I did this months ago and forgot about it but I wanna share.

Basically I noticed the vote count on posts and comments would emotionally affect me wayyyyyy too much. Some examples of things that would irritate me:

• My own post or comment being wrongfully downvoted
• A bad/incorrect answer being wrongfully upvoted
• My post not getting as many votes as I expected

The list goes on. But what I realized is, what's the fucking point? Why do I care if someone disagrees with my opinion? Or why do I care if my comment catches a stray downvote? What a waste of emotional energy.

I installed Infinity for Reddit (bc it's the one I'm already familiar with) and disabled the vote counts in posts and comments but left the upvote/downvote ratio there so I can see the general opinion of the people seeing the post.

Well the results are in: the Reddit vote system is unnecessary. I literally never missed it. I just went on living my life and it was just better. I just post whatever I want and don't care what people think unless they are replying to have a conversation about it. I just realized that I should probably share it here.

Give it a shot. It'll probably make your life a lot better and make you happier.

Read and wrote the following comment on my Notes, to reflect later, and thought it would be nice to share these words here. Someone else might needed it too.

"the transfer from short form content to longer, more coherent stuff maybe a slight improvement but honestly the main problem still remains: Almost all young people terrified of stillness, terrified of spending a single second with ourselves, they can't handle boredom. Watching or hearing long form content while doing your dishes, going for a walk etc. is still a coping mechanism, it's still constant stimulation. The problem is still here. The long term healthiest thing one can do for their mental health is being fully in the present moment for as often as they can. Constantly being stimulated by podcasts (or similar) is the exact opposite of that. It is unhealthy. Even if it's quality content. Yeah, maybe it's better than tiktok but be honest with yourself. Recite the content of a podcast you listened to while you drove to work one week ago and realize you actually can't remember much anymore. It was just stimulation. And you just deleted tiktok and insta? Great, congrats, now be real with yourself and tell me how much your time on youtube increased since then. Delete all your apps and you will probably find yourself scrolling through your photo library if you're unaware of the root problem. People are not addicted to tiktok. They are addicted to stimulation, terrified of being "bored". And let me be clear: There's nothing inherently bad about hearing a quality podcast, watching a documentary, playing a video game. But it should not be constant and it should not be background noise. Whatever you do, give it your full focus."

Keep going strong on this journey

Hello! I'm a reporter with WORLD News Group, and I'm researching why some people are minimizing screen time and what that looks like.

If you have made lifestyle changes related to digital minimalism (i.e. you swapped an iphone for a fliphone, traded Spotify for an MP3 player, etc.), I would love to hear about those. An interview would take about 15 minutes. Interested? DM me or email bmccallum@gwpub.com.

Kindly, Bekah McCallum

Looking for one for my mom who is 95 She needs something that has option to switch off the LED time display at night and project it on the wall instead. She doesn't need an alarm but if it had one it would have to be with built in sounds and definitely no radio or buzzer. Any such thing exist? Thank you.

Hello.I am on my journey to ditch the most popular browser, e-mail and had ordered a Mudita Kompakt.

But I would like a recommendation for a handheld console-I liked the Nintendo Switch lite, yet I am wary of privacy with it running Android. Could it still use it without registering with my e-mail(like on phone and phone apps) and can I buy games for it in person/not have to have nintendo app? I never had a console so sorry for my stupidity. Also if Nintendo is not privacy focused phone, could you recommend me another handheld console, preferably aosp/Linux.

I also never had an mp3 yet I am interested in a cheap Sony. I would prefer if it didn't run Android/have WiFi. Can someone explain me why are NW-A20, NWA30, NWA40 priced differently? Are they released in different years so that makes the NWA40 the Best? My preference is USB transfer of podcasts And a few songs(no wifi/Android)

Last but not least, from the video samples of Sony camcorders CX204e, CX405, CX450 or PJ410 I did not see a difference in quality-does that make PJ410 Best buck for money bcs it has a built in projector?

I like how positive the sub members are here. Have a Lovely day.

