The internet has become boring

I think the internet has become boring.

One problem is the personalized feeds that almost all social media sites have nowadays. They're constantly feeding you different emotions through short clips, like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, and similar content that is now present on almost every platform.

You're going from clip to clip, switching emotions from being happy to sad, surprised, angry, or whatever else. I don't think that's very healthy. You're experiencing more emotions in just a few minutes than you would normally experience during an entire day.

In the past, I used to have YouTube Vanced on Android to watch YouTube without ads. When that disappeared, I switched to ReVanced, which also removes advertisements. Both of them had SponsorBlock, which filters out sponsored segments in videos, which I like because I don't want to get influenced by all that promotional stuff either.

More recently, I turned off the personalized feed on YouTube, so I only had my own subscriptions instead of all the videos that YouTube recommended to me. Some time after that, I switched to NewPipe, an open-source YouTube client, where I also didn't sign in with an account. Recently, I switched again, but this time to PipePipe, which is a fork of NewPipe that also has SponsorBlock.

In PipePipe, I haven't signed in, and I barely have any subscriptions. Nowadays, I barely use YouTube anymore, and I think it feels quite good.

When I want to watch something on YouTube, I need to search for it myself and open the video. I don't have that doomscrolling behavior of just opening YouTube to see if there's anything interesting there. There's nothing being recommended to me, so unless I have something specific I want to watch, there's not much reason to open it.

In the past, I would quite frequently open YouTube and watch whatever appeared there. I would also add things to my Watch Later list, which just kept growing. Maybe it was some sort of addiction. I haven't been that huge of a consumer compared to many other people, but my consumption is now very low in comparison to before.

Nowadays, I mostly use YouTube when I'm working or when I want to listen to some interview, podcast, or something else that I've heard about. I don't really have the habit anymore of opening YouTube just to see what's there.

If you want to take just a baby step to reduce your own YouTube consumption, I think you should try disabling the personalized feed. You can do that by turning off and clearing your watch history. Then YouTube will stop showing personalized recommendations on the homepage.

Of course, you also lose the history of what you've watched and how far into videos you've watched. Maybe your first instinct is that this is something you want to keep. But if you actually turn it off, I think you're going to realize that it's not really needed. You get over it quite quickly, and I don't think you'll have much desire to turn it back on.

Another thing that annoyed me about YouTube recommendations was that they kept showing the same things. The same channels and similar videos over and over again. It felt like YouTube was a very small platform.

In reality, I don't know how many hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, but it's an enormous amount of content. Still, I kept seeing the same channels and videos. It was quite difficult to refresh the recommendations and discover something new. I sometimes had to use Google Search and look for Reddit and Hacker News threads about YouTube recommendations just to find new content.

The algorithm gets very good at finding what you already like and then reinforcing those interests. But you end up being stuck in your own filter bubble, and YouTube feels much smaller than it really is.

In general, I'm also getting a bit tired of the internet.

I think the quality of content on YouTube has been decreasing. From what I've seen, revenue for YouTube creators has become worse in recent years, and it's more difficult to make a living from YouTube advertisements alone. Unless you're a huge creator, you almost need to have sponsors to make enough money.

I think there's some enshittification going on, making the terms worse for creators. Maybe people who previously enjoyed making videos are not as motivated anymore. We also have so many AI slop videos being produced, which further decreases the quality of content.

There are, of course, still good creators, including many who have been on the platform for a long time. But I think it's becoming more difficult for somebody new to get an audience and make any money at all. The incentives aren't really there anymore.

All of this makes the platform less worthwhile to spend time on. And with the personalized recommendations, you might not even discover the good content that's still being produced. Instead, you keep getting more of the same things that you've already grown tired of.

I think we're seeing a reaction to all of this, especially among younger people. The whole dumbphone community seems to be growing, with people who are tired of social media and smartphones and want something more basic.

The dumbphone community consists of people going back to old Nokia phones or similar devices. There are also new phones being produced for this audience, with tiny screens or barely any features. The idea is that there shouldn't be much opportunity to doomscroll or consume social media.

If you look at the smartphones being sold nowadays, like iPhones and Android phones, they have huge screens that are almost designed for consumption. Everything is made to make it convenient to watch videos, scroll through feeds, and consume more content.

