Better suggestion: block these sites entirely. Reddit and YouTube are wastes of time if you are just 'checking in'.
Use YouTube-DL to download videos from specific creators and watch independently. I haven't figured out how to view the actually useful subreddits without having access to the frontpage feeds.
Feeds are one of the worst things to be invented in the Internet age. I can't imagine how far behind we are because they've caught otherwise smart people in this insane dopamine trap.
I keep Instagram to keep in touch with friends abroad.
I keep Facebook because certain communities and events only happen there.
For some of us, it is plain better to only block short form video.
Both of those things could be solved by just talking to people, and talking to people does not require you to use addiction machines.
I keep in touch with my friends abroad by emailing them when I think about them, and I get long form responses on what they are up to, not whatever is the public image filtered stuff that they may or may not be posting somewhere.
Everyone has their own strategy.
Why is it so difficult for half the people replying in this Show HN to accept that some people still want to use social media as social media and not just throw all of it out?
Just use whatsapp
> Reddit and YouTube are wastes of time if you are just 'checking in'.
I disagree, YouTube has plenty of creative and interesting content if one has enough will to fight the nonsense that the algorithm shovels at you.
Same goes for reddit actually, and reddit is pretty trivial to filter. Subscribe only to the communities that you find worth it and don't open /r/popular etc.
> I haven't figured out how to view the actually useful subreddits without having access to the frontpage feeds.
Maybe I don’t understand what you mean but I follow about 3 subreddits and I just go directly to them in a browser. I don’t use their app.
Yes, that is really the problem. The landing page is just a smorgasbord of things to rile you up, distract you, draw you in, etc.
I've tried filtering it, I've tried unsubscribing to all subreddits save for a few, nothing worked.
Part of it is likely my own personality (I get bored and go on for "just a minute") but also, Reddit is designed, like all social media, to keep you engaged. Your method is best.
I actually designed a minimalist Reddit client that did exactly that, you had no homepage, it was just a search box where you typed in the subreddit name and it took you right to a minimalist interface (no big images, no names, black and white interface, no voting, etc). I've been meaning to revive it but haven't got around to it.
The nice thing for me was that I made the URL structure identical to reddit so it was as easy as swapping "reddit.com" to "reddit.qnzl.co" in a URL and it just worked.