virus – Varied hues

The Stream Flow: An Experience With YouTube Addiction

When childhood was lazy and clouds rolled by on beautiful summer days, a 12 year-old girl, like many other preteens of her age, refused to appreciate the beauty of the sky and the trees, and instead gorged on the videos every hour of the day, getting excited for the notifications of the Youtubers she loved watching, and becoming ecstatic out of her wits when her comments hit a 1000+ likes.

Constantly glutting herself with every other comedy video of Zaid Ali or Lilly Singh, or watching and cringing at the Paul Brothers’, she silently and unconsciously slipped into a void of absolute unproductivity and unmotivated studying.

Curled up on her bed with dampened spirit, her fingers slid over the smooth surface of the glass as videos kept on playing on the phone.

This 12 year old was no one but mini me. Mini me stuck in a toxic YouTube addiction. Unmotivated either to play or study while life seemed to spiral out of hands.

Sooner rather than later, I acknowledged myself of what addiction I had set foot onto. Every dopamine hit provided a stimulation. The moment it goes away, another dose of dopamine is needed.

It had become a cycle of venomous dopamine hits and guilt followed thereafter.

I knew things had to be flipped in order to change.

After constant searches on many websites of how to cure it and to the extent of self regulation by a 14-15 year old me then, many months later, things started to fall in places as I improved and lessened and self controlled the time I used to spend on the app.

During this self improvement journey, a lot was learned while I religiously followed advices from the web or kins striving to accurately apply in my real life. The journey was jolty firsthandedly but month later, I arrived at recovery.

As I learned and grew with this journey, I decided to pen it down by sharing my story and the tips to remove YouTube addiction, if you have been struggling with it as well.

No doubt, I thought the recovery will happen in a fortnight, but unfortunately it did not. In a stretch of few months, little by little, I embarked on the road and arrived to its recovery, finally being a little enlightened by the great fact of life: great changes happen with little steps.

Little steps put one at a time.

During certain weeks, I do not even touch the app. Here’s a stat

What is YouTube planning against me?

Why is YouTube so addictive? Ever asked that question? In fact, ever tried to find the answer?

YouTube users watch 1 billion hours of videos every single day. Every. Day. That is almost like watching half a million movies on loop. Again, every single day.

It isn’t the case that in the billion hours, videos only are being watched.

In reality, it is actually the time spent on YouTube by global users per day. Count the number of ads you see, count the amount of time you spend scrolling through the comments section, count the amount of minutes you keep scrolling to find the perfect video to suit your mood.

Ah, it’s lot.

But then, it is YouTube’s algorithms. The storage of the content I had last seen to the niches of videos that I see; YouTube, I slowly realised,
somehow seems to know what I like viewing while toxicly invading my privacy the more and more I watch it, just in order to refine the content I see.

Well, curated content is not unlikeable. But, refinement done by YouTube holds another narrative.

Is it not the case when you love to go bananas over Justin Beiber, and your closed ones offer you posters, jackets and diaries featuring him on your special day, you feel a tinge of euphoria?

Same is the case of YouTube, it offers you what you desire, making you feel the tinge of instant gratification minutes after minutes.

But, wait? Is YouTube offering or is it luring me?

It’s the other way round. The more you gorge on the content that you like seeing, the more will Youtube earn it’s bread. Their need to keep you stuck in their vast, pixelated world makes them treat you specially, even if that means your privacy will be at stake.

And, of course, there is the content creator’s knowledge of tapping into your psychology.

Hyper reactive faces in thumbnails and clickbaits in their video names, stimulating all your senses to bait you into watching a video, and the countless ads grasping your attention, YouTube is a goddamn fox at feeding parasitically on your time.

The new comments section shoved cleverly right below the video, just to amuse you to hear human opinions on the content in an otherwise nonhuman world, is slowly becoming their way to arrest your attentiveness, making you lose your valued time right through their drains.

YouTube never fails to bedazzle you to watch useless information countless number of times: just to make you lie in your supine position mindlessly watching videos all day, while outside the sun sets heralding twilight skies.

Now that you know how cunning YouTube is, why don’t you try tapping into YouTube’s Psychology?

Now that you have got the idea of how YouTube works to lasso your attention, to feed parasitically on your procrastination, let’s sharpen the knife on how to cut ties with uninformative craps floating on YouTube.

° Are you watching content that is stimulating your senses providing immediate gratification, but feels short of what was to be delivered?

Cut it. Unsubscribe the content that promises you oranges and offers you apples. There are millions of channels with nil knowledge or information trying to be in your screen, donning themselves to be entertainment of all sorts.