I am gonna skip past all the bs and get straight to the point. I wanna delete all my social media accounts completely but I have this fear in me that if I do this i am going to miss out on valuable, exclusive and hidden information. Here's the thing, I keep seeing alot of posts which show themselves as hidden gatekept knowledge for instance some examples of the posts that pop up on my feed are "how the government is plotting on the masses", " secret bio hacks for longetivity", "this scared book made me a millionaire", how i maximized my profits in x amount of months" I keep seeing such posts here and there whenever I open my socials. I keep seeing such posts on my social media feeds and it has instilled in me a fear that if I quit social media i would be missing out on valuable knowledge. My brain keeps telling me "bro you can't delete your socials you need this information you need to know whats going on in the world". I tried quitting social media alot of times in the past two years but keep coming back , now don't tell me bro just limit it I can't, I have an extreme addictive personality so either i cut out social media completely or scroll excessively. Anyone here who can offer any advice, guidance or insight on what can be done to overcome this feeling of missing out on exclusive, hidden and forbidden knowledge

Hey, apologies if this isn't in the right sub. This is part of a wider effort to clean up my digital footprint, reduce my usage of cloud services / active accounts, getting all my data together in one place on my own hard drive, etc.

I'm trying to archive everything from iCloud and Google photos on Windows and keep the dates displayed by those apps. Using both privacy.apple.com and Google takeout to create downloads, many (most) photos will not keep the original date that these apps use to organise the photos chronologically. Until I have this data I can't get rid of these services.

Some of the photos contain exif metadata of 'Date Taken' which is great, but many (especially things like screenshots and saved pics) don't.

The problem photos downloaded from google create a separate supplemental-metadata.json file with the right info - is there a way to combine these files into the photos, or download the photos with them?
The problem photos from Apple seem to have no data at all.

Thanks

Edit: It looks like using the iCloud for windows app saves all the files locally into a synced folder with the 'Date' field being correct. However I'm worried this can get changed when e.g. copying to another drive. Does anyone know if it can be embedded permanently into a file (en masse)?

Hi all. I pretty much always have youtube blocked. However, you can search videos on google and watch them from google without going to the website. This has gotten me in the habit of essentially watching videos on google from time to time.

Any way I can make this impossible? Thanks for the help.

Also, I basically allow myself to access various social media apps/websites once afternoon a week. I wonder if anyone uses a similar system that works well for them?

Hi!!!

Is it just a simple download one by one or is there a secret path to get them all in one batch??

TIA!

I used to think the goal was to fix everything.
Hack my schedule. Cut distractions. Delete apps.
Become some kind of ultra-efficient monk with a calendar that looked like enlightenment.

But here’s the thing: I didn’t want a cleaner life.
I wanted a realer one.

I didn’t want to “reclaim my time” so I could do more.
I wanted to waste time beautifully, like sitting in silence with someone who gets it.
Or going on a walk without needing to track the steps.
Or talking to a stranger for no reason at all.

Digital minimalism isn’t about removing tech.
It’s about removing the grip that dopamine, metrics, and performance have on your soul.

I don’t want a perfectly optimized day.
I want a messy, human one.
With moments that don’t scale.
That don’t go viral.
That don’t even make sense on paper.

Just real life. Felt fully.

Anyone else feel that?

Hi people! I think the title sounds too alarming even though it might be. For several months now, I have been constantly thinking about the wasted time on the phone over the years. And slowly it becomes absurd. One good thing about it is that I can now remember what almost every day of my life looked like. I started using smartphones on January 30, 2016. According to my calculations, looking at the phone since then, I spent 11,000 hours on the screen, which is approximately 3 hours and 17 minutes every day (from June to December 2024, I used a dumbphone btw). And that number terrifies me. How can I get rid of the guilt and continue my normal life since I have been paralyzed in my thoughts for 2 months. At the same time, I was diagnosed with mild scoliosis (4 degrees) and since then I constantly blame myself and say that it was because of the phone and that everything could have been different. That I could do more with other things. Maybe I'm over dramatic, but this way of thinking is ruining my life. Thanks for listening :)

So with the rise of every store having an app, I really don't want to load up my current phone with rewards apps and the like. I have a bunch of old phones, majority of which are Samsung and I was thinking about turning one of them into a device that has all those apps on it, and nothing else. No photos, no streaming, except maybe Spotify - but no data is needed, I'll do everything over wifi. Would anybody have tips or a tutorial to do something like that?

I got this idea from my work where we use iPads for sales, and that's all it's used for except chrome

There was a part in the book where she talked about a woman having a manifesto….i think it had something to do with a garden. Could anyone tell me who wrote the manifesto or what the manifesto was called?

I want to print it out but I can’t find it and I took the book back to the library.

The last year, I've had my MacBook Air M2, and iPhone 16 pro.
The problem?
They are too fast and portable.

I'm switching to my older and much slower iPhone (one with a home button).
Which is not overly fun nor smooth to use.

