What do you *do* online these days? Where do you spend the most time?

_number8_@lemmy.world to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 188 points –

reddit is shit and makes me annoyed, twitter is shit and makes me annoyed, tiktok is shit and makes me annoyed, pure news sites are boring, cracked is dead, google doesn't work anymore, lemmy is only memes and news and fairly slow

i feel like i used to be able to sink into an activity on this machine, but now i just spend 5 minutes somewhere, the algorithm runs out of content, i get annoyed and go somewhere else, same process happens. i feel like i have amnesia, i used to enjoy this but i have no idea how.

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Sounds like you need to go outside m8. Try doing something new. Maybe do something good for yourself, like exercising or reading a book.

Also you can block the meme comms and the news comms that don't interest you and then your feed might have some more interesting posts.

While this is good advice in theory the unfortunate truth is if you block all the memes and news you're going to get like 1 new post a day. Lemmy is mostly memes and politics and Linux right now. We just don't have the population density such that the 28 English-speaking turtle breeders in the world can find each other in a community (or whatever else your hobby is). We're already struggling to fill content for relatively popular video games, for example, I've been subbed to the Deep Rock Galactic communities since day one but I've only ever seen like, two posts in those communities, ever, and both of them were within the past week. (I am well aware of the irony of myself, who has never posted content a day in his life, complaining about a lack of content - I'm more of a comments kind of guy, always have been. I won't go against my nature to post trash memes to communities that I want to see flourish. But I will vote up your trash memes if you want to post some.)

Point being, long story short, et al, etc. - Lemmy needs more users interested in posting more things than just memes and politics and Linux if we want to have an environment containing more than memes and politics and Linux. The future starts with YOU - and if not you then the next guy down the line, and so on until we run out of people with anything to say.

Anyway, I am quite stoned and must be on my way; my people need me. Adiós, amigo, until next time.

you're going to get like 1 new post a day.

Huh, I hardly disagree, I barely follow news communities, no meme communities at all and still get a fairly fresh feed daily.

I follow 893, communities though.

There are definitely growing pains here, it's the same problem Reddit has with people posting the same thing in multiple different communities, I don't want to block them, because they're communities that I'm interested in, it's just the same repeated stuff, which gets annoying.

I blocked the main politics subs because it was nothing but Trump posts (I'm American, so it's been like 8 years of hearing about this asshole on a nearly daily basis). The new annoyance is the constant posts in multiple communities about the Israel/Palestine conflict. I get that it's a hot issue, and a lot of people care about it, but I really don't and I'd rather not see stuff about it every freaking day.

It would be great if there was some sort of keyword filter for the c/All or even your subbed communities where you can filter out keywords so it's not an endless stream of the same shit. Another example is posts about the Yuzu Nintendo Switch emulator getting the ax, it's like "I know this happened, I don't need to see posts about it in 5 different communities".

Like the others, I disagree. I've block hundreds of communities and my feed is good.

It's just an arduous process of blocking tens of communities a day. Some of the stuff you just generally don't want to see, I created a porn account and went on the LemmyNSFW server and I could have definitely used some eye bleach after that: Chicks with dicks, hardcore BDSM, furry porn, hentai, tentacle porn, tons of dicks (I'm a straight guy), etc..

I had to stop after about 10 minutes and just went back to my Reddit porn account.

I didn't find it so bad. I knew it would taper off. I didn't see it as a chore. And it was worth it.

if you block all the memes and news you’re going to get like 1 new post a day

I have blocked most meme comms and all US news/politics comms (I'm not in the US so not so relevant to me) and I definitely still see a good amount of posts. So I don't agree with this.

Unfortunately/Fortunately that's the audience that lemmy appeals most to. Personally, that's (more or less) what I want from a community

So they end up learning about Linux :D. j/k.

I would also take a look at new instead of hot within the filter. You end up seeing a lot of cool stuff people are posting.

Download and distribute Nintendo emulators and roms.

I've embraced this and started reading more books and taking my health and passions more seriously. I've even ditched my Apple Watch and have found other ways to declutter and minimize my digital lifestyle. It's genuinely freeing and feels fantastic.

Me too, when I left reddit I took up ebooks and hadn't seriously read things since I was in high school. It's been great!

Same here! Been reading/listening to audiobooks since I left reddit. Found any new favorites?

Well, I haven't been doing audiobooks, just ebooks, but a few I've enjoyed was finally reading Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Masters of Doom (all about id Software and their early days) and the last one People Who Eat Darkness, which is a journalistic book about a murder in Japan, really well written and researched, really complex and interesting.

