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this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2026
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I have had no problem leaving their platforms and never looking back. Leaving reddit was harder for me. I still go back sometimes when I need advice in niche communities. Lemmy is like the Non-Alcoholic Beer for reddit.
Tbf, Lemmy is addictive too. But I can feel much better about it than Reddit.
Facebook was relatively easy to quit. I still have an account there. And maybe log in once every other year if I need to find an old friend’s birthday or something like that.
Lemmy is addictive in the same way that attending a routine community center event is addictive - you're happy to come back and see old and new faces, and contribute towards keeping the conversations going.
If you want to set up a new event (instance/community), you can do it yourself, in your own environment, without external pressure.
I would call Facebook, Reddit, IG, etc... more like a casino. You pull constant refreshes for dopamine hits, are feed a stream of ads and content that ostracises you if you don't stay with the current, and have no control over your personal data or any works you create.
I don't know, I definitely find myself getting stuck in a loop of endless scrolling even on lemmy. At least, the client I'm using features endless scrolling, and my alcoholic brain is really bad at cutting myself off.
It's still better for the reasons you stated above. I'm not being flooded with grifters, manipulative advertisements, systematized disinformation, and algorithmically-privileged ragebait content. And my data isn't being harvested and sold to the highest bidder.
But I wouldn't say it's non-addictive. It's still a steady stream of low-effort dopamine. Not always a bad thing, but I definitely still procrastinate just as much.
I agree it's addictive, but the outrage algorithm is toned down and easy to block.
We're slowly snowballing some of them here, luckily :)