3 ms·

Apologies for the long comment. I'd need a few hours to edit this down and I don't have the time. MrBeast is not the problem, social media addiction is Mr

Apologies for the long comment. I'd need a few hours to edit this down and I don't have the time. __MrBeast is not the problem, social media addiction is__ MrBeast represents the biggest common denominator of why people are on the platform. Not everyone on YouTube will like his videos (I presume many on HN are uninterested in his videos), but a very big group does. Why? For the same reason why my parents watch game shows on the television: entertainment. I find MrBeast his videos most related to game shows with him being the game show host. It's not always the strict format of a game show, but looking at it from that perspective shows what style of video he's making. Who doesn't like a fun game show? Most people do! And I think that's okay. People will copy him, it'll be the dominant culture on YouTube. That's okay too. It's okay because authenticity won't go away. Authentic people on YouTube aren't under threat or under fire. I watch a lot of YouTube channels that have 100K to 1 million subs and they seem authentic to me and I love them for it. Also, let's not forget: MrBeast seems authentic about how he goes about YouTube on some of these channels (on their podcast). MrBeast is authentic for anyone who gets off the general (unoptimized) front page and just look at a couple of interviews of him. The only issue that I see is that the YouTube recommendation algorithm has a bias towards promoting popular content. For some users on YouTube (e.g. me) that is unfortunate because that's not how I want to use YouTube. But I click on it and I get addicted to it and now they have me. So for that reason: I call upon psychologists and psychiatrists to help people with YouTube addiction (email me if you are one. My email is in my profile. I'm a software engineer/web developer). Even an online course on dealing with YouTube addiction can help a lot to go against the addictive quality of YouTube. Currently, I'm in the process of helping myself (I've studied psychology and game-design so I know a thing or two). The method that seems to have some results with me is as follows. __Overcoming YouTube/social media addiction__ 1. I sit in a chair and tell myself that this is my life now. All I can do is sit. I can think, I can look or listen. But I can't leave the chair. 2. My mind will want to watch YouTube. I resist the urge, I have to keep on sitting in the chair. 3. At some point my mind - out of sheer desperation - will yell at me "alright, alright! I'll do anything. You wanna be better at math? I'll do this math course you're following right now. As long as I can do something else than just sitting in a chair!" This happens after 15 to 30 minutes. 4. At that point, you can do that activity. The moment you go to YouTube and watch a video, you put yourself back in the chair and you start at step 1. It's brutal. Addiction is brutal. For me, this method is quite effective. I hope it helps someone. __How I discovered this method__ I wish I could say it was "I studied psychology and xyz studied mentioned it." The real story is different. I was so fed up with myself that I told myself that I'm going to sit on my chair and that's all life is now. I know addiction when I see it and I saw it within myself. I became incredibly angry at myself. So a lifetime banishment on the chair is what I was going to do until something broke. Of course, I knew my anger wouldn't hold out but I felt so angry that I decided to give in anyway, just to see what happens. After 20 minutes, my mind started screaming and pleading to do math. Then, I did math. Suddenly, for the next week, I did 5 hours of math per day (currently in between jobs). I watched about 20 minutes of YouTube per day (as opposed to 6 hours). Those 20 minutes of YouTube were mostly informational math videos for when I got stuck with a concept. I realized I stumbled upon a method that worked for me. It also made me realize that this method is changing my relationship with boredom. I'm becoming more comfortable with it. However, I am not seeing the full picture on boredom yet. I will, and when I do, then I'll update my method. For now what I do see: when one is sufficiently bored, then they are sufficiently _intrinsically_ motivated to do more or less anything. Boredom is uncomfortable, even painful, just to get out of that pain one will do anything to stave away boredom. It's currently the best intrinsic motivational spark that I've found to get myself to do anything. I have a lot of intrinsic motivation on things, but not a lot of intrinsic motivational spark. Enter boredom, it is an intrinsic motivational spark to get you going on the project you'd have wanted to do for years (in my case: becoming better at math).

bister_meast 3y ago
Interesting to hear someone else with that method! Mine is a little different, to suit different circumstances (I think I have a problem with YouTube and other online venues, but not 6hr+ per day). For me, it boils down to the phrase "start the day right". When I wake up, I can default to opening the laptop and finding something interesting to look at, or I can sit and wait until I think of something else to do. If I can maintain the willpower needed, it only takes a few minutes for my brain to tell me there's something much more useful or interesting to do.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>All I can do is sit. I can think, I can look or listen. But I can't leave the chair. I think that's even worse for me. I can in fact sit in a chair and get stuck in my own head for hours. I've even stayed awake in my bed for hours, no TV, no computer, ignoring phone notificataions, being stuck in my own thoughts. Buzzing thoughts about my job, my life, my past, family, choices I should have taken, choices I should not have taken, or just random triva I gathered over the year. My mind can never truly be quiet, something will pop up and fade just as quickly to the next tangential thought. It's just not productive and I usually end up more remorseful than when I sat down. I try to get outside or do literally anything else to avoid getting stuck there. I can never truly be "bored" so I may as well try to distract with something productive. Or not productive but not depressing.

Apologies for the long comment. I'd need a few hours to edit this down and I don't have the time. __MrBeast is not the problem, social media addiction is__ Mr

bister_meast 3y ago

Interesting to hear someone else with that method! Mine is a little different, to suit different circumstances (I think I have a problem with YouTube and other online venues, but not 6hr+ per day). For me, it boils down to the phrase "start the day right". When I wake up, I can default to opening the laptop and finding something interesting to look at, or I can sit and wait until I think of something else to do. If I can maintain the willpower needed, it only takes a few minutes for my brain to tell me there's something much more useful or interesting to do.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

>All I can do is sit. I can think, I can look or listen. But I can't leave the chair. I think that's even worse for me. I can in fact sit in a chair and get stuck in my own head for hours. I've even stayed awake in my bed for hours, no TV, no computer, ignoring phone notificataions, being stuck in my own thoughts. Buzzing thoughts about my job, my life, my past, family, choices I should have taken, choices I should not have taken, or just random triva I gathered over the year. My mind can never truly be quiet, something will pop up and fade just as quickly to the next tangential thought. It's just not productive and I usually end up more remorseful than when I sat down. I try to get outside or do literally anything else to avoid getting stuck there. I can never truly be "bored" so I may as well try to distract with something productive. Or not productive but not depressing.