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… the assumption here is that people know what they find fulfilling. Before the internet people would stare at the tv for 12 hours a day.
I have several very fulfilling hobbies but I don't have enough money or time (especially time) to do them. Hurray.
I often feel like I don't have time for my many hobbies, then I realize I've just spent 3 hours on lemmy or reddit.
Are you me? Because this is me.
We need to get off the internet. Or at least off lemmy. Probably better to get off the internet more often, otherwise we'll just find something else :/
OTOH my friend and I spent most of the weekend making this for his new apartment. The opening fits his little TV, so when he isn't watching a show he can play fire videos on it.
That's so cool! Is it plaster? I really like the stone lines
It's rectangles of 2-inch solid foam insulation glued onto a plywood frame. We carved the stones with knives and smoothed the edges with the side of a soldering iron. Then we pressed the surface of a big rock all over it for texture, and painted it with mod podge to seal it. Next will paint it gray and do some dry-brushing with black, brown and rust to give the rocks some variety. The "mantle" on top is an already varnished pine board salvaged from built-in bunk beds I made for my kids back in the day.
Very resourceful, I love it. If you remember, I'd be interested in seeing the finished product, but either way I hope it turns out great! Nice job making the time for something like this!
Thank you! Painting should be done this coming weekend, I will post photos.
Yes, we love science unless it's critical of our own behavior, right? Lemme think now... who else has that attitude?
That's irrelevant. The study showed that people were in better mental health and the reason why he said it was because they were doing fulfilling hobbies is probably because they told the researchers that's what they did instead.
The internet is what you make it. I've never spent much time on overtly corporate media social or otherwise. Combined with largely avoiding the most politically toxic places both maga or ML.
Most of my time online is spent visiting places focused on retro Computing, Retro Gaming, music or some other hobbies. The internet hasn't changed drastically in 30 years. Just the way average people use it.
The corporate sites will never respect your time or privacy. They're just endless treadmills to keep you busy and engaged. We've always been able to hop off.
While I agree with the sentiment of your post - you can tweak your own Internet usage and you should - this part is just ridiculously untrue:
The internet hasn't changed drastically in 30 years.
In the last 30 years, we saw coming of google, facebook, amazon and others as a major forces on the Internet, deploying Skinner boxes for billions of people and shaping what internet is to vast majority of users...
Those are services etc on the internet. Not the internet itself.
Is eating it a service of mashed potatoes too? Or is that question just a service that you can answer using your service oriented architecture and reply how things can comprise of anything at all other than what it does?
Yeah definitely. I just heee to disable social media and anything that’s based on addictive behavior, algorithmic feed etc. and I automatically start doing more interesting things online, such as read Wikis of subjects I like, play with programming etc.
The problem is everything that’s driven by engagement and made to keep you scrolling artificially is toxic by consequence.
I bet it's not about the internet, just the social media apps. Why not just uninstall the apps or tell the participants not to use them?
I agree. I’m on lemmy because Reddit wouldn’t allow me to control what I was seeing. It’s definitely a breath of fresh air not it being continually bombarded by DT this and DT that. It has me thinking maybe I just dump the social media apps all together.
I did something similar to what this article describes a bit back. For me it was turning off my phone, the effect was staggering. Anxiety etc dropped immediately.
For me in particular, it was being constantly available to anyone in my life, but also the doom scrolling, and knowing there's a vast ocean of infinite content at my fingertips. Sure, I could curate my experience, and block people, but overall the phone is still functioning largely the same as it ever does. I can always turn those features back on. By changing how the device works externally, you're disconnecting those people from the decade and a half of reinforcement and whatever they have associated with their phones.
To get similar results I was able to just turn off my phone, but that might vary for some. Anyway, it seems reasonable for the experiment at least.
The internet just isn't a good space to spend a lot of time. It's mostly corporate controlled and they've found anger drives interaction online so most things you read are designed to be upsetting. I've drastically cut down on my internet usage over the last few years and while I do spend more time doing things I enjoy, due to not being online, I've found that going back on reddit or something similar can send me right back into a negative headspace for the rest of the day like when I was online more. I just think that most parts of the internet are miserable places to be.
I don't remember it always being this way either. Back when small formus were the norm I found the internet to be much less hostile overall. Not that there weren't jerks and chuds online back then, but there wasn't the profit incentive to drive engagement over all else
So, what would be the best way to "block the internet" on an Android phone while still being somehow able to use it for communication with the family & friends, navigation and stuff like that?
Download maps, turn off wifi and data, and use SMS for friends and family. Wait, SMS is compromised now? Nevermind.
Meshtastic and a solid network?
Printing the case for my first node (arriving tomorrow) now, we'll see!
You use either focus mode or parental control tp restrict all apps except messaging ones and navigation
Or simply Do Not Disturb
Power saving mode. The maximum power saving mode allows for just a few apps to run at all, so picking out the apps that are for communication gets the outcome you're looking for, as long as you keep the phone on that maximum power saving mode.
Install a firewall app and restrict access for every app on your phone?
Uninstall the browser and any social media apps. Google Maps and Signal aren't what's damaging your mental health.
rethink is pretty good for that. it lets you control how applications can access internet
"Ignorance is bliss"
Counterpoint: The unexamined life is not worth living.
(ὁ δὲ ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ)
~ Socrates (Plato's Apology)
the subjects could still go online using a computer
Are you suggesting that people who are intermittently connected to the internet instead of tethered to it by a pocket device are somehow more ignorant?
Yes
Striking results - 91% of participants improved their mental state, and typical improvement was similar to reversing 10 years of age-related decline.
what app did they use?
Insightful article highlighting tech detox benefits, though lacks broader societal impact analysis.
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