° Whenever, you are about to watch a video, immediately flip it over to arrive at a full-screen, so that you aren’t beguiled by the opunions (pun intended) desperate to catch your eye.

° If really needed, open a new gmail account, in order to start afresh and subscribe to channels that really add value to your daily life. Be it some spiritual talks or humorous contents that lift you up when you are low, or graphic infotainment that adds richness to your knowledge or eye-opening documentaries changing your perspectives, subscribe to such contents.

° Do not cut on the entertainment that you watch but try harder to watch entertainment that you do not have to follow after. In other words, controversies of influencers that never seem to halt or keeping up with the useless trends and the subsequent humour circling around it, snap it off.

° Train your mind to spot and filter what you need to see. Really ask yourself, “Will the girl crying for her missed prom add anything to my brain?”

° Is the Youtuber relying more on the thumbnail to attract my senses than delivering what the person had promised?

WHAT HAVE I DONE OR WHAT CAN YOU DO TO SET THE LIMITS ?

1. Indetify and Acknowledge

At the outset, getting rid of addiction is very hard. The basic step needed to remove it is first identifying whether you have it. If the situation is so, it takes the arduous process of acknowledging it just to take the step of removing it or controlling it.

This was the basic step I had tried to take. I have constantly muttered this in my mind so many a time: I control what I see.

YouTube may now know openly and clearly identify that I love Owl City’s songs, recommending me that or know that I laugh out loud watching SlayyPoint. But, no matter how YouTube might be expert at my likes and dislikes, I still control what I see.

No matter the glittering thumbnails and the controversial video titles (I shaved my whole head. Okay, cool. No more crying for clips and rubberbands being lost, I will utter.), I control what I see.

2. Time Limiting

Time limiting. It can be done in either of the two ways: either you can fix that you will watch 1 hour worth of videos or you can set a time, say 5 pm to 6 pm to watch YouTube.

Because, reiterating again, YouTube parasitically feeds on your valued time.

The repurcusions when I watched YouTube videos on repeat is that I have faced attention deficiency to the limit of a gold fish. Became fidgety if no stimulation in terms of graphic imagery appeared

Not proclaiming tall tales, but with controlling what I see has helped me immensely to be more present in reality. I wish I could have highlighted that I got good grades or with extra time in my pocket I have used it benefittingly to create masterpieces or somewhat but that isn’t true.

My achievements aren’t glorious at all. Yet, I would have trailed off in my secondary academic years due to this single, innocent app that mysteriously would have entranced me to watch useless knowledge, leaving me with sore eyes and screen tears, added with a chronic sleep deprivation.

3. Valuable

I subscribe to personally valuable content.

Be it YouTube or Social Media apps, the flow information never ends, it’s a tunnel of mind-blasting information having no light at its end.

Infographic shows or short films, or channels that cover my boards and syllabus, or some entertainment channels that do not fail to arouse me, I subscribe to such channels.

And, so should you. Because apart from the entertainment channels that maybe I can go gaga over, I do not necessarily invest my time on the other topics because the content creator and runner of the channels do not either show their faces or comes up with changing people thus limiting myself to form a cult/fandom (kind of) around any person or celebrities.

Getting rid of YouTube addiction was personally hard. As ridiculous and hilarious as it may sound of being a slave to an app, but in this day and age of massive technological change and contents pouring from multiple gaps in a stretched out and still stretching cyberspace, it is not something to sneer at; addictions to virtual content is real.

And, it’s tragic.

But the power to work upon it still lies in your own hand.

I hope my article provided you some incentive or even a slight nudge to identify, acknowledge and realise if you have YouTube addiction too. Or if possible and hopefully, some tips to work upon it.

Do remember, my tried and tested advices are in vain if it’s never worked upon. Initially, the first week would be full of blunders; it is understandable you would be fidgety restricting a habit that you have cultivated over time.

In case you tend to feel bored and prefer to watch some entertainment videos, DO NOT. Adhere to the fixed routine you will have scheduled now and try to live mindfully, enjoy the curtain of silence draping over you.

Go, hear the birds sing their melody, or see the sky tranforms it’s colours in the sunset hues. Be present in reality and enjoy all the little things life will offer you because, afterall, life is just way too wonderful and beautiful to be wasted away.

More Ways to Beat the blues of the Lockdown Days

No worries, I am as bored as you are and you are as hopeless as I am!

As the nationwide lockdown is getting further and further extended, our mental health agonies are going more and more painful. As much as we want to heave a sigh of relief for the crisis to end, but presently, our mental health maybe crippling undoubtedly. And then, on top of it, is our boredom to do anything.

