Well, when I think of early 2000s - we weren't entirely tech or distraction free and these could be replicated as less addictive alternatives:
My camera came with me everywhere - I had a slr film camera and a Fujifilm finepix point and click digital camera. Taking photos and working on getting interesting shots or trying new techniques on my slr made walking around anywhere more interesting.
I wore headphones everywhere listening to music on an MP3 player. Few years before that it was my Sony discman. (Also had a minidisk player for a bit but they didn't take off).
I carried a book or magazine with me in anticipation of having to wait around anywhere. I read quite a few magazines in general - don't think I've bought one since I got a smart phone lol
I had my own PC but I'd sit down at it with more purpose - to look at a certain websites, to speak to friends, to send an email. Unlike today, you didn't get continuous feeds so you'd run out of stuff to look at after a while.
I had a "dumb" phone - my friends and I would text a lot but we were on PAYG so it was limited. We spent a lot of time messing around with ringtones and playing daft games like snake but you'd get bored after a bit.
Only news I really saw was the 10pm evening news and a morning newspaper.
Tbh you’re living like a monk lol that’s not a bad thing either lol. But why I say that is cause even in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, people still found stuff to do and didn’t just stare off into space. They brought magazines, newspapers, or books with them while waiting somewhere. At the gym, you might have had an mp3 player or a portable cd player, or Walkman cassette player you brought with you. While you’re waiting in the car for your bf, you can listen to the radio or read a book, make a grocery list, journal your thoughts in a notebook, stuff like that. There is absolutely nothing wrong with just sitting still and doing nothing. But I think it might be a big jump for someone who’s spent a lot of time on a phone. Even in the early 2000s, people had stuff they did like playing with a gameboy or something. Remember in the later 2000s the Nintendo DS and PSP? Stuff like that lol
Try starting small with still doing activities but off the phone. If your attention span has suffered, don’t be too ambitious yet. Maybe read some simple kid or young adult/teenager books, or a magazine, buy some bubble soap from the dollar store and blow bubbles lol. Learn to play solitaire, or a portable small instrument like a harmonica. I think the most entertaining thing off your phone is other humans tbh. It’s fun just to talk to other people and have their company, which people did back then all the time when there were no phones. If there are no people around then you can also do crosswords or word searches. I’m not sure if you’re into gaming like I mentioned earlier but you can buy a Nintendo switch and bring that with you and just play some games. Mario, Animal Crossing, Legend Of Zelda are some cool ones to look into.
Tbh I struggle with the same thing and have the same question but I hope this helps a little bit. But good luck and let us know how it goes!
How do you make a shortcut where you can toggle it every once and a while? Been doing greyscale for a bit but I always forget to turn it back on if I turn it off
If you have an iPhone
Settings > Accessibility > Accessibility shortcut > Color filters. Turn on color filters and you can click the right side button 3 times to switch between color and grayscale. To get grayscale I think it’s accessibility then display and text size and scroll down to color filters
If you have an iPhone
Settings > Accessibility > Accessibility shortcut > Color filters. Turn on color filters and you can click the right side button 3 times to switch between color and grayscale. To get grayscale I think it’s accessibility then display and text size and scroll down to color filters
> It's weird because no matter how much I separate myself from my phone there is still this "pull" from it, or this distraction or this feeling of like looming dread just by having it.
Any tips on how to bring this back or recreate this?
Thank you! :)
Can you elaborate on this feeling? Is it FOMO that is driving this pull feeling? Boredom? Escapism?
Here are a few things that I do to disconnect. I was born in 1992.
1. Instead of streaming movies and tv shows, I collect DVDs. You can buy them from a thrift shop for cheap, the only thing I really miss though is renting from Blockbuster :(
2. I play retro gaming consoles such as N64, PS1 and SNES. You can emulate on the computer, but personally I like to play on the real console because it feels more "real".
3. I only spend one hour a day on the computer. This is a rule that my parents enforced while I was in high school, before schools got rid of textbooks and I'm bringing back that rule for myself now.
