Alternatives for when you feel like you need to use social media.

[Version]

I'm pretty sure everyone here has already seen the social media topic. A common theme I saw there, and that I can very much relate to, is that people saw a need to be distracted, and almost instinctively went on a social media site. To me, for a couple months, I even started using tumblr and youtube again just because I couldn't focus and needed to stop doing what I was doing.

The alternative I found was music. Whenever my thoughts feel cluttered and I feel like I need to take a break from what I'm doing, I just listen to whatever. It has the benefit where you can choose whether to actually pay attention to it, or to just let it be in the background. So it gives you a chance to organize your thoughts and regain your focus.

I feel like a good alternative has to be something where you, yourself, don't put in any effort. But it shouldn't be like social media where it occupies your head just enough so that you can't think of anything else. It should allow you to recompose yourself.

Anyone else have things that they used to scratch the "itch" of social media?

[Memory]

I found that I don't actually mind the concept of social media, I just mind these tired old paradigms like endless scrolling, like-dislike systems, and so on.

I have taken to going to forums, writing or reading blog posts, commenting on content, when I get the urge.

[manpaint]

I'm pretty sure everyone here has already seen the social media topic. A common theme I saw there, and that I can very much relate to, is that people saw a need to be distracted, and almost instinctively went on a social media site. To me, for a couple months, I even started using tumblr and youtube again just because I couldn't focus and needed to stop doing what I was doing.

The alternative I found was music. Whenever my thoughts feel cluttered and I feel like I need to take a break from what I'm doing, I just listen to whatever. It has the benefit where you can choose whether to actually pay attention to it, or to just let it be in the background. So it gives you a chance to organize your thoughts and regain your focus.

I feel like a good alternative has to be something where you, yourself, don't put in any effort. But it shouldn't be like social media where it occupies your head just enough so that you can't think of anything else. It should allow you to recompose yourself.

Anyone else have things that they used to scratch the "itch" of social media?

The best alternative that I've found for me is to listen to music on a device with no social media (I use Moonshell2 on a Nintendo DS) and I browse Yesterweb forums (Melonland, Yesterb forum).

I also sometime write articles for my Neocities site.

[Melooon]

Hmmm, social media did two things for me.

1. Its a convent way to communicate with people:
This is actually the only reason I still have Facebook account. My family use WhatsApp and Facebook for chats and so do most friends.. So I honestly don't have an alternative for that.. Sometimes I e-mail people but thats about it

2. It makes me feel connected to friends when Im lonely:
This ones more complex.. Discord and Forums do help, so does media like music and movies.. but I think it might just be self control.. when I feel like that I force myself out of it; Im not sure if thats a good idea though

The thing is social media is like a compression of some many things that are often hard.. like socialising and writing emails So kinda the only alternative is effort.

[wris]

Mostly the urge strikes when I’m doing something where I just have my phone and not my laptop, like when I’m waiting in line for something or have woken up but can’t be bothered to get out of bed yet. In these cases it’s still much easier to consume than create, so I do one of a couple things:

- Read an eBook. Depending on where you live, your library might offer free eBooks via something like Libby/Overdrive. Support your local library.
- I’m currently reading Berserk online. Horrible, gruesome, very good.
- If I have a thought that I’d want to tweet, I send it to a friend instead. If it’s so inane that I don’t want to do that, it probably wasn’t going to be a good tweet.

[boreal cryptid]

first i needed to understand why i used them in the first place, and how i can replace it.

- communication with people
- reading things from people i like, just to know their thoughts, interests, opinions
- randomized unexpected stuff
- sometimes venting
- news

so, communication. actually, i've founds my three best friends in social media: one from instagram, somewhere in 2015. other two in ~2022. and, you know, once you find the person, you can move to the messenger to talk with them instead of using this social media.

reading things from them: the most tricky part. if they don't have a blog, and social media that they use is paywalled, it's impossible to read without an account. so i decided to just ask them to write to me in messenger if they want to share something. the only problem with it: they expect a reaction. it doesn't feel like i'm lurking with no obligation to react. those 3 friends don't have blogs. so... it is still kinda inconvenient, but they understand why i behave this way, and we're fine.

randomized unexpected stuff, especially visuals. i really needs it sometimes when i'm understimulated. and i think i successfully replaced social media with browsing pinterest or checking others' websites. it gives me enough stimulation. you could say youtube too, but i use NewPipe without account and check only videos from the people i follow, so there's no, like, super random stuff.

