I went back to Reddit this morning. Yeah I know, but I just wanted to check the place out after all the blackouts. As I was scrolling through my typical stuff I was down voting dumb things as is pure habit and it struck me… after being here only 2 days and not having any down vote button, what was just a pure habit suddenly felt a little dirty.
Those people I just down voted didn’t do anything wrong I just didn’t agree with them. But by down voting them I’m basically doing one little part in actually silencing them. It felt bad. In fact all of Reddit felt bad… like, it was just such a habit and I was ready to go back, but once I did it wasn’t as good as I remembered it.
All it took was 2 days away using a different platform that gives me essentially the same stuff I want to read and this no down vote thing somehow has resonated with me more than I would have thought. I actually went back and removed the down votes. Those people have the right to feel how they do whether I agree or not. I don’t need to silence and invalidate people over things that are so incredibly minor.
I’ve decided I will use Reddit only via Google search if it has the content I’m looking for, just like any other webpage, but I think Lemmy, and Beehaw specifically, are my new home. It no longer feels like “the alternative.” It feels like a place I actually chose to be. I wrote in my application that I wanted less toxicity in my life and I think that’s already happening. I’m really grateful to have discovered this place.
I’m not on an instance with no downvotes, as I do think they have SOME purpose (though you’re right that it is usually a bit of a disagree-so-shut-up button rather than anything else), but I agree with the rest. The content here is certainly slower. On reddit, I could just refresh the main page and have dozens of new posts to interact with- here, not so much. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, though. I still get my mindless scrolling when I’m poopin or something like that, but I’m spending a lot less time online than I did. I’m reading more, I’m working on my novels, I’m WAY more productive at work. I used RiF exclusively on my phone, and so I decided pretty soon after the API announcement that I was done. All the protest and reddit’s hilariously mismanaged response has done has cemented my resolve.
Removing Sync from my phone was huge in terms of changing my habits. Without ready access to the dopamine drip, I am using my phone so much less than I did even a week ago. And as you said, I’m reading more and scrolling less.
I’ll admit it’s very much like getting over an addiction.
My big thing was deleting redreader from my homescreen and putting Jerboa where redreader was stopped quite a few reflex clicks. Now when i do it i expect lemmy and the redreader app is buried in my app drawer where i dont really see it