Used to be reddit. I'm here now because I can't be on reddit anymore, but this place (maybe thankfully) just isn't the abyss to suck me into, so now, my online time is mostly on discord

I'm not counting videogames. Though I do play some online stuff, I don't consider it the same as something like browsing a website. It's a different activity. If you do count it, then yeah, it's games. My computer time is largely games

This is so true. I try to explain this to my wife and she doesn’t understand.

If I’m on my phone I’m either:

  1. Answering endless Teams chats or emails (I get work messages well outside of normal business hours because of my job—it’s annoying but I’ve also gotten used to it because we basically do everything async)
  2. Doom scrolling

I hate social media. I’ve hated Reddit since API. Lemmy is great but I’ll go days sometimes with the same home page. So I basically cycle through the same 3 sites endlessly. I got a Steam Deck to try and help with this, but when I hop on it my wife thinks I’m “playing video games so should be working on something.” I’ve tried to explain that using a Steam Deck is the equivalent of her scrolling social media, but alas.

So yeah. Basically nothing to do these days. I think the most frustrating part to me is how most content seems to be geared towards making me angry. I never remember it being like that.

Discord communities, youtube for content I enjoy, lemmy, checking tumblr and mastodon.

I used to say that "Once I leave Reddit I'll have more time for my hobbies instead of looking at a screen about my hobbies" but I realized that:

  • One website's existence doesn't solve or prevent a problem of my brain chemistry
  • I already have a lot of hobbies and reddit introduced me to some, and most of those are offline.

I think the fact that Reddit imploded is good, it gave me an excuse to leave a site that I hated more than I enjoyed being part of it, for lots of reasons.

If you have that lying around, play that freaking game you left on your steam library for later. While playing this game, limit/cut all your accesses to these social platforms that makes you turn in circles.

Also do invite old friends or loved ones, at least on discord, talking with real humans sometimes could help you disconnect from these ragebait worlds.

I recently put together a small discord server (maybe a dozen or so people) with some internet friends I met on IRC and Slack back in the day. It's been lovely getting the gang back together after most of a decade of silence, I'm enjoying catching up with everyone very very much. Highly recommend, it's been great for my recent mental health, and reportedly so for a couple other folks in the group as well.

I spend a lot of time on Lemmy, sorted by Top>Day or whatever, which seems to provide mostly fresh stuff every morning. I'm on Telegram being an attention whore in my local art community/fandom/convention planning spaces. I browse art on websites, and Google like a madman in relation to my broken project car that I'm trying to restore. I am big into Outer Wilds, and was spending a lot of time on that up until recently. YouTube for offroad recovery videos (Trail Mater and Matt's Offroad Recovery), which is silly because I don't like offloading. It is fun to see the physics/mechanical aspect of how big truck recoveries work

I like to work with artists from Europe, so sometimes I spend inordinate amounts of time trying to track people down on Russian Google/Facebook (Yandex/VK) haha

Can you recommend some good art sites? I've been really enjoying Pixelfed.

I'm reading more and watching movies way more. I LOVE movies. Sometimes in the 2010s I completely lost the ability to watch movie without being on my phone. My goal is to change that

I distinctly remember a brain glitch developing in my head circa 1992 when I no longer had the attention span for movies.

I guess you had accumulated enough environmental toxins by then:

Heavy Metals’ Effect on Susceptibility to Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Implication of Lead, Cadmium, and Antimony

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I moved to a city where it's always warm, and sunny a lot so I'm outside a lot more now, just walking around or sun bathing. I'm also going to the gym regularly for once in my life haha

Most of the time I spend on my computer isn't browsing the web, but doing other stuff like modding Skyrim, playing other games, etc..

Other than reading webcomics and webserials, I don't spend a lot of time online these days. I check lemmy and reddit for about ten minutes each two or three times a day.

But increasingly I play local multiplayer games with my kids and read ebooks offline.

Same, I kinda like it. I'm rediscovering what I did before I got addicted to social sites without realizing that's what happened. Turns out I still enjoy movies and books!

I've been doing more stuff offline these days. I've been making music that about 10% of people actually like, which is a pretty decent ratio, I think ( https://songwhip.com/thethreeleonards ). between music and board-gaming and TV the hours fill up.

I've been on The Internet since 1995. I, too, used to enjoy this. There is enjoyment to be found, but most of that is in finding people I can sincerely connect with, which is difficult. Treating The Internet like it's the Mirror Of Erised is not the way to happiness.

I visit forums that are associated with my hobbies, like satellite forums, tech forum etc. I also listen music, and post NSFW content(when I can) in other platforms(not in Reddit).

Hobbies are the only thing that keep me on the internet, apart from news and memes.