We hope for Social Media to be a platform for easing our pains, yet we end up constantly feeling dejected for seeing the rat-race in a pandemic. Believe it, people, that’s the reality (or should I say: virtuality? 😉 ). But, whether people go on displaying their glittering smiles or not, I genuinely want you to take time for yourself because if mental health degrades in this crisis, the pains are felt not only by you but it affects your whole family itself.

Sadness, Depression, Anxiety or Panic Attacks don’t respect whether you live in a 300 sq. feet apartment or a 3000 sq. feet sprawling mansion. You are as vulnerable to the grips of mental health degradation as much as I am or any of the readers of this blog.

So, to keep you mind sane and intact atleast for now, scroll down below to check out what you can do to be in a better state of mind because if you are happy, the rays of joy uplifts other as well. And the world needs to be nothing more than a happy place we deserve to live in, a happy place we need to create for others.

P.S- you can also scroll to the end, the middle part is basically craps if you’re anxious at a different level.

You may want to check out: 10 Ways to beat the Lockdown Blues #teenedition (can be checked out by non-teens too)

◎ Gardening

If you are blessed with a good yard or a balcony and have pots, seeds and soil in advance, don’t wait, now is the perfect time to create your own vegetable or flower garden you have been aspiring to do so.

For vegetable gardening:

If you lack the seeds, here’s a suggestion for you: for growing tomatoes, store brought tomatoes work fine and you can just plant them in the soil simply or you can follow the picture below. Or for growing turmerics or ginger, simply bury the rhizomes in the soil and with proper caring, fermentation and irrigation, withing a week or a fortnight, you’ll be able to see new leaf springing up from the lush, chocolatey soil.

Youtube is filled with so many knowledgable videos about gardening, I mean, I really don’t have to explain much more about veggies at all.

For Flower gardening:

Orange Moss Rose Seed - Orange Portulaca Ground Cover Seeds — *moss rose*, if you’re wondering “what’s that?”

Flower cultivation is tougher than vegetable gardening, but if you have moss roses somwhere, simply pluck the stems and plant it in the soil, and it hardly needs any nourishment. Or, if possible, acquire some cuttings of Hibiscus and Roses cut at a 45 degree angle and follow the steps by clicking this blue texts for HIBISCUS and here for ROSE.

Also, if you have other such marvelous ideas for a flower garden, do share it in the comments section below.

For CHEAP-like-me gardening:

There is no sense of shame to tell you I am thrifty like you are. When entering a shopping mall, I go straight to check the price tag of the clothing item and then i decide whether I like it or not.

Jokes aside, if you really don’t have time or the enthusiastic effort to let alone touch the soil, fill the pots with it, shovelling the mud and yada, yada, here’s my take of the cheap style of gardening that I had done just to add a dash of green in my house.

Nandita Iyer on Twitter: "Indoor plants that you can grow from ... — money plants

◘Money plant and bamboos work fine if you just add it in a glass bottle, for which, adhering to the idea of sustainability, you can use old ketchup glass bottles or wine bottles. More transparent, the better looking!

◘ Succulents and cactus are so easy-to-care for plants that the only step you need to take is just plant them, and water them the day you think the plant lacks it.

Master the Art of Growing Cacti and Succulents | Costa Farms — succulents and cacti

Well, yeah, exactly. I mean, that’s basically it. They don’t complain and go moodily brown if you don’t care for them. In simple sense, they don’t care for water as you don’t care for watering them.

◘ Snake plants are your best house mates. Whether it is Mother-in-law’s tongue or bird’s nest as shown in the picture, snake plants purify the air around the house as much as they add a dash of greenery in our concretised houses, maintaining and balancing human-nature equilibrium.

◎ Listening to Music

Don’t deny, music helps you, right? Breaking the boundary of language and cultures, music fingers the strings of our soul when the mood is sunken and damp. In such a time of boredom and distress, we can sure try to shake off the sadness with good, happy beats. And, that’s why listening to a some happy tunes elevate our souls, channels some kind of unknown energy to be awake yet lost in fantasy (which, I feel, is actually good in sad times).

So, no more babbling. Transcending barriers and boundaries, here is a list of good-to-listen tunes to make you jump with some joy, and if you want, go shake your legs in front of the mirror for a good dance therapy and an energy-filled dance workout!

Level of concern by 21 Pilots. source: Yotube…duh

Musu Musu Hasi Deu Ma Lei Lei

◘ Happy by Pharell Williams

◘ Kinu Jadu Aji Bukur Maajot by Shreya Phukan. NOW THIS REMAINS A GEM EVEN AFTER EIGHT YEARS!

