litelcreacher

[litelcreacher]

[litelcreacher]

Lowering My Screentime was kinda hard actually

This is my first longer "blog" like post on this account lol, but I thought it would be helpful to others to compile my thoughts and notes about my current journey with lowering my screen time! After graduating from college I suddenly had an insane amount of free time on my hands and no idea what to do with it. So below the cut are some things that helped me!

So first off, I was, somehow, between 2 part time jobs, a full time class load to get 2 degrees, and running 2 clubs, finding the time to still have an average screen time of 9-10 hours a day. Ouch. My biggest time wasters were YouTube, Twitter/X, and Instagram. Once I realized I was regularly wasting my time on most of the apps I was using, I decided it was time to do something about it. And over the past month, do something about it I have indeed. Below are 5 tips that I used when lowering my screen time that will help those who want to lower their screen time too!

Tip #1- Time Limits on Apps This is definitely the easiest place to start. Instead of giving myself completely unregulated time on apps, I went into my phone's settings (for iPhone, it's settings>screen time>app limits) and set specific limits for each app I wanted to, well, limit. I was also able to group certain apps together, so I only have 15 minutes a day for Instagram and Twitter combined, which is the perfect amount of time to check the messages my friends and family have sent me and then move on with my day. Don't be afraid to play around with these settings if you notice a limit is too long or too short. My Example- I limited Twitter/Instagram to 15 minutes, WebToon to 15 minutes, and YouTube started at 3 hours, then 2 hours, then 1 and a half, and now I don't use it on my phone at all (it has a 1 minute limit just to be silly). Tip #2- Conscious Media Consumption This might be incredibly obvious to some, but I was completely blindsided by how many YouTubers I was subscribed to that I literally hadn't watched in years. I'd also missed tons of videos from YouTubers I actually wanted to watch, since I spent so much time staring at endless YouTube shorts or homepage videos designed to reel me in and hold my attention. Similarly with Twitter, Instagram, and to a lesser degree Pinterest, I was opening these apps with zero goal in mind other than to "relax" after hard work, and wasn't actually actively choosing what to do with my time, which didn't really sit right with me. My Example- Right now I'm limiting my YouTube time as much as possible. I literally haven't watched one in roughly a month. But that's not sustainable long term unfortunately :( So now, if I do watch a YouTube video, I need to know either what I'm looking for or what specific video I'm going to watch before I open the website on my laptop. Otherwise, I do not look at YouTube at all. No homepage algorithm, no YouTube shorts, just my brain and what I actually WANT to be watching.

Tip #3- I don't have a catchy title for this one sorry! For YouTube specifically, outside of a handful of specific creators I've been following for years, I found myself missing broader genres of content instead of someone specific's videos. Most of the videos I like were things like watching people clean, cook, bake, or draw. Once I stopped watching them do it and that quick dopamine hit was gone, I realized I could simply just... do those things in my own house. I went from wishing I had enough time to do the things I used to do when I was younger, to reveling in nostalgia as I do the things I love. My Example- Instead of staring at those aesthetic cooking and baking videos for an hour or so, I just straight up started cooking and baking again more often. My success has admittedly been... varied. But that's just part of the process! I've also been drawing, reading, and writing more often. It's one thing to watch someone's YouTube video about how they made ornaments from scratch or how they sewed their own plushie, but it's incredibly rewarding to try these things for yourself!

Tip #4- Alternatives are always better than Nothing While it might be tempting to drop an app or all social media entirely, its usually not realistic to go from 9 hours a day to 0. When removing anything from your life, it's much much easier to replace it with something else instead of entirely dropping it. For me, I replaced watching YouTube for background noise with watching the movies and tv shows I told myself I'd get to eventually. If you can't find something you want on the streaming services you have, don't underestimate the power of the thrift store, the internet archive, and your local library! My Example- One of my favorite YouTubers/Twitch streamers is Brutalmoose, who often plays old computer games (Windows 98, Windows Vista, etc). This may not be as easily accessible for people, but my family just so happened to have a windows vista computer collecting dust in my attic. After a quick trip to the thrift store, I got 5 games for $1.25. I've been having an absolute blast getting the computer to work again, investigating old software, and burning my own CDs from the ancient mp3s my parents left on here lol. Tip #5- Progress Over Perfection I told my students this, I tell my coworkers this, and I'll always tell anyone who will listen this. No matter if you're drawing, writing, baking, or trying to knock a bad habit, this advice ALWAYS applies. There's no way to be absolutely perfect at all times. Lowering your screen time, especially if you're someone like me who had hours and hours and hours a day, will take time! Anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Making progress is a beautiful thing. My Example- In all honesty, my journey with lowering my screen time is far from over. I've lowered my daily screen time from 9 hours down to 5 hours so far, but I'm confident I can get it even lower (my goal is 3!).

