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Any suggestions for overcoming addiction to capitalist big tech social media and streaming etc? (lemmy.world)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've tried getting into peertube to have something to watch. I'm exploring copyleft music on open audio / funkwhale. I'm on here in lemmy as of this week. I'm playing with mastodon and the fediverse. I've tried studying psychology and psychology-adjacent territory like Deleuze and Guattari and Foucault and Derrida so I can break down what the Facebook algorithms are doing to me, how pop and mainstream music is designed and produced in conjunction with advertising to screw with our heads and make us buy things, how YouTube music suggestion algorithms screw with my head and ultimately make me buy things, and I've tried to start learning to code on a basic level at least so I can convert my chromebook to Ubuntu and hopefully my android phone, which I've paid off completely, to some kind of fully open source OS.

I've let my Netflix subscription wither away after just not paying it and try to not care about it anymore. I have no idea what to do about Amazon or Amazon Prime. I have some very important movies like 'Unhinged' and 'Donnie Darko' on there. I need to buy certain things in the present framework of my life right now, things that, in a small town with a particular disability keeping me from driving, I can only get on Amazon.

I'm doing a lot. But I still find myself jonesing for that death consciousness of mindlessly scrolling through Facebook totally vulnerable to an AI superpower extracting maximum profit from me perpetually. Moderation no longer seems remotely realistic. I can't shut the machine out. Has anybody found anything else I could try? I'm trying to find as many little strategies as possible.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Hey, I don't disagree with you, bud. Was just an invitation to look back not at the broken system itself, which is a given... but at your part in the whole thing and how you'd like to relate to it. Food for thought.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm just really traumatized by Facebook and all that. Sorry if I come off as triggerhappy or abrasive. I did see much of your point. It seems like our lives are increasingly based in cyberspace now for better, worse, or neither; so I feel like I'm fleeing an abusive domestic situation (big tech platforms as a home) where there was extensive trauma bonding going on between me and the algorithms.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

I mean, It's very understandable. The big boys are up to no good, and they can definitely do a lot of harm.

Best of luck on figuring your way around this whole thing! And congrats on your progress. :)