In terms of like, Please For The Love Of God Get Hobbies That Aren’t Scrolling Through An App For Six Hours A Day, I understand and experience completely the argument of like. with the stressors of modern work, you don’t have the energy at the end of the day to do anything but mindlessly watch Netflix and scroll through your phone. but like I would like to gently encourage you to simply force yourself for a time to do something instead of pick up your phone, bc the phone is literally designed to light up your brain with no effort from you whatsoever and it does in fact rot your brain. It makes literally anything but scrolling on your phone seem difficult and joyless. But if you stop scrolling on your phone all the time, and start like, reading or embroidering or gardening or going for walks, you will eventually find the joy in them once more
I understand and it is true that it is hard to have a life outside work and scrolling but there is not a near future where that won’t be the case and you should still live a life. And you won’t create a future where that isn’t the case if you don’t have the confidence and experience and drive to fight for it
the trick is to recognize that there’s nothing intrinsically exhausting about reading a book or painting a picture or doing any of the activities that are meaningful to you. What makes these things seem exhausting is the fact that they’re now competing with cheaper stimulation. In a paper published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, a group of psychologists suggested that the feeling of effort is a sensation of opportunity costs. When you’re doing something and an alternative activity promises to be easier and more immediately rewarding, the original activity feels effortful.
Therefore, if you want to do the things that matter, you need to make the alternatives less salient. Reading will be hard when Netflix is always an option. Family time will seem boring if your phone is always within arm’s reach. Easier will beat better if it’s always available.
Just to add something from my old 40+ year ass: TikTok is a Chinese app. China is most likely the MOST advanced dictatorship in the world. The version of TikTok we're used to IS BANNED IN CHINA. Why? Because it's so highly addictive and preventing you from doing something useful with your time. There's a reason why the Chinese government encourages the global expansion of TikTok, while keeping it far away from it's own citizens. Because it's brainrot. Because the human brain isn't made to function through that amount of fast, relentless information about anything and everything for hours. I hate TikTok. Call me an old, grumpy alarmist but I work with kids from time to time and LET ME TELL YOU THERE'S BECOME A HUGE DIFFERENCE TO THE WORSE IN JUST A COUPLE OF YEARS. TikTok is like giving yourself ADHD symptoms on purpose and there's just no way the Chinese government would accept to lose control over the young generation like that. Please, for the love of Poseidon, out your phone down a bit. Read a book - doesn't have to be new or "difficult", just something you'll enjoy to sink into. You deserve that peace and happiness in your life, you know. A little corner just for you, without any notices, noises and filters. And while we're at it: fuck instagram too. The best thing about THIS (meaning tumblr) hellsite, is the lack of algorithms, selfies, annoying filters and people trying to explain a complex topic in a 30 sec video.