◘ Can’t Stop the Feeling by J. Timberlake

◘Liggi by Ritviz

◘The Lazy song by Bruno Mars

◘ Nachde Ne Saare by Jaspreet Royal or Kala Chashma by N. Kakkar

Even though the language I speak may not match yours but, c’mon, music isn’t about language, is it? You just need to soar away with the groovy tunes and take a flight with it!

◎ Read jokes

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Alright, all my aunts and uncles deserve a round of applause for brightening the mood with forwarded funny tiktok videos and jokes, and brightening my mornings with a virtual bouquet of flowers captioned with some quotes ending with a good morning.

But, there’s always an edge to reading good humoured jokes, the punchlines at the end making you cough with tear-eyed laughter.

Jokes from Readers’ Digest or www.laughfactory.com are hilarious as Kim-Jong Un and Trump being BFFs. Frankly, the edge of reading jokes is that you’ll get a hang of delivering and writing jokes afterwards because, after all, life is a joke and death is the punchline.

◎Doodling

Accept it or not, everyone cannot understand abstract, and if some jagged lines really represent something in somebody’s eyes, I gotta wear specs from now on.

Well, there are people who draw good or bad, uff done speaking. Don’t stab me.

Anyway, abstract crap or not, art is aesthetic whether you get it or not. But if boredom chews up your artistic creativity, doodling, the new emerging art, has come to your rescue even if you are or aren’t an artist.

40 Beautiful Mandala Drawing Ideas & How To - Brighter Craft — Mandala

Well, there are people who are good at doodling but, honestly saying, if you are an amateur or a Van Gogh, doodling is aesthetically satisfying to do. Mandala or cartoonish doodle are beautiful arts, and all you will need are just a black pen/marker and a paper.

Yes, now go doodle something because doodling is quite beautiful and messy, much like our lives are, ain’t I true?

◎ Cook something up

Superficially, you only got the idea of being in the kitchen cooking and trying your hand at some dishes. Yes, that is a good way to kill time but no, I meant it literally.

Cook a story, cook the scene out of your window in sketches or writeups, cook up some jokes, cook a fantasy, cook up a minecraft world, cook up playing-cards house or a matchstick house or a cardboard city or a lego town, cook a cross stitch design, cook a landscape art or a portrait face only out imagination, cook a quarantine-video, cook a slideshow of your family. Cook whatever you want!

Because cooking is creativity

And creativity makes us human.

Understanding the roles and responsibilities of the DevOps architect — COOK! COOK! COOK!

some last word gibberish:

Let me reiterate again, this is a pandemic not a productivity race. Perhaps, after reaching to the end of the blog, you may not want to do any of it, and it is quite understandable.

You’re stuck in mental health degradation like many here in a virtual world, seeking for some relief from anxiety (or boredom), or migrants and frontline workers struggling in our real world.

But, your attitude toward any crises matters, it either makes you our breaks you. Humankind has sailed over many storms, have paddled against the waves sometimes and yet, we still remain here in present times, in our present world.

I can’t point out why or how after so much of so many emergencies, so many crises and wars, humankind is still existing. After hearing so many news which are hardly any good, humankind along with all other species exist.

Do you know the reason why? Because as much as we have blood-boiling dislikes for somebody, for something, as much as we have acted beastly, waging wars across land and ocean, I can still tell you humanity exists.

Humankind exists because humanity exists. The day when we overcome this crisis, which I hope sooner, I truly wish we as a species become more humane and care more about the earth and its species.

And as for now, I can only give you the hope that:

We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome, some day

Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome, some day

हम होंगे कामयाब!

7 Ways to beat the Lockdown Blues #teenedition

People, I get it, everybody does: you are freaking bored to sadness these days. Who wouldn’t be? The viral pandemic has either got you hooked to the TVs or phone screens scrolling through the bad news of cases, deaths, extension of lockdown and people boasting and posting about how productive they have been. And then, on top of that, comes the range of influencers all smiling their flashiest teeth, doing hardcore workouts or making tiktok entertainment.

In fact, you are so bored that reading an article like this is testing your patience to scroll to the end, right?

Join the group, people. With doubling information throughout internet regarding anything and, seriously, about everything, it has muddled your mind, suppressed your patience. And patience has got so vanished from your life that you might be having a difficult time even resting for peace to thought about what to do to beat the quarantine blues.

Look no further, here is the scroll down list of what you can do to be at your best self these days, not meaning it to be hardcore, high-energy filled productive race, but a time of learning to keep your mind sane.

