>

The thing is, smoking is a just an action in itself, and nothing good comes from it. Internet is a platform where life itself transcurs, and has positive and negative aspects, but it's unavoidable.
The impact on mental health alone is insane. After doom scrolling I feel horrible about myself. It’s an onslaught of reading people argue over nothing, comparing myself to photoshopped women, feeling jealous that I don’t get to fuck around and travel, etc. It’s inescapable online. People are the worst version of themselves on the internet. 
The shitty thing is, I’ve tried to get rid of all social media but it makes me feel like a hermit when I do. I’m so conditioned to immediately go on my phone when I’m bored. >

I'm 30 and just got rid of everything in October except BeReal and Snapchat, as lame as that sounds. I like Snapchat because I can still keep in touch with people, post the things I want, and only check the stories I want. No other bullshit, long text posts, arguing, so on. BeReal is fun because it's new, and it's just a once a day prompt to post what I am doing right at the exact moment the notification goes off. 
Everything else was beginning to be exactly how you described it for me. It was just non-stop toxic trash. No more Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram for me. I'm actually MUCH happier without them. You'll feel like a hermit but your mental health will thank you for dwindling down your connections to only those who truly want to connect with you, and not the filler garbage of everything else.
ETA- yeah, I didn't get rid of Reddit, because I don't use this like social media, nor does it feel that way to me. It's not a toxic space like the "big 3" are (FB, Insta, Twitter). Getting rid of things for me was getting rid of those 3 mainstream social media apps. Here I most times just see lots of memes and cat pics-its a happy space, not a toxic one like the others are. Sometimes I chime in on things on Reddit, but it's not very often, and admittedly, sometimes it's hard to fight the nature of being human and wanting to have something to say. Personal growth is a journey, and not a perfect one! So if you're out there looking to put yourself in a better headspace- don't give up, keep pushing on, and do what is best for you! >

I really quite like Reddit. It has a bad rep, but here I get to see strangers genuinely be happy, random cat pics, fun trivia and memes, and even some good life tips.
It’s the only social media(if it can even be called that) I’m active on >

This site is the only social media I bother with too because I like the anonymity of it. The stupid shit that gets posted on sites like Twitter and Facebook I can see on here as people will post it on certain subs. People are generally respectful here, obviously there are exceptions because trolls exist but on the whole I find reddit to be much more suited to how I want to interact online than the other available sites.
Also, as you pointed out, there are cat pics here. Enough cat pics to keep all of us cat lovers happy for as long as we wish to look at them. I don't know how many cat subs there are on here, I think the number is pretty high, it's never too many though, that's impossible. >

Never too many cat subreddits, lol. I think I follow 12 myself that are strictly cat related, and always finding new ones. >

Cats are better than a lot of people. Not all the time, there are still some decent people around. 
I don't ever see a cat and think, oh you've made my day worse. I do think that after seeing some people, or reading whatever hateful crap they've written. Then I go back to the cats. >

I like when certain websites keep their old versions available for 'fun' and all it ends up doing is proving the old one is actually the better version:


No perpetual scrolling to screw with your limited data on a metered connection.


It doesn't beg you to sign-in or install an app just to click on the little "Read More" buttons. Which is completely optional(and more importantly: DISCREET) on the old version.


Not designed by people who are totally blind and think that half-a-sentence should take up the entirety of a 1920x1200 display and have 200+ pixels worth of padding between elements.


Isn't a minefield of javascript popups trying to tell you about the 'sale going on' .... on every single page-load. Just remember me the first time and don't bother me again all day pleasse.


 
It just makes me miss the old age more. >

Yeah, it'll be a shame when Reddit finally deletes old.reddit.com >

I’ll stop using the web version if it does that. >

Right? Did not see this coming in the Xanga, AIM and MySpace days at all. The biggest contributing factors is that everyone has a smart phone now with cameras and the ability to post, look up and say literally anything they want to. I remember how in the 2000s being able to film yourself, put it onto a computer, edit it and post it online seemed like such a strange, magical and hard thing to do. Like “how the fuck do people do that”. Unless we have a huge shift in culture, I’m assuming we will probably see some strict regulations coming down the line if things get worse. It’s gunna get weird. >

The internet was a different thing when you could only access it at the school library, or at home, or office. The internet needed physical access at x locations. You weren't just on it 24/7 like with smartphones.
Fun statistic. 2012 was the year where, for the first time, over 50% of internet users came from a mobile device. You can quite clearly mark the decline around that time and after. >

Hey now, wasn't that the end of the Mayan long count? IE:
THE END OF THE WORLD?!?!
I kid, but I think it's kind of funny in a way. >

You’re not wrong >

This might be highly unpopular, but I miss the days when a computer was a thing only for "geeks".
The smartphone kinda ruined the silicon world because it became so mainstream that it got to the point of being a huge market, hence the ads, tracking, etc.
This kind of things only happen because basically everyone has a phone on their pocket. It's amazing having all the information any human couldn't even dream of knowing right on the palm of your hands. But it makes me miss the BASIC era (BASIC as in the programming language) >

and there was this wave when pcs became pretty affordable and there was msn messenger at all, all teens had one. and they went into higher education and could use a keyboard.
now, they spend 99% of that time on a bloody phone and don't even understand what the shift key is for (number of times i see teens hit 'caps lock' then type a key then hit caps lock again drives me mad.
no idea about files or folders or vaguely how things work.
all well and good if you're just going to be a couch cabbage reacting to the many bings your phone makes at you, not so much if you want a job in IT >

I work in IT and come into contact with younger people needing help every once in a while. It blew my mind when I had to explain what the shift key does to a grown ass person. It was then that I realized these people really only use mobile devices and can barely navigate a PC just like all the old people whose excuse is that they didn’t grow up with PCs. 
So I guess my hopes that tech illiteracy will die out with the boomers where a little optimistic. >

Millenials are the only real computer native generation >

I think the 90s to 2007 was the golden years of social media and tech. We are sort of in some kind of dystopia as far as I see things. >

I miss MySpace so much. No algorithm. No fake news. No politics. Just fun.
Fortunately, there’s SpaceHey, which is 2006 MySpace with a different name. >

MySpace sucked too. I just remember you could rank your friends and everyone's page just blasted shitty music >

The friend ranking I could do without, but I didn’t mind the music. >

I work in IT. I spend millions of dollars a year of enterprise grade stuff that is supposed to run reliably 24/7/365.
It is all half baked shit that never works and the vendors ship it out barely working and fix it on the go. >

But the sales rep assured us! And he had such a full head of hair! >

The Dark Age of Technology >

Blood for the blood god! >

skull for the skull throne! >

I compare this era of internet/tech/social media to a part of history where people thought cigarettes were either mostly harmless or even somewhat good for you. Then over time people started to become more and more aware of the harm cigarettes cause. Now it is a downright fact that cigarettes are bad. We’re at that apex point where more and more people are going to become aware of the negatives internet/tech/social media cause humans.