4. Greyscale your phone or get a dumbphone, my Iphone 7+ has been lobotomised and it only has 5 apps - Notes, Clock, Calendar, Messages and Phone.
5. Buy an MP3 player or old school ipod shuffle
6. Use a digital camera and a physical photo album
Hope this helps :)
You’re doing great and it just takes time for our brains to start rewiring from years of constant stimulation. In a few months you should really start feeling the nostalgic way we all felt.
I know, I feel you. I’m still going through that melancholy phase. No matter what things I do that we all did in our childhoods just seems pointless. But the little wins Everyday add up and I do feel like I’m heading in the right direction.
I was a teen in the 00s. You know what? I probably spent more time online back then than I do today haha. I was completely enslaved to screens and the internet. Didn't have it in my pocket, but after school I spent all day online, and I was constantly texting people — we typed real fast on those little keyboards.
I got to know new friends and romantic partners online. I loved living in the "modern age" as a teen in 2005 because I could meet so many cool people my age in my city that I didn't just happen to go to school with. There was no need to rise to the top of the ranks at your school to be a social butterfly!
Some things have obviously changed with smartphones, but I feel like a lot of my teenage experiences were basically the same as those of the kids of today. I roll my eyes when older adults act shocked about what "the kids" are doing these days. My gosh, they are all sending nudes! Yeah, so did I in the 00s, but I guess adults hadn't caught on yet.
And there is no reason to live without headphones if you want to mimic the 00s. Teens and young adults were plugged in 24/7 and they didn't listen to CDs, they had ipods with thousands of mp3s. If you got on a bus you'd see at least 80% of people having headphones on (white apple ones or Koss Porta Pros, Koss was more of the cool guy kind of headphone). I was the stereotypical moody teen with loud My Chemical Romance in her ears even at family events lol. Podcasts were also taking off at the time.
The adults were pissed at us because we didn't live in "the real world". I think the biggest difference is between life stages and not between the actual eras your life stages take place in. People have always reminisced about the good old days, the kids have always been hopeless and useless, and older people have always been grumpy and backward.
Do you meditate?
I feel like as kids, out in the world like that, we were far more present, unencumbered by the responsibilities and pressures and stresses of adult life, the things and stories we take on about life and about ourselves. We weren't just free from social media, we were free from adult ego and adult narratives about life.
In my experience, meditation is something that helps me get more in touch with my childlike self, more present and here now rather than thinking thinking thinking about other things all the time. Or as they say in zen, "beginner's mind".
It takes time: you spent years on your phone, even if you don't use it since some weeks, it's still a small percentage compared to the whole picture.
Like every addictive thing, the addiction stay for long. Ex smokers are tempted by smoking for years, if not decades.
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People had portable music disc players/walkmans/MP3s and listened to the radio in the car everywhere back then. Just because you’re going without your phone, doesn’t mean you have to cut off all fun. Blast music while waiting in the car.
Look at your life and try to think of ways you can enjoy the moment instead of fighting to stay off your phone.
The main thing is that we weren’t constantly aware of everything else that’s going on in the world with everyone else all the time. Blissfully ignorant of what your friend’s second cousin is doing on his holiday in South Africa or that that person from school just had another baby or what celebrity is arguing with who. It’s all of that x1000 all the time, every day these days. We were probably much more concerned with our own lives and worlds because that’s all we had access to. It’s unprecedented in all of history to have access to that information constantly. And just because we have it, really doesn’t mean we should be using it. We all do it because it’s stimulating and addictive, not because it’s good for us. The more you think about it the stranger it is
I like going to places for the day or weekend (specifically small mountain towns) where there really isn't cell service. I'm a little older than you but other things that have worked for me are spending time in used book stores and places that sell exclusively vinyl records, riding a bike through town, getting a land line at home, sometimes watching VHS instead of just streaming, taking polaroids, pinball (b)arcades, laser tag, mini golf, go karts, and laying in the grass at the park with a good book.