It's interesting to see people in the dumbphone community, including teenagers and people in their early twenties, both girls and boys, who are tired of social media, TikTok, Snapchat, and whatever their friends are using.

I guess the majority of people are still stuck in this consumption world though, but I think it's encouraging to see a community thriving with enthusiastic people who want to spend more time in reality, with their friends and family, and who see less value in doomscrolling their lives away.

It's also interesting to see people in the dumbphone community posting what they carry with them every day. Maybe they have an old phone, a physical camera, a book, and a notepad. Things like that, to live a more analog and simple life.

Some people even carry a physical map instead of relying on GPS. Taking pictures with a real camera, having real experiences, and communicating more with people instead of being so locked into their phones.

I think there's something valuable in that. Nowadays, you see people walking around with headphones, staring at their phones, and not interacting with anybody. They're not taking notice of what's happening around them or getting impressions from the outside world.

They're not even giving their minds any opportunity to rest and think. Whenever there is a quiet moment, they pull out their phones and start consuming something. It seems like people have become uncomfortable with just being alone with their own thoughts.

I also think it's sad to see how short the attention span of some younger people has become. Some people cannot even focus on an entire movie without pulling out their phones at the same time.

There has even been discussion about how Netflix and other content producers adapt their movies and series to this behavior. Matt Damon talked about how Netflix wants plots to be more explicit and repeated several times, so people can follow along even when they're looking at their phones. Netflix has denied that this is something they ask filmmakers to do.

But I think it's sad that this is even a discussion. Instead of requiring people to pay attention, content is being made easier to follow for people who aren't really watching.

If you're looking at your phone half the time, you might miss some important detail that becomes relevant later in the movie. So the story needs to be more explicit, repeating what's happening so you don't get lost.

The result is that the content becomes worse for everybody. If you're still somebody who wants to sit down and pay full attention to a movie or Netflix series, you're watching content that is increasingly targeted towards an audience that isn't paying attention.

I think that decreases the quality of the experience, making movies and series more of a way to waste time in the moment rather than something that you actually pay attention to and remember afterward.

I wish more people would wake up and move away from this constant consumption of short-form content. Instead, I think we should consume more long-form content, like interviews, podcasts, audiobooks, and actual books.

Something where you need to pay attention for a longer period of time, rather than watching short clips that give you some quick entertainment and that you forget almost immediately afterward. It's just wasting your time.

Another interesting development is that people seem to be moving away from the big public social media platforms and into smaller groups online. Maybe it's a Discord chat where you and your friends talk, or some other smaller community.

Not that many people seem to be posting publicly on Facebook anymore. Instead, social media is becoming more compartmentalized into smaller groups and communities.

I think that's quite encouraging. Maybe people are getting tired of broadcasting everything publicly and instead want to communicate with people they actually know or share some common interests with.

With all the AI-generated content nowadays, I also think more people will want to go back and watch older movies and read older books. Content that was produced before the AI era, where you know it was made by people and where maybe more effort was put into the production.

And with people previously having longer attention spans, perhaps older movies were also made for an audience that was actually paying attention. I think there might be some value in rediscovering older content and appreciating what we have in our history, rather than constantly looking for something new.

I think people are becoming more self-aware and realizing that they don't want to mindlessly waste their time on the internet. They want to spend more time in the real world, with their friends and family, and experience things themselves instead of just living a passive consumption life. People want to become more intentional about what they do.

I hope we'll see more of this across all age groups. Especially among younger people who might be very locked into Snapchat, TikTok, and other social media platforms. But also among older people who are constantly consuming news and other things designed to grab their attention and make them feel angry or upset. It's not just short videos; there are so many different things competing for your attention, trying to make you feel something and keep you engaged.

My recommendation is to give up on personalized feeds. Remove them or block them in the apps that you use, or stop using those apps entirely. At least try to have some self-control and spend less time on them.

Try to consume more long-form content. Read books, watch older movies that are longer and slower, listen to interviews and podcasts, and give yourself the opportunity to focus on something for a longer period of time.

But most importantly, spend less time on your phone and more time with your friends and family. Go outside, experience things, and give yourself some time to think without constantly having something playing in your ears or a screen in front of your face.

When you're on your deathbed, I don't think you're going to regret the time you spent with your family. But you might regret all the time you spent on your phone instead. So think about what's really precious in the long term and what's worth spending your time on now.