Satellite forums sounds like a very specific hobby, but I can't quite tell which one:

  • forums where all the remote sensing / OSINT / geospatial nerds gather.
  • forums for satellite broadcast enthousiasts.
  • forums for discussion on space exploration and satellites carrying scientific equipment or actual satellite astronomical bodies.
  • forums that are called satellite forums as some form of jargon I am about to learn about for the first time.

What are people into these days?

TV satellite of course! Watching tv over the internet(IPTV, OTT) sounds good, but satellite tv is far better IMO(so far, wont last long). Anything related to new satellites, transponders, epg, FTA(free to air) channels and scrambled channels(when they are open), also there are linux boxes like octagon and vu +, where the users create images and addons. I don't know for USA, but in EU with a big dish you can get lots of things.

This week at 13.0E, they added some Bulgarian channels, but the signal was low?, people started wondering why they added them, since it already in another sat. Probably tests.

Ah second category it is. Well met!

As a category one nerd with a susceptibility to new kinds of gadget-related hobbies I'm not sure SAT TV is something I should be getting into. Sounds like an absolute blast to tinker with all kinds of setups though.

Do you just buy a dish and a receiver en get going? Or is there more to it?

You just don't buy any dish, you have think what you want to watch/receive, then pick the right size dish, and then you have to pick a receiver. Not me, but many users have more than two boxes for many reasons.

Once you have these, then you have to choose if you gonna have a motorized dish or stable with more than 1 LNB's. Motorized dish is good because you only need 2-3 cables, but there is a delay when you switch satellite, seconds or minute until it turns to the right position. While stable has more job and cables to have, while switching satellites/channel is instant. wave frontier is considered the best dish, as it can see/get lots of sats with its size the way it is(needs a lot of lnbs and cable!).

Some people switch receivers every time a new one is out(not many the last years).
FTA is good, but people still trying to crack scrambled channels.

Podcasts mostly. Lemmy is ok, but it lacks the content Reddit once had.

Well, first the obvious, Lemmy, YouTube, learn a language, learn a skill. Do you have any creative outlets?

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I mostly don't. I write, program, play a game, catch up on work, spend time with family, etc. instead. I'm kind of glad because I've noticed life has genuinely improved since taking a step back from the Internet's toxicity.

Discord, Mastodon, games. That's really it.

I spend a lot of time with YouTube running while I work. For reading the news I have RSS feeds that I've accumulated from sites that I like. I spend a lot of time on Lemmy and Mastodon.

I don't use search as much anymore, cause often when I'm searching for a solution my results are more accurate using Chat GPT (and more and more local LLMs).

The internet is changing and that's okay.

Low effort stuff: Lemmy, rock paper shotgun, ars technica.

Slightly more effort: Bandcamp

High effort: video games, reading

I read the news once a day from the BBC equivalance of my country. I check the DayZ and Combat Footage subreddits few times a day. Other than that I'm either on YouTube, Lemmy or watching porn. That's literally covers over 99% of what I do online.

I mostly just read things on Mastodon, Lemmy and Bluesky, even though I didn't really do much social media in the before times. Actually got in touch with a side of myself I've been neglecting for a while, I guess. However, I've also learned that I'm not the kind of person that can deal with people online being sad, which is a problem on leftist social media where everyone is suffering. I should really touch grass or something.

Other than that, I've been gaming and trying to talk with friends over Discord (nobody is online much nowadays. ;_;).

I never spent much time on Twitter or on Reddit - I have an old Reddit account, but it has 15 karma or something like that. Likewise I have a very old Twitter account, but I never posted anything to it nor did I use it to follow people. I just never had any interest.

For some reason, the social web sucks me in in the same way PhpBB forums did when I was in my early teens. Not quite as bad of course, but it's still striking.

Other than Mastodon and this place, I read news and sometimes tinker with my personal website. I rarely struggle to waste time if I want to.

I'm listening to a 44 hour audio book on YouTube.

That sounds interesting...

Judas Unchained by Peter F Hamilton, which is book 2. Book 1 in the series is Pandora's Star.

Space opera.

Reading, discord, mastodon, crocheting are my main things at this point. Lemmy occasionally.

Ultimate guitar .com + a few choice youtube videos and you could be playing amateurish but satisfying guitar songs in a few weeks. Take it from there and who knows how far you’d go.

If I am not browsing lemmy or forums that I have used for 20+ years, I follow a few patreon creators to catch their new releases as well as a few other content creators who livestream on twitch and youtube.

Before the reddit api, I used to read around 24-28 books a year depending on length (Sanderson's tomes will always change that number because it's like reading 2 or 3 regular books)

Last year I hit 35. I didn't really read books over 1000 pages much last year but I definitely know I'm reaching for a book when I would normally doomscroll reddit.