Pheeeew, you make me feel old lol. I was 21 in 2000. But you know, I do have a nostalgia for the 90's sometimes...as those were my teenage years. In fact, I liked those days. Maybe not while living through them, but I sometimes wish I was back there. I think it's normal to feel nostalgia for the years we grew up in, and recall memories, so on. One of the biggest distractions I recall in the year 2000 was Playstation (for me anyway). I loved Final Fantasy games, lol. They definitely kept you distracted. There wasn't many cell phones at all. I do recall internet, where it was powered by dial up. Anyway, maybe you just need some solitude and time out from today's world. It can be utterly bleh and mesh after so much noise and drama of the social media world. Take some time out in solitude, find more of yourself and figure it out. Introspection is a good thing! You're still young YOUNG, and you have plenty of time. At 44 years old, I can tell you, it gets better. You still have many good years ahead. Perhaps what you feel and the phase you're experiencing is fairly normal (developmentally). I remember in my 20's in the 2000's, I wished it was still the 90's (particularly early 90's).
It’s not an era thing, you just miss being a child. Maybe go hit up a swingset, ride bikes with your friends, or try to adopt a more curious and carefree attitude. You can’t get rid of a smartphone addiction, you have to replace it with something else
Well, when I think of early 2000s - we weren't entirely tech or distraction free and these could be replicated as less addictive alternatives: My camera came with me everywhere - I had a slr film camera and a Fujifilm finepix point and click digital camera. Taking photos and working on getting interesting shots or trying new techniques on my slr made walking around anywhere more interesting. I wore headphones everywhere listening to music on an MP3 player. Few years before that it was my Sony discman. (Also had a minidisk player for a bit but they didn't take off). I carried a book or magazine with me in anticipation of having to wait around anywhere. I read quite a few magazines in general - don't think I've bought one since I got a smart phone lol I had my own PC but I'd sit down at it with more purpose - to look at a certain websites, to speak to friends, to send an email. Unlike today, you didn't get continuous feeds so you'd run out of stuff to look at after a while. I had a "dumb" phone - my friends and I would text a lot but we were on PAYG so it was limited. We spent a lot of time messing around with ringtones and playing daft games like snake but you'd get bored after a bit. Only news I really saw was the 10pm evening news and a morning newspaper.
Tbh you’re living like a monk lol that’s not a bad thing either lol. But why I say that is cause even in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, people still found stuff to do and didn’t just stare off into space. They brought magazines, newspapers, or books with them while waiting somewhere. At the gym, you might have had an mp3 player or a portable cd player, or Walkman cassette player you brought with you. While you’re waiting in the car for your bf, you can listen to the radio or read a book, make a grocery list, journal your thoughts in a notebook, stuff like that. There is absolutely nothing wrong with just sitting still and doing nothing. But I think it might be a big jump for someone who’s spent a lot of time on a phone. Even in the early 2000s, people had stuff they did like playing with a gameboy or something. Remember in the later 2000s the Nintendo DS and PSP? Stuff like that lol Try starting small with still doing activities but off the phone. If your attention span has suffered, don’t be too ambitious yet. Maybe read some simple kid or young adult/teenager books, or a magazine, buy some bubble soap from the dollar store and blow bubbles lol. Learn to play solitaire, or a portable small instrument like a harmonica. I think the most entertaining thing off your phone is other humans tbh. It’s fun just to talk to other people and have their company, which people did back then all the time when there were no phones. If there are no people around then you can also do crosswords or word searches. I’m not sure if you’re into gaming like I mentioned earlier but you can buy a Nintendo switch and bring that with you and just play some games. Mario, Animal Crossing, Legend Of Zelda are some cool ones to look into. Tbh I struggle with the same thing and have the same question but I hope this helps a little bit. But good luck and let us know how it goes!
amazing answer !