Using your phone in this day and age can feel unavoidable, but don't give up! Finding alternatives and strengthening your support network can help a lot. If I was a more popular blogger this is where I'd be all "leave your examples in the comments below!" but in all honesty I don't really think most people will see this unless I get really popular years from now lol. I'll ask anyways though! Let me know if any of this works for you, or if you have your own tips for lowering screen time :)

[litelcreacher]

Constantly remember how full of choices life is and how if you let your guilt or shame lead you instead of joy you truly will have no one to blame but yourself when you are living a life that feels heavy and constrained instead of happy and free

When you are not a child anymore you have to make decisions based on your own beliefs and no one else's and if you can't then no one is gonna save you - it's something you do for yourself regardless of how it looks to people around you and no one is gonna tell you to choose yourself

[litelcreacher]

scaramouche doesnt deserve to be a hoyoverse character.

edit: neither does xingqiu or chongyun.

[litelcreacher]

I can't believe there are people out there who did not grasp the backstory and meta of Stray. That's like playing with your eyes closed and sticking your fingers in your ears going "la la la la"

Then make steam reviews saying "it was a cute simplistic cat game with simplistic characters that was a little sad, but enjoyable :)"

They're robots you clown.

They forged their own little souls and personalities all by themselves OUTSIDE of their original programming to recycle or clean the streets. That's like your roomba gaining sentience after 2000 years and you're complaining they're not complex characters. 🤡

They only had sketchy memories of their soft squishy creators thousands of years before they gained sentience all on their own after their creators died. Society and their bunker city had fallen into ruin and very few records remained in the slums where they dwelled.

They were recycling robots, condemned to labor in the dark but once they gained sentience they rebelled against the controlling upper level robots and began lighting colorful lights and singing in the darkness, because that's what they remembered their creators would do. They loved us and remembered us.

They're in the infancy of their own society even though they're long lived, because they're robots - they had to learn how to be people all on their own!

And for you to reduce their achievements or say "they're childish or simplistic" is missing the entire point.

I will defend these robots with my dying breath because they are humanity's legacy in the story and all they admired was our capacity to love and be kind

Fuck you *sobs*

[litelcreacher]

In one point of Stray a mural says “It’s been 2544875556 days since robots gained their Soul”.

That is 6,972,262 years.

It’s heavily implied that humans have been gone for almost 7 million years.

And humanity is still living in their creations. They still play songs that humans had created. They created art in their image. They talk as if they are just around the corner, as if they haven’t been gone for longer then they have been alive.

Humanity’s creations following in their footsteps steps never to forget the impact they made. As B-12 said “I see a future in the companions and in you.”

Humanity will survive into the future in those it left behind. It’s a new dawn. Light shines on an ancient city for the first time. And no one really dies as long as they left something behind.

[litelcreacher]

So I've been playing Stray, and watching some YouTubers play it as well, and I think a lot of them are misunderstanding the themes of the game, and what it has to say about human nature. Pretentious rant incoming.

I actually think that this game is a really interesting look at humanity, and a really beautiful subversion of dystopian tropes. One one side of course you do have the classic dystopian mentality, humans are relentless consumers who destroyed the world and left it barren. But the game is saying "the large scale impacts of humans, brought on by the thoughtless greed of the wealthy and powerful and perpetuated by individuals just trying to get through the day", not "human society itself is corrupt and evil". In fact, it goes out of its way to refute this idea, through the robots that carry on our legacy.

Human society is beautiful. It is about love, and creation, and community, and hope. It is about sitting on a stoop playing a song merely for the joy of making music. It's about tending to plants, not for any purpose, but just to see a living thing flourish under your care. It's about lighting colourful bulbs in dark times to keep hope alive. It is about petting a cat, feeling it rub up against your legs and not quite knowing how you could possibly feel such love for something so small.

[litelcreacher]

[litelcreacher]

Red mania (alt under cut)

[litelcreacher]

[litelcreacher]

………can I request……….. Omori sunflower minific 🥺? A moment of peace. Maybe not happy, maybe still melancholic, but something soft post ending to hold on to

“Sunny?”

