A couple weeks ago, I deleted social media off my phone. Insta and reddit was all that was left, but I noticed how much of a useless time sink they were becoming. My daily mood has also improved.
Now, I’ve been reading manga and playing chess online to fill the gap. But I’m still looking for suggestions on what else there is to do besides doom scroll. It’s not like I’m outlawing the internet entirely, I still have interests and hobbies etc, but I’m open to just about anything.
RSS feeds, Gemini and Gopher. Always good stuff there, and feels cosier than social media!
I second this! Hunting, curating, and organizing rss feeds are the best!
Lemmy (Summit) Open Sudoku
MTGA. Lots of fun.
Sir, please stop recommending crack to cure OP’s smoking addiction.
Reading a paper book, playing balatro on mobile. I’m not using my phone as much, not with the current events happening.
In terms of chances:
- 90% Tiktok
- 8% Lemmy
- 2% YouTube
When I’m actively doing something (not just on my phone):
- 70% YouTube
- 10% Crunchyroll
- 5% Friends jellyfin servers
- 5% Netflix
- 10% Browser / Chatgpt / Termux / any other tool
I read lots of books. Libby is an app to electronically check out books from your local library for free. You can also read lots of amateur stories online on various sites. Royal Road has been one of my favorite sites for regular stories that you can read in public.
+1 for Libby. Also shout out to Z-Library, Library Genesis, and the Internet Archive for all the book epubs and pdfs you can find there
Nothing. I only use a gaming PC to go online, draw, and play games on. I rarely even use my phone…
Play the NYT wordle, mini crossword, connections for the day. I have some small simple games that can be stopped at any time. My most played ones are cake sort, water sort, sudoku and sometimes minesweeper. Also scroll lemmy sometimes, it’s small enough that it doesn’t take long to see everything that is new, so there’s no risk of getting sucked in for long
PPSSPP and Dolphin. Playing through the entirety of Paper Mario: TTYD, Luigis mansion, Sims 2, and Killzone wasted a good chunk of idle time for me.
Dolphin is honestly such a cool emulator. I also love how it’s technically two emulators at once! Never had a single issue with any of the games I’ve played on it. It’s so solid
I hang out with all y’all jokers on lemmy
The Wikipedia app or Wikireader
Read books, comics, journalist articles, chess puzzles, crosswords
I do solitaire, cryprograms, crossword and mahjong, and sometimes I’ll read creepypastas from the archive like I used to do in highschool
Other than that if I know I’ll have to wait somewhere and occupy myself I bring a book with me.
I also just got back on the creepypasta archive!
Very nostalgic and some of them are, earnestly, very good!!
deleted by creator
It has all the old really popular ones from the mid-naughts!
Physical Games
Not sure what your personal in-person social circle looks like but playing physical games (board/card, etc) with people is great. Spent 2 weeks with family and we had a blast playing some games every night.
A few I really enjoyed:
- 5 Crowns
- Phase 10
- Cribbage (good grief the rules are nuts)
- Hues and Cues
- Organ Attack
3D Printing
A time sink hobby is 3D Printing. It’s a challenge enough, and can be so low cost per part, that it’s fun. Starting with a lower cost 3D printer means the cost of entry is not much. Once you get a printer dialed printing things for people and functional prints for home is great. You can also learn 3D Modeling enough to design your own prints. Definitely gonna take some time to do so.
Retro Gaming
If you like retro games setting up a retro handheld is a ton of fun and then playing the games is great too. Handhelds from Anbernic, Retroid, or Powkiddy is a low cost of entry and much higher quality than you think, and they can run up to PS1/N64/Dreamcast. Took me ~1 month to go from never having done one to having a great OS with a tailored UI (Anbernic RG40XXV running Knulli OS). Going over guides from Retro Game Corps (YouTube and website) was easy but took long enough to teach me a ton.
Gardening
Obviously depends on your personal circumstances but even if you’re in a city/apartment a lot of cities/towns have community gardens. Setting up a raised garden is pretty easy and doesn’t have to cost a ton. Maintaining it is a challenge based on your location and takes learning many different skills. We grow Lettuce, Cucumbers, Zucchini, Green Beans. We had no success with Tomatoes in our climate (although a lot of people have no issue growing them). We’ve had limited success with potatoes (another really easy to grow crop, that we suck at, lol).
Canning
My wife LOVES canning. That’s a massive rabbit hole in its own right. Cost of entry is decently mid due to having to buy canning supplies like the glass jars (called cans), lids, rings, canning pots, pressure cooker, etc. You’ll get incredible quality vegetables and fruits out of it and can can meats and other things. My wife has been canning for 5 years now and we don’t buy store bought canned vegetables and fruits anymore. You wont really save any costs but you will know exactly what you’re eating. Does take having access to fresh produce at local markets to make it as cheap as the grocery store.
Haha cribbage is great. And I think it’s a good math game for kids too
I actually made a great setup for retro gaming at home. I have my Linux PC connected to a KVM over LAN to the living room TV. Hyprland lets me set keybinds to run scripts to turn off my computer monitors, turn on the TV, switch audio (still working out a few kinda with audio actually), and then launch emulationstation-DE which is a front end for launching the games on each emulator.
It’s great running everything on a PC with decent specs, I have a 5800x and 6700 XT. It can do all the old games obviously, and up to PS3 and switch games, upscaled to 4K and with a bangin audio system.
Surprisingly, there’s very little latency issues or lag over the kvm. Or if there are I can’t notice them.
It might be worth a go to play the handheld ones on my phone however. Playing GBA and DS games on my big living room TV seems a bit silly haha
A few reasons I prefer the exclusive handheld game route.
- Gets you away from your internet connected device. No distracting notifications coming in
- It’s dedicated to it so it’s really good at it.
- No battery life hit to your phone.
- Higher learning curve (this goes to time filler which is what you wanted).
- Sitting on the couch, playing it outside/while traveling is great with it.
Organ attacks a good one.