◎A To-Do List

Admit it, people, you have, keep an activity check on Instagram about limiting your screen time on social media, while some, on the other hand keeping Forest app or such time-checking apps, then suddenly, after the exams gone and none seem coming in the henceforth days, you are high on fire diving in the screen, and to hell are gone those disciplined days.

Now, to be frank, when you lose discipline, or a schedule, you may say, your daily routines get crazy. You are then stuck ‘with what to do now’ or more like, ‘what did I before this pandemic started?’ Honestly, things have gone turbulent, but you still can responsible to be on a steady track. How?

To-do list, check it, check it, check it.

How To Write A To Do List That You'll Actually Stick To

If you are the person who seems like you have a lot of things to do but not finding the right motivation, keep yourself organized and grounded with a to-do list, so when night comes and you look at the works you have completed, the night’s gonna be a real good night.

If to-do list is not your thing, maintain a journal if you wish to note down what you have done in a day (even if waking up from sleep, scrolling the news feed ;)) as long as you get this habit of jotting down your works or feelings, a routine will be set to beat boredom blue and black.

◎Start a diary

If you’re blurred with a notion of shy introverts penning down thoughts, emotions, sentiments in a notebook called diary, you’re wrong in thinking that diary are for the shy ones and right in just getting a idea of what diary is. Introverts, extroverts, ambiverts, whatever you deem yourselves to be, you are firstly a human with thoughts getting high in your brain, or incedents you might wanna remember or laugh at.

Now, is like the perfect time to be in a bliss talking to patient, unreactive, non- judgemental papers about how you maybe drowning in lonliness these days when you should be beeathing in the new life spring offers you.

The angst that boils inside because of not being enjoy the sky, the smiles, the crowds, the faces, pen it down. Who knows one day, when the battle against the virus ends, those papers may carry the nostalgic blues of once-in-a-lifetime experience of humankind and may enter the pages of 21st century history. See, my thoughts are getting high now?

Hidden for 40 years: Renia Spiegel's second World War diary — you, me got whole lotta history

◎ Poems, Songs, Art or talk to somebody

Illustration of writing red-hair girl, who lying on the carpet ...

With the hollow feelings in the heart, there is undoubtedly not a speck of motivation to take the pen or paper while the hung-down feelings bog you down.

Now what I want you to do: take a breath, reflect upon the sorrows and unleash all of it in a creative outpour of songwriting, poetry or art or dance or whatever suits you the best. Or if need be, talk to you closest ones about your sorrows.

As long as you get the the sorrows out of the mind, you will be surely hella fine.

◎Help the needy

I swear to God, even if you are not a business philantrophist, helping the needy isn’t out of your leagues. Go share some food to the stray dog aimlessly roaming around or contribute to the PM fund or share good vibes for the sad folks.

When satisfaction and gratitude sets in the heart, so does joy.

Why Science Says Helping Others Makes Us Happier

◎Exercise, fellas

Siblings or parents, with whomever you are with, workout with them to let the sweat drip and flow. Because once after that happens, the body will scream to your mind in gratitude.

Make sure, you’re not hyped up to break your limbs and bone! Stay fit, stay healthy.

The best time of day to exercise, according to the creator of a ... — this will be us, haahhahaha

◎ Start some new resolutions

Oh, well, the humankind is making resolutions, from the government preparing to battle VUCA troubles to us, mere mortals, planning what to particualarly do something in one day; so, it is never too late to chart out plans you wish to do after the period ends.

Truth is and admit it, this unbattled drudgery has taught us many things, about how ungrateful we were to earth or how grateful we are to have people called family. So, pledge to be a good citizen of the earth, pledge to be thankful of to be living, pledge to atleast not hurt earth anymore and stop being sadistic and be compassionate.

The earth needs nothing more than good people.

7 New Year's Resolutions for Career Success in 2016 | Inc.com

◎Movies and Books

I told ya, this is not a productive race but a test to our levels of sanity, and to bash up lockdown griefs, go and dive onto thw world of movies. If you aren’t carried away by stimulating scenes, then dive into some trilogy or collections.

Enter the Harry Potter world or the faction-driven universe of Beatrice Prior in Divergent series or peeking a glance at Feluda’s creation while rofling; English books available on the ANYBOOKS app on Playstore. And for films, Netflix or Hotstar or Prime or our good, old TV always come to rescue.

Can you be a writer if you don't like to read? - Shaunta Grimes ...

So, people, as long as boredom and the slight tilting towards depression gets mitigated, trust me, Quarantine period won’t be labelled as a boring, saddening period but a hope of reviving humankind to be good, working for the best for the healing planet and healing selves.

Hasta la vista, expect the worst, prepare for the best!