#I guess I view it as some sort of anthropological exercise on a conscious level

[andhaveapleasanttomorrow]

i realised recently (as in, thursday or friday but i can't remember which) that i've been spending inordinate amounts of my time each day just mindlessly scrolling through reddit. and i think that the reason it took so long for me to realise what was happening was that it's just become another compulsion. i open reddit, i read each post i see, if it's interesting i open the comments and almost force myself to view the thoughts and opinions others have shared—even though i often don't actually care, or even very much do not want to read them. and i just do that for literal hours, at least three or four times a day.

i'm not sure where i'm going with this. i think i just felt...something...at having seen that you seem to be doing something similar (though i'll admit i'm extrapolating a fair amount of information from what you shared; a surface level, it simply reminded me of this recent realisation). i think it frightened me a bit because i saw it just as i was falling asleep (i opened tumblr for some reason that i can't remember now) and it seemed like some sort of set up. but i think it also felt comforting? despite the fact that if your feelings on this habit are at all similar to my own, you're probably just resigned to the fact that you keep doing it at this point. or maybe you enjoy it, idk. i don't know your mind.

i'm rambling. sorry. whatever. i'm just glad (and maybe a little wigged out) that i saw your post about it. and...i hope that we're both able to break this habit and find a better use of time because honestly i know it's not doing my mental state any favours, and i imagine it's probably not doing any for yours (though if i'm wrong you should definitely keep doing it. or don't. i'm not your boss).

anyway, there wasn't really a point to this ask. i just felt like sharing. hope it hasn't come off as annoying or rude. (also sorry you're going through it right now, all reddit browsing aside. hope things get better for you, or at least more tolerable.)

thank you for sharing :). I think it is probably a common issue. it's not much different than doing the same with any social media platform. something in my brain finds it a bit more forgivable because I'm reading words as opposed to image or video (although it's not like I use instagram, tiktok, etc anyways). but each comment ends very quickly (depending on the sub) and I can skip over stuff if I don't feel like reading it, so it's "easier" than actually reading, like, a book or something, which I don't think is good. I don't view it as a good use of my time. most of it does not really make me think about anything at all (again, depending on the sub). a large amount of reddit comments say basically nothing, or otherwise repeat what most everyone else is already saying, as much as possible the reason for the "thousands of words" comment is that I find it sort of baffling I can expend the mental energy to read that much but it's all going towards something with hardly any nutritional value. it's like chewing gum. engaging in the act of reading without actually receiving any information. sometimes it's cool because I find little communities I wouldn't have otherwise known about but maybe 80% of the time I'm just looking at empty bullshit that means nothing to me (and another fraction I'm looking at bullshit that probably actively harms me). I don't place the blame on reddit itself so much because I know if it wasn't this it'd be some other mind-numbing thing... think I need to get some kind of shock collar hope you can figure something out yourself but to be h I think trying to replace distractions with distractions is a vain pursuit I need to like, get up in the brainworks with a wrench and bang that shit out

#ask #anon #long post #I guess I view it as some sort of anthropological exercise on a conscious level #(esp wrt what I said earlier about sad and lonely and nervous people) #but actually I just want to be rolling my eyes across words without doing the thinking part (aside from going man this is fucking stupid) #brainless television for pseudointellectuals