venting. big social media platforms are like the ocean, or an echo-chamber, but in a good sense. you just throw a bottle, and no one is obligated to read it unless they're interested. (this is one of the pluses of social media).
but the problem with "general" social media spaces is - you're being absolutely out of context. no established etiquette, or theme. also you often can't delete comments. sometimes random person can just go to you and say something strange, because they see your post out of context, and most will not read your profile to understand this context. plus you need to put TWs to your posts, because any person can randomly see it. and for some reason, people really really really love to give unsolicited advices there. overall, too little control.
i replaced it with blog. one CW for everything, no one can tag me or quickly comment it without any thoughts, it has a context, and no cluttered useless interface and social functions. it still feels like the bottle in the ocean, but it's just harder to find now, lol.

news. simple: RSS and fellow Ukrainian friends. i need to know all important news related to war. this one was simple.

[WynterSkies]

My go-to has always been to go on the app store and download literally any kind of multiplayer game. I found out several years ago that when I get that kind of urge to go on socials, what was really happening was strong bursts of derealization where I just needed to know other people were out there. Even socials wouldn't help because unless someone I followed was online on like, tumblr, then I was just looking at things people had posted "in the past" so in my anxiety-riddled brain it didn't count.

What /did/ help was downloading simple games like Words With Friends or QuizUp (when that was still around  ), or just literally any free game where you'd be put in a match with a random person.

It meant:
1. Someone else was in fact out there
2. We shared at least a tiny interest (whatever the game was)
3. No weird awkward forced social interaction that could go bad
4. The world was not - in fact - ending, and someone else was just vaguely bored enough to get on this app and play a game

I still bust this move out from time to time and it has a 99% success rate for me!

[milo]

Lately what's helped me is having a laptop nearby. I've done a fair job of getting rid of most forms of traditional social media, with reddit being the outlier. I have admitted to myself it is a real addiction.

When I'm at home, whenever I feel the urge to look at reddit I go for my laptop instead and browse forums or neocities sites. The urge comes from wanting look at cool things and virtually socialize about it, so this scratches that itch fairly well.

When I'm away from a computer, I've been working on small practices to shift my focus away from the urge to check social media. Like, waiting in line at the store, when I feel like reaching into my pocket for my phone, I'll stop myself and try to imagine what I would have done in a time before social media. I'll focus on my surroundings and try be more present and hone in on little details, like the pattern on a light fixture. It's become a kind of meditation process for me.

[lakes]

• For community:
  Forums, media tracking/review websites (even though they're often social media adjacent), instant messengers, browsing websites and blogs or keeping up with them through RSS & Neocities
• Being distracted from one's thoughts:
  Light exercise, playing with my pets, music that's either been downloaded or on internet radio, although admittedly sometimes I'm still in the mood to watch Youtube or Peertube
• Current Events, Punditry and Left tube Video Essays:
  Blogs that talk about politics, political theory & history books, actual news websites ranging from mainstream ones like Reuters to more radical leftist ones like Against Wage Labor or freedomnews.org.uk, documentaries, certain Peertube channels
• Edutainment:
  Academic websites with RSS feeds like Quanta Magazine & The Smithsonian Magazine, the occasional science or history book
• Tech News:
  Tech-centeric blogs, tech news websites like Electronic Freedom Frontier or OSnews, most Peertube channels

[KeyJayHD]

New so cant say I saw said social media post, but I can infer a little bit I guess.

Personally my social of poison is YouTube. I eat breakfast with it, drive to work with it, and end the day with it. Not even necessarily watching it, but I use more so as a podcast. I've started to listen to less music because of that though which as a musician myself, not particularly fond of, but I'm also someone who is curious about a lot of things, so I try passively learning where I can.

Speaking to traditional social though, still have a Facebook. Running into the IndieWeb and the idea of it though has made me close the app a lot faster than before though. Barely use Instagram anymore, have Bluesky but that hasn't popped off as really valuable to me in any respect (same with what was Twitter), and my fiancé does TikTok stuff so I fall into the shorts blackhole from time to time.

I'll acknowledge though, I do feel social is a sickness. But I think I've thought less of trying to get out of it because I'm always working on something, and I think because I have, I think about social much less. Heck, I barely interact with people I know on those platforms anymore anyway.

