When it's a streaming service, it might be equally worse IMO, but a bit less so if it's music you own. But anyways, I call these folks "electro autists" (with apologies to real autists) as they are rarely reachable for social interactions. Saying "good morning" in the elevator? No chance. Nor recognizing people left or right.

Or in the gym, where they block machines for many minutes, i.e. much more than the one or two minutes of resting in between sets, while paging through social media in between sets. Asking them to unblock a machine in the gym? Some are reachable there if you stand in front of them and wave your hands.

And walking the dog, or strolling with kids while on "social" media. I often observe them to neither recognize when either dog or kid try to show them things or events. I sometimes wonder (aloud and near them ;-), if they phone with their companions.

Oldie but Goldie: Charlene Guzman's video "I forgot my phone" from 12 years ago:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=OINa46HeWg8

I like music and I like videos, but I also learned to concentrate on the task at hand and/or the people besides me.

Disclaimer: listening to music while doing chores like washing dishes is OK. But I prefer a dish washer and connect to people while the dish washer is running.

I would say it's slightly worse but they're both not great, as someone who was addicted to being fed something at all times, I was really avoiding every having to spend time with myself if that makes sense. That being said, it's mostly about intention. Are you excited to finally listen to that amazing album or audiobook on your walk after work? That's usually more healthy than when I would scroll on tiktok during my day to avoid feeling anything other than dopamine and avoid bad feelings. It's really about self awareness for me.

I have headphones on 24/7 and while outside, but if I didn't have them I wouldn't exactly mind, I'd probably widh I wouldn't have to hear the loud noises (cars, bus engine sound etc)

I feel like with Tikatok etc. its really just that your entire attention both audio and visual is stuck in that thing, it's not an auxiliary activity

Not sure if its worse but you are point rings a bell for me cause I feel that I can no longer do any task without having something being bombarded in my head, be it podcast, music or audiobook.

> Is it worse than walking around 8 hours a day listening to music? Having headphones on while washing dishes and walking the dog?

If you think about cognitive load, then I would say yes.

Listening to music or even talking with headphones does consume some of your brain power, but you are able to execute physical tasks reasonably well. For example I am able to do DIY (apart from measuring) whilst listening to audiobooks. I can do all the household chores too (washing up, clothes, tidying vaccuming etc)

I cannot do that with short videos playing. firstly I have to hold the device, secondly I'm not looking at what I am doing, thirdly, moving pictures attract my attention.

In the same way that that most people are utterly unable to do "thinking work" (ie stuff that requires inner monologue and visualisation [sorry aphantasia people]) with a TV within visual range. I know that some people are able to do ironing infront of the TV, but I'd struggle with that to do a good job

Similar, but at least headphones uses fewer of your senses

I wasn’t able to stomach the idea of Larry Ellison being able to silently nudge my political views so I just deleted the app. Without the allure of China being able to influence my opinion I lost interest.

The android app scrollguard helped me. Stops YouTube short, reels and TikTok from being clicked on. It has massive permissions to survey my phone which could be scary. But as an addict you have to admit when you need to check yourself into rehab. And the phone is the drug.

Get a life that's more interesting than dish washing 4-8 hours a day.

uninstall the app. Works really well to me. The conscious effort of reinstalling it is enough to prevent me from doing it. Whereas using the awfully implemented screentime guards, I just find myself clicking on "Allow for 15 minutes" before I even understand what I do.

It's bad I can't say that I did it with willpower alone but Brick helped immensely. Their product is great, not a subscription, and even though there are competitors or you could build something like this for your phone, they're good with customer service and I would recommend their product.

Also, Unhook for removing suggestions/comments/etc from Youtube, you can basically turn everything off until it becomes a search bar and your subscriptions.

Get a good website blocking browser extension. Remove anything that resembles a "recommendation" or avoid it like the plague.

https://getbrick.app/

For me it’s kicking itself lately. The content has gotten way less interesting over the past few months.

Maybe it just has to run its course.

I deleted the account, made a new one from a different location at a later date and then scrolled for a few minutes and realised I would need multiple hours of scrolling through absolute shit content I genuinely despise to train the ai back to what it was. And I gave up on that and deleted the app forever.

Not OP, but my favorite book of all time is Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. I quit every drug, stopped playing video games, quit social media for 3 years, started exercising daily.

I'm only back on social media because it actually made my life worse being off it.

In the depths of it, it's the last thing before I fell asleep, and the first thing I did in the morning, so the first thing was to break that cycle. Forced myself to have an independent thought for myself in the morning before I checked TikTok/Reels/YouTube shorts/Reddit/Hacker News. Then, not bringing my phone to bed at night, then just https://xkcd.com/386/ letting people be wrong on the Internet. Unless it affects my offline life in some way, it's just not as big a deal anymore.