This phone obsession I hate!!

An addict here too I'm afraid !

Blondiekins - No it isnt. I’m a technical dinosaur, but find I’m very unsure as to whether I could ‘chuck’ the habit.
You’ve got lots of friends who want to keep in touch. Great!!!

I feel exactly the same but I need it for some work related groups and we have a motorhome so follow some very useful MH groups as well. I am currently trying to gradually switch over to instagram although most of the motorhome stuff is all fb so stuck with those for the foreseeable.

It’s possible to reset it but you might need to find a child to do it first you 😂

No siri or Alexa for me. Big brother is already all around us. I stopped facebook after covid, I just do WhatsApp for family and a couple of close friends. I share Wordle results on the family WhatsApp wordle group. It's very competitive! I read emails do banking texts and phone calls. And it's my camera and photo album. The most frightening thing happened on my son in law's phone. He had been ordering a Christmas present for his mother to give to his brother, on her own phone. The next thing he knew was an advertisement for the thing he had ordered popped up on HIS phone.

It is an addiction that many of us succumb to. From a practical viewpoint, I’ve found that limiting the times I go on social media is helpful. So tell yourself that you can go on it in the early morning and then again at lunchtime, late afternoon and late evening for example. Put your phone out of sight(but where you can hear it if need be) for the rest of the time. You will find that you are more conscious of the hours in between and may review how you are spending them. Try to do other or new things for the rest of the day and know that social media is probably one of the greatest time wasters we have invented to date. It does help with emotional regulation sometimes but we have to find other ways to do this. You aren’t alone. Good luck.

No social media for me. I have friends who spend their life on it, or playing games where you build a farm etc. They will sit for hours, which isn't healthy. These games and social media are stealing their lives away bit by bit.

It is hard and very addictive. I'm retired and find it hard not to pick my laptop, phone or Kindle just to read. I will read anything of interest or not as the case may be which can be annoying because I think well I'll just read the daily news and drift onto something else and before I know it a couple of hours have gone by.
I'm still looking after GCs but to a lesser degree as the youngest GS (who only turned 4 in July) has now started school. So now it is school pickups, some swimming lessons and babysitting when their parents have late shifts. So to a certain degree there is even more time to faff around with IT media. DH no longer looks after 3 other GCs which is somewhat of a relief because they would sink into their ipads and were rude and surly when interrupted and their parents said everyone does it (as if rudeness is an okay thing!)
I think the hardest thing to deal with is the guilt for being so absorbed by IT and I have to force myself to walk to the post box just to get moving. I was thinking setting myself the task of every time I see a reel with exercises that I actually get up and do the activity!
At least when I was looking after GS I was taking him playgroups, swimming etc which got me out and mixing with other GPs because I was actually getting depressed with the lack of people contact.
Using IT media (although absorbing) does not give you that physical contact with people and it is very easy to become anti-social and not see a soul from one day to the next. I like to see people even if only for a coffee or a chat whereas DH is quite happy with his own company day in and day out. But I would love an experiment where nationally, internationally or whatever that the internet is turned off and seeing how people then spend their time. I would probably still pick up a book and read - what would you do?

Blondiekins I am exactly the same! Waste hours scrolling but don’t want to come off FB as many people I have worked with or are friends who live far from me post snippets of their life which I follow. Self control needed I guess. A friend has come off FB on her phone and only uses it when she gets her laptop out. It seems to be helping her.

I read Gransnet as soon as I wake up. Also check my emails, news from my local football team on the fans forum. After that it's newspaper headlines. Also the Sky news app. I can get lost on Gransnet and time flies by. I don't do any social media. I also spend a little time before I go to sleep.

It's very addictive and I do try to limit my time. Talking of addictive, I do worry about my granddaughter who seems to spend a great deal of time looking at her phone, it seems like an addiction to me which I think has taken hold.

The settings on my phone it tells me how long I have spent on it during the day, it's far too long some days!

Yes, but mine is checking late at night.

you can just set up a new account. The algorithms will quickly pick up what you are interested in. Good tip though about the time limit. I'm going to do this.

Mt61

I am the same. No social media, WhatsApp groups, or FB.

This is social media

This old iPhone sent me an email ‘we saw u peeking…’ I was stunned as I was only looking to book an eye exam and it knew I’d been on the website but not via an email reminder that I had couple months ago… very scary really🤷‍♀️

Whenever I have had a new smart phone, I go through all the apps and delete or disable ones I don't want to use including Facebook. Every day I check Facebook but only ever on my laptop never on a phone.

I also only use my smartphone for messaging, WhatsApp, making calls. I have just used it to make an online purchase and managed to instal the Easyfundraising app so that I can get donations for one of my favourite charities. I am another who does not use Facebook, X or any of the others out there. I will occasionally go onto Instagram but only to look at my DIL's new pictures of the grandchildren.

I am a bit concerned about how long I spend on my phone. No social media for me but I am part of 2 Whatsapp groups, One for the brood of puppies my puppy belongs to and the other for the quiz team I am in.

On Sunday I saw something really sad. It was the day of the Great North Run. As I walked my puppy home the Red Arrows flew over us very noisily and in spectacular formation. A boy of about 14 was so engrossed in his phone he didn't even look up.

nanna8
A group of us were banned because for 2 years we asked, pleaded , insulted FB trying to get them to take down the Chinese clothing etc adds.

NannieChicken

No social media for me. I have friends who spend their life on it, or playing games where you build a farm etc. They will sit for hours, which isn't healthy. These games and social media are stealing their lives away bit by bit.

You’re posing on it here. 🤷‍♀️ What do you think GN is if it isn’t social media?

Flakesdayout
No app designer is going to make it difficult to download or use.
That would defeat the purpose: to get you to spend money.

albertina
You too are on social media now
This is for everyone who thinks WhatsApp isn’t a social media platform.

www.integriti.io/post/is-whatsapp-social-media#:~:text=Definition%20of%20social%20media&text=When%20considering%20the%20somewhat%20strict,boundaries%20of%20%E2%80%9Csocial%20networking%E2%80%9D.

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Never been on Facebook and never want to. My husband signed up a couple of decades ago and let's me know if he has something interesting that he thinks I might be interested in. As far as I've ever seen, he has never written a comment or replied to anything.

Neither of our sons have ever been interest and in their teens (they are both now (c) 30) used to say. "No-one under 40 is on Facebook!". I guess those 40+ year olds are now 60+ years olds!!
.

I'm horribly addicted to a game on my phone. It wastes so much time! I rarely read Facebook threads these days as I don't often see what used to be there when I first joined but I wouldn't want to lose access altogether. I use WhatsApp loads. I have various family groups, clubs and societies I'm in and various social groups. We have family group videos to from time to time and am constantly receiving photos of my grandchildren. WhatsApp is the thing I'd miss most.

I deleted all my friends on Facebook and kept the groups I still want to be a part of. I also don't have the app on my phone. I have to log in if I want to see something in a group and I go straight to it because there's nothing else in my feed. worth doing.

Yes this is me too!