that dam hard ok the Internet has ruined people social skills but there's only one way to get it back and you guessed, ya go outside what a shocker people really need to grow up or for men grow some balls and go outside even if your a big boi who cares what people think I mean seriously like at the store for example you never finna see that person who looked at you weird again who gives a f like stay offline and improve your life skills and stops saying your life is meaningless the only person to make it meanful is you.

If your one of these people please do me a favor if you could and after you read this just power off your phone it's really . . . Really not that hard.

And Edit* if you're a softie who offended by this down vote me all you want, this just proves the point that your going down a dark path pal.

If you plan on keeping distracting apps installed or need to for work try this practise. Every time you open the offending app (Reddit, Instagram, fb, YouTube, TikTok, etc):

Be aware of your thoughts and body. Take a deep breath and ask yourself questions such as the following:

a) why am I opening this app?

b) what information am I looking for?

c) at what point will I close this app?

d) how do I feel watching this content.

e) will this content really change my life?

f) How many videos that I have watched in the past 12 months have significantly improved my life??

g) is there something else I could be doing or need to do??

h) am I trying to escape something in my life through distracting myself?

i) will ending this conversation early or not replying negatively affect my relationship in real life? And is this the type of relationship I really want???

j) am I posting this to reddit just for upvotes and is this validation from internet anons really something I need?

On top of this say these thoughts out loud if you can (being respectful of those around you of course).

All these apps rely on you being mindless and use this to drip feed you advertising. Everything is advertising whether it be a big company, medium to small business or just 3rd degree connections posting about how great their vacation is and what they learnt from it.

Becoming mindful and realising that you truly DON’T NEED these apps and that watching a single video or reading comment after comment WON’T change your life is key to truly living a nosurf life…

As to why am I posting this? Maybe it’s an issue that’s been annoying me for far too long. Or maybe I need the validation from 1000’s of online anons that my idea is correct. Or maybe I think this will help people?

Thank you for your attention, now go live your life.

TLDR: becoming mindful/aware when surfing the net will help you overcome doomscrolling.

I looked at someone who looks like me, I thought I was safe lol, but they live in NYC and have so many cool pictures, +100k followers, sooooo many friends (how??), they look so happy in all of them, so fancy but also artsy, and suddenly I felt so bad about my life, my clothes and even bad about not posting on social media, I feel like a weirdo for not posting on social media 😭 can someone talk some sense into me?

If anyone wants to make it, please do. For an example of what content was like back when YouTube was less commercial, look up random terms on youtube and add 'before:2006' or 'before:2007' or whatever. It feels like YouTube is completely different from what it used to be back then: a video website where people would just post random videos for fun, not just the bigger channels of that time; there were soo many interesting, personal, niche and fun videos to find, even if it was just about some group of friends trip to some country, without making the title clickbaity and hoping to make money from it.:]]]

I joined TikTok again because I wanted to find a song and damn i'm speechless. I saw an argument abt a video and everyone was talking in some hideous slang like skibidi womp womp what the sigma wtf i genuinely thought they were joking because ain't no way a normal person talks like that. Then they make fun of disabilities!? Like literally in a video of a kid saying she'd kill her best friend's other friends (weird asf i know..) people were literally commenting about how the girl had autism//psychopathy and making jokes about it!? (that kid doesn't have any of that) and also lots of weird comments like "hey bro as soon as i saw your video i started violently touching myself , I'll touch you next" idk if I'm dramatic but if i get a comment like that I am going to report it. OH and they criticize everything. Like a video of some person saying"imagine wearing this in 2024" or "stfu if you..." and also racist jokes!?😭 thanks God I'm now not addicted to that shit anymore. watching tiktok for more than 30 minutes is a chore and I'd rather stare at the ceiling tbh. trust me, once you realize some of the disgusting people who are on there, you'll hate that app, too.

I am set on leaving my smartphone behind after accepting i am addicted to my phone and have seen the light phone series. I see that the light phone 3 is releasing february 2024 would you all reccomend me buy light phone 2 or wait for the light phone 3 and stay with my iphone for now

thanks to this subreddit, the NoSurf movement has change my life. I've wrote an article about my journey:

https://open.substack.com/pub/lucaseid/p/a-practical-guide-on-how-to-stop?r=4o7yd3&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Last post(*) i will ever post on reddit but it had to be said.

We as humans always search for a community ,a place to feel understood ,somewhere we can feel some sort of comfort.But what happens when that community has become a place where we don’t want to feel comfortable in anymore?We have three choices
1.Limit our time there but continuing lurking here and there

2.Continue staying there and watch all this relatable content just for the sake of comfort even though this is not who you want to be.

3.Cut it cold turkey and never come back

I am grateful for this subreddit.I am very introverted and it is hard for me to find people like me to be friends with and compete irl.Most people i know,know about their addiction and don’t want to do anything,or they just simply aren’t addicted.I am grateful for the tips and the success stories.Seeing people who have succeeded for several months and even more makes me really happy.But most of the positive and useful posts were from about 10 years ago and reading a book about that topic (from someone who has actually done their research instead of just telling their opinion) is 1000 times more useful.Most of the recent posts i see are just complaining. Complaing is not going to cure anything,action will.And what is the point of complaining about others being addicted?What is the point on focusing on things that you have no control over?Focus on yourself.