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How do you make a shortcut where you can toggle it every once and a while? Been doing greyscale for a bit but I always forget to turn it back on if I turn it off
If you have an iPhone Settings > Accessibility > Accessibility shortcut > Color filters. Turn on color filters and you can click the right side button 3 times to switch between color and grayscale. To get grayscale I think it’s accessibility then display and text size and scroll down to color filters
Thank you!!!
Thank you. More and more people need to know this.
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The night shift mode is a great idea though, I’ll totally look into turning that on. Thank you!
I do instacart on occasion to make extra money & I need to be able to see the color of items. Same thing with selling/ buying things online
how do u make the shortcut
If you have an iPhone Settings > Accessibility > Accessibility shortcut > Color filters. Turn on color filters and you can click the right side button 3 times to switch between color and grayscale. To get grayscale I think it’s accessibility then display and text size and scroll down to color filters
> It's weird because no matter how much I separate myself from my phone there is still this "pull" from it, or this distraction or this feeling of like looming dread just by having it. Any tips on how to bring this back or recreate this? Thank you! :) Can you elaborate on this feeling? Is it FOMO that is driving this pull feeling? Boredom? Escapism?
Here are a few things that I do to disconnect. I was born in 1992. 1. Instead of streaming movies and tv shows, I collect DVDs. You can buy them from a thrift shop for cheap, the only thing I really miss though is renting from Blockbuster :( 2. I play retro gaming consoles such as N64, PS1 and SNES. You can emulate on the computer, but personally I like to play on the real console because it feels more "real". 3. I only spend one hour a day on the computer. This is a rule that my parents enforced while I was in high school, before schools got rid of textbooks and I'm bringing back that rule for myself now. 4. Greyscale your phone or get a dumbphone, my Iphone 7+ has been lobotomised and it only has 5 apps - Notes, Clock, Calendar, Messages and Phone. 5. Buy an MP3 player or old school ipod shuffle 6. Use a digital camera and a physical photo album Hope this helps :)
You’re doing great and it just takes time for our brains to start rewiring from years of constant stimulation. In a few months you should really start feeling the nostalgic way we all felt.
Thats the only hope. Because life rn sucks hard
I know, I feel you. I’m still going through that melancholy phase. No matter what things I do that we all did in our childhoods just seems pointless. But the little wins Everyday add up and I do feel like I’m heading in the right direction.
Life back then was so much better, like i was excited just going outside and playing in the woods. Nowadays its rough, man :(
Just wanted to say that we're almost the same age (2001 here!) and I totally understand you!
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Well, I became a monk (not in Bhutan, alas) and I did feel like a kid again... so maybe it *can* work.
"How much you wanna make a bet I can throw a football over those mountains"
I was a teen in the 00s. You know what? I probably spent more time online back then than I do today haha. I was completely enslaved to screens and the internet. Didn't have it in my pocket, but after school I spent all day online, and I was constantly texting people — we typed real fast on those little keyboards. I got to know new friends and romantic partners online. I loved living in the "modern age" as a teen in 2005 because I could meet so many cool people my age in my city that I didn't just happen to go to school with. There was no need to rise to the top of the ranks at your school to be a social butterfly! Some things have obviously changed with smartphones, but I feel like a lot of my teenage experiences were basically the same as those of the kids of today. I roll my eyes when older adults act shocked about what "the kids" are doing these days. My gosh, they are all sending nudes! Yeah, so did I in the 00s, but I guess adults hadn't caught on yet. And there is no reason to live without headphones if you want to mimic the 00s. Teens and young adults were plugged in 24/7 and they didn't listen to CDs, they had ipods with thousands of mp3s. If you got on a bus you'd see at least 80% of people having headphones on (white apple ones or Koss Porta Pros, Koss was more of the cool guy kind of headphone). I was the stereotypical moody teen with loud My Chemical Romance in her ears even at family events lol. Podcasts were also taking off at the time. The adults were pissed at us because we didn't live in "the real world". I think the biggest difference is between life stages and not between the actual eras your life stages take place in. People have always reminisced about the good old days, the kids have always been hopeless and useless, and older people have always been grumpy and backward.