So what I do, well I'm also a gamer and also self host a lot of things. So I have a server of comics and manga I still need to read, I have ideas I want to draft and get down, and I work on a bunch of small projects on the side. I'm hoping I can get a habit of browsing IndieWeb spaces going as another alternative, or helping facilitate that as an option for others some kind of way that makes things even more approachable.   

[Gakipper]

TW for a little short bit of violent topic such as harassment, social media anxiety, public image, online safety? I feel like there's more than an "itch" to social media things; even though the word look perfectly fitting to me!

Disclaimer: It's been forever since I've had so much of a dramatic screen time. Most my friends and acquaintance run daily on a ~8-10hours of social medias/day (mostly instagram or tiktok), and I've honestly always been more around 4-5hours/day because I get hyper focused on work/personal stuff and go out a lot. So I'm talking from a "not so bad" perspective. But generally in 2026; our screens are super close to us and everything is designed to keep us online and scrolling, so immense screen time/social media time is just to be expected! I'm not judging in any way for that. That's no topic for shame or judgment.

However, my social media time specifically did bother me at some point, and I re-thought a huge part of my phone habits (I'm focusing on phone here because doomscrolling is... less dramatic from a laptop imo? or at least in my experience)

I feel like the straw that broke the camel's back was the general hyper-speed + agressivity of social medias. Everything goes super fast, and watching packs of wolves tearing themselves apart in a "brand-able" (=fun and intense/dramatic way; because that's how algorithms are designed! You almost automatically fall into that pit, and I include myself here) was making my anxiety skyrocket. Even more so because I navigate through a lot of sensitive themed groups, so the general feeling of threat to be "cancelled" or targeted/exposed by communities is high.
More generally, I was finding myself doomscrolling way too often to my taste, and was very unsettled by my reflex to keep scrolling and watch the next piece of content even though the 45423 ones just before disappointed me. I also watched myself in real time have my attention span being reduced and it was horrible.

Tldr; I wasn't happy with my social media use and how it affected my general balance, mood, views, energy levels, and way of acting.

But I do believe internet is FANTASTIC and that a whole lot of things in my phone are great (we don't make a big enough deal about how amazing it is to have wikipedia in your pocket at any given moment), so I didn't want to remove my phone from my hand altogether.
Instead I tried to be more *conscious* and *aware* of my phone use and social media time, to avoid doomscrolling and hours spent on instagram. I gave myself one rule which is: I can use social medias (and my phone in general) whenever I want, with no time limit, but I must have something to do when I open an app. Basically, if I want to check something, watch a video, or send a message : it's ok ! But if I'm just opening instagram or youtube out of reflex, to fill a void (in public transport, when I'm bored, when i'm in a waiting room...), I have to ditch my phone and find something else to do.

So I started carrying around in my pocket a A6 notebook :) So now whenever the itch arises and if I have no reason to check my socials, I grab my lil notebook and write/doodle whatever in it.
I removed the pressure by making my first one super mega ugly, and writing really unimportant/uninteresting things in it (grocery list, dog kibbles brand comparisons, etc). I just fill pages with whatever through the day : sometimes it's my thoughts, sometimes it's a word or definition I found interesting, sometime it's little artworks, sometimes just doodles to fill spaces, sometimes it's notes from my everyday life or from video games I'm playing... Sometimes it looks nice (how satisfying!), sometimes it's ugly as sh** (which can be super funny), it always looks unorganized and random. I don't force myself to use it at a specific time or for a specific task other than filling the void; it's not like journaling or anything.

It's hard to teach yourself to do such thing at first. I think "current random thoughts" and patterns/doodles/scribbles are a good first step to get into the habit, if that's something that interests you.
Now I always have my little notebook with me and it became essential! I highly recommend it tbh. Not only did it drastically lower my general screen time and use of social medias (<1h/day now ), but it helped me on other things. It didn't prevent me at all from interacting with my friends, we just text each other more and are more mindful and personal when we send each other pictures/memes/dumb or interesting things. It was also a nice switch for my personal balance. The introspection and creativity of having a trinket bowl of sorts for your THOUGHTS no matter how random is great. Unlike social media, it helps me emptying my head rather than filling it with something else. And I feel like it generally helps me being a little bit more mindful with how I interact with groups of people and how I source informations and news.

I feel like it was the best possible alternative for me! And I highly encourage anyone who would like this kinda thing to invest into a 3€ notebook or a tiny speech recording device that fits into your pocket.

Have a nice day !