I posted a few weeks ago about how I didn’t feel like quitting reddit just yet. and, honestly, I still have a hard time not opening my phone every five minutes to check it.
but I decided to quit because I realized how much of a negative echo chamber it was. I couldn’t even mute certain words on the reddit app so I had to keep seeing the same shit over and over again in the popular feed.
it’ll be a long road moving from one platform to another, but I’m pretty satisfied not being strangled by reddit’s overwhelming snark and negativity.
dunno if anyone here feels a similar way, but felt like sharing my thoughts.
What helped me and my phone habits was the loss of Apollo during the API fiasco, and the immediate emergence of voyager, allowing me to simply replace the “check reddit feed” habit with “check lemmy feed”.
Plus, since lemmy is less algorithms (and users) there isn’t much urge to doomscroll.
The initial move feels a bit like you’re giving up on an old friend imo. Many of us hoped reddit would change course or stop sliding towards what they’ve become but it’s obvious now that there will be no turn around. The enshitification will continue until nothing recognizable is left.
With Lemmy and the fediverse you have the chance to make it your own and help shape it as it grows, hopefully avoiding the missteps of reddit.
Welcome to Lemmy mate. Have fun settling in to your new home.
Feels more like leaving an abusive partner. There were a few nice corners with nice people in them but it feels like bots, AI and ragebait have taken over.
Welcome!
It’s a weird feeling in the beginning. For me I was the same, I realized how addicted I had become to it, almost withdrawal from it. But after a while I realized what toll the constant firehose had taken on me.
You’ll notice we have less here, I view it as a good thing. Less content, but it’s higher quality. I check my phone less but when I do it’s less mindless scrolling. There are actual good articles.
Plus as you see I can actually chat with people here, instead the insta-hate I got on Reddit.
So overall, welcome! Let us know if you need directions :)
If you want positive space you might also check tildes.net (it is actually run by old Reddit admin and it tries to reassemble Reddit from 10+ years ago)
beehaw is also very positive.
Like everyone else, I miss what it was. Now i can’t connect with anyone there. The tone is so toxic. I largely stopped signing in last fall. It was feeling so gross. But I would still check in from time to time. With yesterday’s messages about censorship, I will not be signing in again. I don’t think it’s a coincidence this is happening at the same time as the take it down policy and changes in approach to cyber security
I feel like I’ll be deleting my reddit account soon. 90% of the feed is anxiety inducing
For me the final thing was ubiquitous CCP propaganda and gaslighting even in non political subreddits
There is something very bad happening on the web and I hesitate to think about future consequences. We really need to get that EU army up and running pronto der Leyen.
Yep it’s out of control. There’s a lot of research showing extremist groups utilise social media to help spread propaganda, misinformation and recruit people. Cults can be political. It’s really scary
It’s kind of disturbing. Usually wars are something we think of as distant, then we go to the web and realize there are state actors, possibly with blood on their hands, doing social manipulation.
I got manipulated few times, maybe more times that I don’t even know about. Sometimes I feel like we should turn off all the social media because we can’t use them safely. Even knowing all this theoretically doesn’t make it better.
One would think that if you are aware of possibilities you can use the internet but there are just tricks to human psyche that work every time and you can’t really browse cat images and think constantly about some geopolitics or product placements