(*)Maybe if i actually succeed i will post it here so i can inspire others like the success stories i saw and inspired me …but for now i think it is better to just stop lurking.

Hey y'all- I'm looking for a positive support group. More of practical suggestions for using tech wisely, encouraging each other with detoxes, people looking to transform their lives in community...

Is this it? I need a sense of...accountability I think. I need to go deep to understand my addictions and undo them and I think I need help to do that..

A lot of my tech use currently is unconscious.

If social media didn’t exist, you wouldn’t be forced into fame. That’s weird and ugly because that’s a form of trafficking. If social media didn’t exist, commercial artists would actually spent the time to develop creativity skills to execute novel ideas that uplift spirits, not bring people down. If social media didn’t exist, it would be harder for whoever the hell to bereave young people, blocking their opportunities such as college or a basic job to support their dreams, so that they almost have no choice but to make art or products for an industry they don’t even want to be apart of (that’s slavery). If social media didn’t exist, capitalism would fall and we’d transition freely into a relaxed and well fed society, this nosurf post or subreddit wouldn’t even exist. Everyone would be outside vibing, learning, or both. 

As long as you, yourself follow healthy digital minimalism - shouldn't that be enough?

So the world is addicted to Tiktok. Bully for them. They're not you.

To me this sub is the digital version of that one annoying neighbor who never leaves the house but is constantly peeking out their window, ready to call whomever they deem appropriate for the situation.

"Edna! Call the CPS, that Simmons kid dyed his hair blue! The nerve of these people!"

So I no longer have TikTok not Snapchat and I’m planning to also remove Instagram But I just have a fear of missing out like On memes , maybe some movies or some cool stuff that would come up in the FYP I myself really spend high times in social media I’m planning to keep YouTube and consume mindful content I also wanna have a good taste in movies and music and also books and I found that TikTok and Instagram had helped me with that How do I still explore more of those things without social media

There is literally so many people shitting on each other on this platform. Atheists shitting on religion, religious people shitting on atheists and other religions. People being blatantly racists to each other, people shitting on their own culture (actually wtf), hateful debates on poltics, music, irl people and whatnot. It is really a shit hole tbh. I have experienced it firsthand by searching about a lot of topics on reddit, and no I have not used Twitter and cannot imagine what it is like.

These things make you disturbed for a while which I absolutely do not like. Feel like quitting all these social media platforms except YouTube. Reddit is full of toxic, mean, racisr people and bigots who have never touched grass and not have an ounce of positivity.

Hey everyone,

I’m a millennial, born in the analogue era but raised through the transition to digital. As a kid, I spent a lot of time daydreaming, creating little worlds in my mind, lost in thoughts while sitting on a bus or staring out a window. Now, it feels like whenever there’s even a moment of downtime, I automatically reach for my phone. It’s like my brain just jumps straight to my device for stimulation, instead of letting my mind wander.

It makes me wonder: are today’s digital natives—kids who have never known a world without smartphones and constant connectivity—losing that ability to daydream? With a world of apps, games, and endless scroll at their fingertips, do they even get those quiet, unscripted moments to get lost in thought?

I don’t think it’s just about nostalgia; I genuinely feel like daydreaming used to be a key part of how we processed and explored ideas. But is it still a part of our lives today? And if not, what might we be missing out on? Is anyone else feeling this shift, and have you found any ways to reclaim that mental space?

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Hello, lovely people of Reddit!

I'm diving into No Surf November this year and wanted to share it with you all—it’ll help me stay accountable, and maybe even inspire someone else to join in!

Lately, I’ve noticed I spend hours just mindlessly scrolling—Insta, Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, rinse and repeat. When I checked my screen time, I realized it's anywhere between 6-10 hours a day! That’s so much time I could’ve used for things that actually mean something to me.

The endless scrolling has taken its toll. My sleep is wrecked, and it’s filled my mind with a bunch of FOMO and unrealistic expectations from the perfectly-filtered, highlight-reel lives on my feed. It’s made me anxious about things that don’t even line up with real life.

With just two months left in the year, I’m giving myself a little nudge to finish strong. I want to look back at this month and feel proud, knowing I started something that made a positive difference in my life. Who knows—maybe this is the beginning of a healthier way to enjoy the online world. I still believe the internet is amazing—when used wisely. I just want to spend my time more intentionally, filling my days with stuff that actually matters rather than endless scrolling. So here’s to No Surf November! 💪✨

I have made the decision to sell my smartphone.

Frankly, I can't think of much benefit to having internet in terms of online scams, cyber bullying, etc. I don't think there is much benefit anymore, so I will sell my smart phone and take my PC offline.

I will try to recover my mental health by not doing internet.

I will watch TV, play on a game console without social networking such as switch ps5, or take a walk.

To be honest, I haven't had much success with putting my phone in another room.