2023-08-02

The Real Reason I Quit Discord

In 2021, I quit discord, and I quit it because of what the screenshots below represent.

To break it down in simple terms, I was spending the whole day on my phone, all of the 24 hours, during this critical week of may, when school was winding down. The whole day, compromising on sleep, falling asleep on discord call, but everywhere I went I had my phone.

When it comes to social media, not to brag, but I feel like I've mastered the art of keeping a balance of them into my life. This is not to say I don't use them, but rather use them in logical manner, not spending more than 1 hour a day on all of them combined. My general principle for social media apps is if it doesn't add value to my life, then I can get rid of the app completely. Also, I like to stay away from cancerous applications (tiktok), other than that, I will get any social media if it benefits me. So here I'll break down the most common applications, and my reasons for not having them, or having them and hopefully if you are reading this you can also re-evaluate which applications are actually fostering your growth as a person.

TikTok

Of course, starting out strong with TikTok. Now I have nothing against TikTok, it just appeals to an audience who has an IQ of 70, so not in my range. In all seriousness, TikTok just seems like the most addicting hellhole and frankly, I don't want to get involved in that. I don't have an account, and this is the one app I will never go exploring, because I want to keep my full sanity.

Snapchat

Snapchat is the one social media on here, whose features I barely understand, it just seems dumb to share "snaps" of the ceiling to random people you added or, as many high schoolers use it, to snap intimate photos to the other gender, because why else do you want to use an app in which messages disappear after being viewed by the recipient. I don't have an account, and I don't plan to get one.

Twitter

Twitter is an interesting one, but I don't think anyone ever finds it that interesting. The way I see it, many people don't spend too much time on twitter, because 140 characters are not as interesting as videos on (youtube and tiktok), but they're mental health deteriorates quickly because of all the random most useless twitter arguments they enter in. I rarely go on twitter, but often see the spiciest tweets embedded on other sites, which not only saves me time, but provides me with the best value proposition. I currently don't have an account, and don't plan to get one.

YouTube

Ah, yes, YouTube everyone's favorite. I love youtube, and I love to watch a lot of creators on it, at one point I was subscribed to 70 channels. That's how much I got into the habit of watching youtube over quarantine. During virtual school, when I was bored, I'd open up youtube on my double monitor and watch from class after class, blaming it on the mundanity of online school. Then when we went back in person, I was used to such a content overload that my grades started to slip, because right when I'd wake up, I'd easily watch 30 minutes of youtube. At the point, I had dug myself a large hole, and didn't know how to get out. Then I started to use one of my friend's extension, this would not show me YouTube's recommended page, and only show me my subscriptions. I then cleaned up my subscriptions and made a 20 creator limit. This worked quite well, and the time I spent on youtube went down from 2 hours to 30 minutes. Unsurprisingly, I also felt much happier, as I was not starting my day in someone else's life. I was started my day in my own life, and not consuming content. Over consuming content was really tearing my life apart, I was spending less time with my family.