I’ve tried getting into peertube to have something to watch. I’m exploring copyleft music on open audio / funkwhale. I’m on here in lemmy as of this week. I’m playing with mastodon and the fediverse. I’ve tried studying psychology and psychology-adjacent territory like Deleuze and Guattari and Foucault and Derrida so I can break down what the Facebook algorithms are doing to me, how pop and mainstream music is designed and produced in conjunction with advertising to screw with our heads and make us buy things, how YouTube music suggestion algorithms screw with my head and ultimately make me buy things, and I’ve tried to start learning to code on a basic level at least so I can convert my chromebook to Ubuntu and hopefully my android phone, which I’ve paid off completely, to some kind of fully open source OS.
I’ve let my Netflix subscription wither away after just not paying it and try to not care about it anymore. I have no idea what to do about Amazon or Amazon Prime. I have some very important movies like ‘Unhinged’ and ‘Donnie Darko’ on there. I need to buy certain things in the present framework of my life right now, things that, in a small town with a particular disability keeping me from driving, I can only get on Amazon.
I’m doing a lot. But I still find myself jonesing for that death consciousness of mindlessly scrolling through Facebook totally vulnerable to an AI superpower extracting maximum profit from me perpetually. Moderation no longer seems remotely realistic. I can’t shut the machine out. Has anybody found anything else I could try? I’m trying to find as many little strategies as possible.
This is just my opinion based on this post so don’t take my word for it unless it adds up to you, but it seems to me that you’re obsessing over the fear that big tech is causing your destructive / irreflexive / procastinating behavior and trying to cut all connection with big tech instead of possibly also addressing your relationship with whatever media/services/software you use.
My point is, if your entire life becomes FOSS and private and free of large corporate overlords, you might still find yourself engaging in self destructive doomscrolling somewhere or another, or mindlessly doing something else you don’t think is great doing.
While I applaud your efforts and I think you should be proud of the sacrifices and work you’ve done, I also think it might be a good moment to sit back and think of the big picture of how you’d like to fit into the contemporary world.
Wanna go fully off the grid? Sure, but understand the costs and try to be fair regarding the benefits. Want to minimize harm to yourself without loosing too much comfort? That’s great but there are a ton of ways you can improve your mental health and peace of mind beyond what platforms and software you choose to use.
I am an addict. a poly-substance addict, specifically. I’ll always be an addict, no matter how long I stay sober for and there’s nothing anyone can do about this. That’s OK, though. You know why? Because I understand that cravings for what we yearn for are just some of our fears in disguise. We fear on missing out, on not having, on not being, on going “hungry” on something. And when it happens and we feel it, we built it up so much with fear we made it into a monster and try to run away from the bad feeling as quickly as possible. We try to drown the desire with some other dopamine source… Doom scrolling, food, sexual release, video games, whatever.
When you understand satisfying a craving is just running away from fear, you can face your fear: “so what if this happens? bring it, bitches.” Of course sometimes you’ll still give in to what your better self wants to avoid, but sometimes you won’t and that’s a good thing.
Well, i don’t really have a point beyond inviting you to figure out what you’re really scared of, what the real problems you face are, and trying to go big picture on the best approach to address them for yourself.
I’ve been all over the map on this historically looking at every angle - there’s no understating that. After just such deep and broad consideration, at this point I think it is perfectly fair to be deathly concerned that big tech and the power structure of which they are a part do not remotely have our interests at heart. They have all of this psychological knowledge about addiction to which you refer, and they are using it to make people more addicted, more engaged, more dependent, all to make more money. It’s actually simple in that respect. It is my old naivety to even begin to think again that there is something socially responsible left at the foundation of big tech. I am not a flawless specimen of mental health independent of big tech, but the economic model upon which they are based is an important aspect of my overall problem in life. There is more room to heal, more room to breathe and lick my wounds apart from them on balance, so that is where I am headed. I am surprised that a decade after Edward Snowden there are actually still people saying “don’t be afraid” implying that the system is fundamentally good.
Hey, I don’t disagree with you, bud. Was just an invitation to look back not at the broken system itself, which is a given… but at your part in the whole thing and how you’d like to relate to it. Food for thought.
I’m just really traumatized by Facebook and all that. Sorry if I come off as triggerhappy or abrasive. I did see much of your point. It seems like our lives are increasingly based in cyberspace now for better, worse, or neither; so I feel like I’m fleeing an abusive domestic situation (big tech platforms as a home) where there was extensive trauma bonding going on between me and the algorithms.
Get a library card and go to town on some books. I’m using reading to replace my social media/Netflix/YouTube time. Aiming for one book every two weeks for 2024 since I’m a pretty slow reader.
Bonus: If your library has Libby you can rip the DRM using calibre and build out your collection on your ereader. My library offers free music streaming and 5 DRM-free mp3 downloads/day from “freegalmusic”. They also offer free streaming services for movies and TV but I haven’t used those since the point is to read more not watch more bullshit, but could aid as way of weaning yourself off after cancelling other subscriptions
For a YouTube replacement, maybe look into Nebula, it’s a subscription streaming service, but owned by the content creators, no ads. It also has some podcasts.
Regarding music, I listen mostly to somaFM. It’s an Internet radio with lots of different stations. Mostly independent artists. It’s free, no subscription, no ads, listener supported (you can donate/buy merch to support them).
Sit quietly in a room and meditate. Every time you want to reach for a device, meditate for 5 minutes. Just breathe.
Or just go for a walk without any tech.
Edit: separate the capitalist bit from what you’re going through. Dependency is an individual experience, and there are dealers out there, but it’s all about choices you make for yourself.
I don’t think that capitalism is the only means of entertainment. Socialism brought us libraries. You can rent books and DVDs.
I completely agree. The post kinda combined the two ideas and I was trying to suggest separating them. Anyone can get harmfully hooked on anything.
