yearly how to log off thread (Guide for you)

Hello,

every few months I see people grappling with the XYZ of how to log off, so heres the long and short of it to make your life easier, your outlook happier and force yourself to become a more genuine, down to earth person.

Why you should do this: obviously to anyone with a brain, the attention economy is bad for your mental, physical and spiritual health. It is literally built by teams of evil psychologists to keep you engaged with product and consume more. This is bad because it feeds off your anger, hatred etc and holes you up in a really horrible and debilitating mindset.

Many people struggle with logging off but its genuinely easy if you have some willpower, a friend and are not a total NEET incel (some of you will fall off here.)

First off: any kind of blocking app on your computer, personally I will always vouch for cold turkey blocker, it feels like im advertising it at this point, but the reason is you can lock things for certain times (such as after work), create lists of things to block, 1 payment is life time access and it is relatively user friendly. But literally any kind of blocking app on a computer works, I would recommend starting small with giving yourself an allowance of an hour on "social media" or whatever you spend mosttt of your time on.

Second off: your phone. Most people really struggle with phones but they are WAY easier to block everything. If you have an apple, use the child lock settings to block off access to instagram, tiktok whatever you use the most, then give your phone to a friend (a close friend preferably) to set the parental passcode on it. Voila, your phone is now ONLY a functional device.

Bonus points to being able to block websites so you cant just access safari to go on instagram.

Androids have a similar blocker to cold turkey I use thats called screenzen, same as above set a passcode by a friend and block the things that waste your time.

Now is the actual hard part: creating new habits. You can't just do this first step and be like I am finally cured. You are still a thinking person (I hope) and need to occupy yourself somehow. For me this mostly involves working on projects such as a pond for my community garden, volunteering my evenings with environmental groups, exercise or nice dinners with friends I force myself to organise. Otherwise I have several hobbies that keep me engaged.

good luck, and don't be too hard on yourself if you fail a few times, its all part of the process.