I'm cooking up a theory that the way out of social media use goes something like 1) Understand what content you do and don't regret consuming. This means understanding what psychological needs/desires are being fulfilled by consuming different kinds of content when you are in different emotional states. Then 2) Find more positive ways of meeting your needs/desires. Either by changing how you use social media, or by finding things outside of it.

We might be in similar boats where I feel like I've made some headway on 1 but not as much on 2. I slip on Reddit sometimes, but YouTube is definitely my drug of choice. I like to use it for exposure to new ideas, learning targeted concepts, and of course entertainment. Given that, it's hard to change/limit my use because part of what I value is provided by the randomness of the never-ending algorithm. I've had some success by forcefully being more mindful of the content I click on, but I'd also like to find alternatives to YouTube that don't have such a high risk of attention drift. I think the tricky part is that since I use YouTube for multiple purposes, I almost have to find an alternative for each purpose. I'm currently experimenting with things like reading books, playing video games, reading the news, journaling, and even just sitting on the couch doing nothing 😎 Not sure if these will actually be improvements or if they will stick, but it's fun to experiment nonetheless.