Hi comrades,

As the title suggests, how do you manage your time spent online? I personally don’t use any social media aside from Lemmygrad, but I’m still struggling with being online too much, even if it’s lurking here or on other websites. I try to focus on offline things, such as books mostly that I download. My biggest problem is the refresh feature, even smaller sites such as this one just become an issue because of refreshing for new posts or discussions.

As a Linux user, I can say I tried to make my desktop as offline-focused as possible. I don’t use any “cloud” services etc., though I still find myself dealing with this. Perhaps it’s the interface.

I do like the Small Web movement, especially protocols like Gemini or Gopher. From what I see, they’re filled to the brim with conservatives and anarchists, sadly. I do lurk on YouTube via Invidious, which is probably the biggest time-waste, though there’s much valuable niche content on there. Sometimes at least.

Speaking of this, I sometimes take breaks from politics to not get overwhelmed. To get updates, I usually use RSS and the Hexbear News Megathread. For the most part, it’s enough. Though FOMO (fear of missing out) hits here too, as what if I’m not up to date with something important globally.

What’s your experience with this, comrades?

  • QueerCommie
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    1 year ago

    Downloading articles sounds like a good idea. I feel like if I even have my phone in the room I’ll get pulled in. I think my Pocketbook has an RSS feature, but I haven’t figured out how to use it.

    • ChayOP
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      1 year ago

      You can use Calibre’s ebook-convert feature and convert a Markdown file to an epub easily. Or beforehand just use pandoc to get any of your desired formats into .md

      • QueerCommie
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        1 year ago

        I just save articles as pdfs and export them to my ereader’s app.

        • ChayOP
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          1 year ago

          The formatting is often wonky for pdfs, at least on mine. I prefer epubs where I can change the font et al.