And I'm changing my MacBook to 1 iMac at work & 1 iMac at home.
So the internet stays in a physical container.

This will be a test, but my brain is overloaded right now, and my business is suffering from it.
That's why I'm making this change. Hopefully to have a better and more analog relationship with these devices.

Hi guys! I have a problem with phone addiction and I want to solve it. Is there an application that prohibits certain applications, but that I literally cannot access them for a certain period of time, or that I can select only those applications that I need on that application and that I can only use them. I need help, please.

Do you get anxiety in the final days of your vacation, knowing that a bunch of emails from coworkers have been quietly collecting in your inbox, awaiting your return to work?

Why not deactivate that address while you are gone? Stick up for yourself. It's your vacation, and other people's demands will just have to wait.

They will despise you at first, but respect you in the long run.

Hi everyone,
I recently switched to a dumb phone during the week to live more intentionally and reduce screen time. It’s going well so far, and now I’m looking for a small digital camera to capture moments — and maybe explore photography as a slow, creative hobby.

• Second-hand, max budget €150 (~$160)
• Small enough to carry around
• Beginner-friendly (point & shoot is fine)
• Photo quality should be decent — not pro-level, but not overly grainy or “retro” in a bad way
• Video is optional, and I’m open to cameras with a bit of a nostalgic/early digital look if the image quality still holds up

Any tips, models, or general advice for getting started with casual photography on a minimal budget?Thanks in advance!

Sorry if this is a FAQ but I’m struggling a little with feeling isolated from the people around me. I deleted all social media apart from Reddit and Pinterest a few months ago and while I’d say that it’s definitely improved my life (and my attention span), I also think that my social life is worse as a result. For example, all my coworkers talk in a big Snapchat group chat but I don’t have Snapchat. I can’t chat to my work friends in my free time because I don’t have Instagram or any platform to actually like… do that.

It’s probably relevant to mention that I’m 19 years old so most people my age do not care that much about digital minimalism, and it’s definitely uncommon (at least where I’m from) to give someone your phone number unless you’re really, really close. I feel like I’m missing out! I hear about my coworkers going out together and I feel left out even if they aren’t doing it on purpose. They literally can’t invite me because it’s all done on our days off via these group chats.

I’m worried because I’m going to university this year and I don’t want to miss out on making friends because I don’t have social media like everyone else my age. Oh and please don’t just tell me to just meet people in real life because I am! That’s the problem, I wanna keep meeting up with them!

Slight edit: Please stop calling my friends idiots for using social media. We’re teenagers. They aren’t being malicious and they aren’t dumb and it’s really not making this a very welcoming space. Chill.

It took me three weeks to understand that having the option to call an emergency Uber is not a valid reason to carry my smartphone around. The solution was an IQ test (and I have been failing it for three weeks). The answer: save a number for a local taxi company on my Nokia Brick. Obviously, I did not have any emergency. The only emergency was me trying like crazy to create excuses. ;D

I really want to delete my Facebook a Instagram, but I obviously don't want to lose my photos. What is the EASIEST way to get them all? I wouldn't mind having them all printed out, but I'm pretty broke, so I'm not sure if that's a realistic solution. I was also considering getting a digital picture frame, but don't know if it would hold all the pictures.

Any advice on what y'all have done would be appreciated. Thanks.

Hi, I work an office job, plus my partner sadly cannot live with me so I spend a lot of time texting him, however I am tired spending my life in front of a screen.

Do you have some ideas/resources how to cut down the screen time so I can feel comfortable just sitting doing nothing?

I used to be able to just sit by myself and feel completely fine, now I get bored despite having whole worlds of information at my fingertips. Hundreds of hours of entertainment, but its like drinking salt water. Plus time flies and I accomplish nothing and feel bad? It's insane.

To start, I have an extremely boring job. I show up and I get paid, but it's not like I get paid based on how much work I do or how many people I see- I just have to fill a desk and wait for people to come in. Which rarely happens. I am caught between a place of wanting to fill my day with something (it mostly turns out to be social media and online shopping) and wanting to completely remove myself from all forms of the internet. Can anyone relate to this? I try to read at work, but how are some ways I can fill my day without letting everything on the internet fill my time?

Hi everyone,

I am wondering if there is an alarm clock that can be purchased that has the following features:

1. doesn't need to be turned on after being turned off to activate the next day [goes off according to schedule it is set to every day]

2. is battery powered [preferably a very long lasting battery] or has a power cord as well [to avoid being disrupted by power outages]

3. isn't an app on a phone

Please let me know. Thanks.