TLDR; Compulsive online media use is probably closer to substance addiction than just ’normal life’. Annnnddd, its stupefying my generation.

A regrettable amount of my time on the internet has been spent consuming brainrot. Meaningless, wasted time. It’s hard to get away from.

I don’t think I’m unique in that aspect. If anything I wouldn’t be surprised if I wasn’t far from the median.

Part of the stickiness is that these ‘online media’ are all around us and pervasive to modern life. Realistically Reddit does have some of the best forums for many topics. Reddit can quickly become a cesspool and echo chamber that I believe is far from reality. While youtube is less of an echo chamber, it still has an incentive to keep you on the platform. Hell, even LinkedIn has an incentive to keep you scrolling. Thank goodness that I don’t have TikTok or Instagram because I would be even more cooked.

While using online media* to cool off after a long day can be fine, it can also turn into this literal time hole. Swipe for an hour and you don’t even realize. The natural cycle for websites is to sell you ads, and its easier to sell ads if you are using the product more. Hence, the conscious or subconscious incentive to keep users on the platform more. It’s even more destructive because one, we don’t fully accept that this is an addiction.

Online time sinks aren’t too dissimilar from conventional addictions you hear about like drugs or alcohol. Advice to treat typical dependencies is more likely to help you than just ‘handling it yourself’. Yes, I know that not everyone has the same struggles as me, but I do think it is more common than people admit or like to admit.

Whats crazy is the craving to fill the time. When I get rid of some time sink, I unfortunately find a way to fill it again. I do benefit from cutting the time sinks, but the benefit have diminishing marginal returns. I fill it with something only marginally less useless.

It sucks you in like a vortex. I was off of X for January 2025 and when I got back in I got sucked in so fast it was unbelievable. Spent like an hour as soon as I got on.

Most online social media is bad. If you know you have had trouble with it in the past then please be careful with your time. Don’t waste it, we’re all going to die in this world.

Appendix

* Online media in this context is any platform that has an incentive to keep you there longer.
* Brainrot is mindless swiping on online media.

I could NOT use ChatGPT to help write/inspire this because everything it spat out sounded to generic. See Paul Graham’s essay on this.