I use Lemmy for discussion and reading the thoughts of others, like I used to do with Reddit.

I am old enough that I can't still use Facebook to check the lives of much of my friends and family. Discord is where I can chat with many of my younger friends.

YouTube gives me short video content for entertainment, and TikTok does the same for more serious topics.

I deep dive Wikipedia so regularly that my wife rightly insists we give at least $20 every time they ask for money.

Kbin, online shopping and streaming music or video. The time surfing the world wide web for me is over. Most websites I used to visit have anti woke folk and other asocials now. It's depressing...

Facebook, Voyager, Google News with a daily 30 minute limit for each.

YouTube with no limit but usually multitasking.

Email, whatsapp, other work stuff.

Podcasts sometimes while driving / working.

ABC listen sometimes while driving / working.

I've found that Mastodon (for those who don't know what it is, think of it as sort of distributed open source Twitter) has been great for me. There are lots and lots of instances, and you'll probably be able to find one that suits your interests. I'm very much into tabletop roleplaying games, and there were already several instances for that kind of thing, but I still started my own. It's been a lot of fun.

I still end up on Quora too much. It was a great place to learn until about 2018 when the investors really started making decisions, taking Quora away from the mission towards ad revenue at any cost to the community. The enshittification hasn't damaged it to the level of Yahoo Answers yet, but there's nothing to stop the slide.

My ability to shape my feed took the biggest big hit when they dumped the topic ontology 2023 and went with bots all the way. You used to able to follow extremely specific topics and tag questions with them so that your feed was all gold. No more - my feed is full of "viral" now.

How Quora Died - by Nitish Pahwa on Slate.com

YouTube and video game lore. Warhammer lore is extensive.

Currently spending a lot of time on Lemmy. Best wholesome time for me online is Pixelfed tho - it's relaxing to just sit and look at beautiful art people have made. Especially with some nice music in the background from something like @radiofreefedi@musician.social (comfy channel). In fact, having a beer and a joint to go with it makes for a really nice time too. Overall though I'm starting to feel a bit like I've 'done' the internet and trying to get real pleasure from it is clutching at straws.

I recently discovered a few kind of odd websites where they've uploaded quite an assortment of pictures and videos of different people having sex in all kinds of different arrangements and scenarios, some of which you'd just hardly believe! As silly as it sounds, I find most of them very sexually arousing to view and I like to spend a lot of my time masturbating myself to them. It makes the work day just fly by for me these last few months.

On game shop websites looking for some sweet deals. But I'm a cheap bastard, so I'm only just looking.

Right now I'm struggling with buying Divinity Original Sin at 8€, at an 80% discount from 40€, because I think it's expensive.

Edit: Interestingly, had it been 80% of 30€, which is 6€, I would've bought it without hesitation.

I watch YouTube and twitch(without log-in). I mostly watch penguinz0 videos and valorant esports on twitch.

I'm here. Or in a game. Or watching YouTube. Sometimes I am here while in a game watching YouTube. It's actually funny that I have been in VRChat, scrolling my phone using scrcpy while watching stuff on a screen on the virtual wall. Like I'm just doing what I would do without VR, but as my fursona in a sick space station.

It has the same vibe of watching a sim of yourself watching TV.

Lemmy, YouTube. There's so many good videos on YouTube that I don't have time to watch. Searching up how to do something online. There's always some Linux programs I don't know to use. Currently I am also watching The Computer Chronicles on archive.org. There's also some sort of hidden parts of online you may not be realizing are there, though I haven't spent basically any time there yet. For example Gopherspace. Gopher is an old protocol that used to compete with HTTP. It still has some people using it, just for fun. Of course, you won't just find those gopher holes as the protocol isn't supported by modern browsers. You can use Lynx.
You can use Veronica 2 search engine here: gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/1/

YouTube

Lemmy

NPR

Discord

I spend more time sorting my weapons and gear and creating loadouts on a 3rd party app for Destiny 2 than I actually spend playing the game

Pinterest

Recipe hunting on various websites

Still browse Reddit but less and less every day

Never look at Twitter unless something else linked to it, and I don't have an account

Never look at Instagram, I don't have an account

Facebook once a week at best, though only on my PC, I deleted the app from my phone ages ago

Lemmy and Discord mostly. I watch a lot of YouTube. I also spend days going down Wikipedia rabbit holes.

I tutor, lead a dumb mobile game clan of around 100 people, read, listen to music and watch youtube videos.

Boune between here Twitter and Facebook ik ik Thats only if I don't have access to my computer then i tend to watch yt and shows or game

Also do a lot of reading

I bounce around from here to YouTube to checking my email to playing with my collection of spreadsheets.