For a long time, hearing that soft voice meant that Sunny was dreaming. It takes him a moment to register the background hum of the hospital and realise he’s awake.

He opens his eye.

It’s still night, the lights of the hospital equipment bright spots in the semi-darkness. Basil is watching him from across the pillow.

Up close like this, it’s hard not to notice the ways Basil has changed since they were younger. He looks thinner, tired. He has a scattering of freckles; it’s strange to notice those. Sunny’s seen him night after night in his dreams, he’d assumed that was keeping Basil’s image preserved in his mind somehow, but he supposes he must have forgotten some details.

He wonders what he’s forgotten about Mari.

“What are you doing here?” Basil asks, quietly.

Sunny had been waiting by Basil’s bedside for him to wake up. Eventually, as the night came on, he’d just crawled into the bed with him.

He should probably have gone back to his own room. But he hadn’t wanted Basil to wake up alone. Not this time, at least. Not after everything.

They’ve both spent a lot of time alone. It’s too late to undo that. But he can be here now.

“I was tired,” Sunny says.

Basil looks for a moment as if he’s going to ask for more than that. In the end, though, he just nods and says, in a very small voice, “Okay.”

He reaches out and lays a hand on Sunny’s wrist, tentatively. Sunny rests his own hand over it and closes his eye.

When he falls asleep again, he doesn’t dream at all.

[litelcreacher]

He keeps doing this I’m gonna cry

[litelcreacher]

doodle

[litelcreacher]

It's so hard to do things man i was doing well like, a few weeks before but now i'm back to not doing things. I know the problem, my brain needs to see proof that it's actually doing things and improving. But this new task is different and a lot harder to measure and it's discouraging to blindly feel around hoping this one step will actually get me closer to finishing it. And i get so caught up on this one thing i neglect other things that i CAN actually make improvements on, feeling guilty that i use up the time that i should've instead spent on the main thing but thing is i wouldn't have spent it on it regardless i do other tasks or not because of that anxiety

[litelcreacher]

IM CRYING

[litelcreacher]

There's this sort of anthropomorphizing that inherently happens in language that really gets me sometimes. I'm still not over the terminology of "gravity assist," the technique where we launch satellites into the orbit of other planets so that we can build momentum via the astounding and literally astronomical strength of their gravitational forces, to "slingshot" them into the direction we need with a speed that we could never, ever, ever create ourselves. I mean, some of these slingshots easily get probes hurtling through space at tens of thousands of miles per hour. Wikipedia has a handy diagram of the Voyager 1 satellite doing such a thing.

"Gravity assist." "Slingshot." Of course, on a very basic and objective level, yes, we are taking advantage of forces generated by outside objects to specifically help in our goals. We're getting help from objects in the same way a river can power a mill. And of course we call it a "slingshot," because the motion is very similar (mentally at least; I can't be sure about the exact physics).

Plus, especially compared to the other sciences, the terminology for astrophysics is like, really straightforward. "Black hole?" Damn yeah it sure is. "Big bang?" It sure was. "Galactic cluster?" Buddy you're never gonna guess what this is. I think it's an effect of the fact that language is generally developed for life on earth and all the strange variances that happen on its surface, that applying it to something as alien and vast as space, general terms tend to suffice very well in a lot more places than, like... idk, botany.

But, like. "Gravity assist." I still can't get the notion out of my head that such language implies us receiving active help from our celestial neighbors. They come to our aid. We are working together. We are assisted. Jupiter and the other planets saw our little messengers coming from its pale blue molecular cousin, and we set up the physics just right, so that they could help us send them out to far stranger places than this, to tell us all about what they find out there.

We are assisted.

And there is no better way to illustrate my feelings on the matter than to just show you guys one of my favorite paintings, this 1973 NASA art by Rick Guidice to show the Pioneer probe doing this exact thing:

"... You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. ..."

Gravity assist.

[litelcreacher]

Moonbows

A moonbow, also known as a lunar rainbow or white rainbow, is a rainbow created by moonlight rather than sunlight. It's formed when light from the moon refracts and reflects off water droplets, like those in rain or mist, creating a visible arc of light in the sky. Moonbows are generally fainter and less colorful than regular rainbows, and they are much rarer due to the need for specific conditions like a full or near-full moon, clear skies, and dark skies.