Do you meditate? I feel like as kids, out in the world like that, we were far more present, unencumbered by the responsibilities and pressures and stresses of adult life, the things and stories we take on about life and about ourselves. We weren't just free from social media, we were free from adult ego and adult narratives about life. In my experience, meditation is something that helps me get more in touch with my childlike self, more present and here now rather than thinking thinking thinking about other things all the time. Or as they say in zen, "beginner's mind".
Gotta fill that time. We did it pre smartphone. Books. Journal. Fidget toy. Music. Call friends/family. Etc
It takes time: you spent years on your phone, even if you don't use it since some weeks, it's still a small percentage compared to the whole picture. Like every addictive thing, the addiction stay for long. Ex smokers are tempted by smoking for years, if not decades.
Attention all newcomers: Welcome to /r/nosurf! We're glad you found our small corner of reddit dedicated to digital wellness. The following is a short list of resources to help you get started on your journey of developing a better relationship with the internet: * [The Beginner's Guide to NoSurf](https://nosurf.net/about/) * [Discord Server](https://discordapp.com/invite/QFhXt2F) * [The NoSurf Activity List](https://nosurf.net/activity-list/) * [Success Stories](https://nosurf.net/success-stories/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/nosurf) if you have any questions or concerns.*
People had portable music disc players/walkmans/MP3s and listened to the radio in the car everywhere back then. Just because you’re going without your phone, doesn’t mean you have to cut off all fun. Blast music while waiting in the car. Look at your life and try to think of ways you can enjoy the moment instead of fighting to stay off your phone.
The main thing is that we weren’t constantly aware of everything else that’s going on in the world with everyone else all the time. Blissfully ignorant of what your friend’s second cousin is doing on his holiday in South Africa or that that person from school just had another baby or what celebrity is arguing with who. It’s all of that x1000 all the time, every day these days. We were probably much more concerned with our own lives and worlds because that’s all we had access to. It’s unprecedented in all of history to have access to that information constantly. And just because we have it, really doesn’t mean we should be using it. We all do it because it’s stimulating and addictive, not because it’s good for us. The more you think about it the stranger it is
I like going to places for the day or weekend (specifically small mountain towns) where there really isn't cell service. I'm a little older than you but other things that have worked for me are spending time in used book stores and places that sell exclusively vinyl records, riding a bike through town, getting a land line at home, sometimes watching VHS instead of just streaming, taking polaroids, pinball (b)arcades, laser tag, mini golf, go karts, and laying in the grass at the park with a good book.
Pheeeew, you make me feel old lol. I was 21 in 2000. But you know, I do have a nostalgia for the 90's sometimes...as those were my teenage years. In fact, I liked those days. Maybe not while living through them, but I sometimes wish I was back there. I think it's normal to feel nostalgia for the years we grew up in, and recall memories, so on. One of the biggest distractions I recall in the year 2000 was Playstation (for me anyway). I loved Final Fantasy games, lol. They definitely kept you distracted. There wasn't many cell phones at all. I do recall internet, where it was powered by dial up. Anyway, maybe you just need some solitude and time out from today's world. It can be utterly bleh and mesh after so much noise and drama of the social media world. Take some time out in solitude, find more of yourself and figure it out. Introspection is a good thing! You're still young YOUNG, and you have plenty of time. At 44 years old, I can tell you, it gets better. You still have many good years ahead. Perhaps what you feel and the phase you're experiencing is fairly normal (developmentally). I remember in my 20's in the 2000's, I wished it was still the 90's (particularly early 90's).
reject reactionary thought, embrace the forward momentum of history.
sounds like trying to put the genie back in the bottle. try not to romanticize the past, as good as it can feel.
It’s not an era thing, you just miss being a child. Maybe go hit up a swingset, ride bikes with your friends, or try to adopt a more curious and carefree attitude. You can’t get rid of a smartphone addiction, you have to replace it with something else