Cheers mate.
The internet -- you get out of it what you want to, I suppose. Whether that happens consciously or not. Maybe I have the benefit of having grown up on it (you're about 10 years older than me), or developed different perspectives or strategies on minding where I hang out, what I watch (and don't!).
At least for me I would say, as far as something like, using YouTube -- be careful and critical of what you watch, pick things that interest you. Build up an immunity for clickbait, refuse to click on "you won't believe <clearly false thing>!" thumbnails. Hide them if you have to.
The recommendation system is statistical, you click on some subject, it'll recommend more, give or take how much of it you watched, and pretty quickly you can end up spammed with a topic that you aren't actually all that interested in (or that's entirely erroneous).
The thing to remember is, you still have will and agency, even in these finely crafted corporate gardens of recommended content; the trick is, they don't know you well enough to recommend things from first principles, it's much simpler than that, just that some topics (or creators) cluster closer to others you've watched, and so are more likely to be recommended in the future. Don't want any more of it? Just tune it out, eventually it will disappear. You are the owner and creator of your own echo chamber. Be aware of it, recognize it, understand what you've let inside, be aware of things on the edge or outside your scope -- maybe check on random unrelated topics once in a while, who knows, maybe you'll discover something that captures your interest.
Supposedly, platforms like Tiktok are exceptionally bad at this, filling your feed say with scantily-clad women performing vacuous content the instant you swipe on one, or maybe from-adam just because those vids are so popular they'll assume you'll be as interested in them as the average platform user is. I don't use it, I don't know for sure. That's for the better I'm sure. It's particularly insidious closing a positive feedback loop of saccharine (or worse) content to young minds, that haven't developed a discipline for topics of more than superficial interest.
As for being critical, that goes for absolutely anything; always think about what they're really saying, what they might be leaving out, and why -- maybe there's an agenda (especially on politicized topics), maybe there's simply ignorance (no shortage of that among electronics topics, for example!), maybe it ticks all the boxes and is widely supported by multiple others in the field, by significant and diverse evidence, etc.
As for places to hang out -- not sure, honestly. Forums have gone the way of the dodo. Pretty sure this is the best electronics-themed one anymore. There are other sites, like Quora or Stack of course, but they're geared towards answering questions, usually with strict moderation (it's not a discussion group!), and, well, random people on the internet being what they are -- the range of questions, and quality, is probably even more inane than the spread we get here.
What do people do instead, then? Tons of discussion groups moved to Discord. Or Facebook. Or users on Twitter. I don't know of any reasonable electronics related groups offhand, but I'm sure there's a few out there. Discord isn't public searchable AFAIK, it's a hidden garden, good luck. FB is if the groups are public. And Twitter, does have some good threads from time to time, but I might not recommend sifting through the miles of muck to find them. (That said, I'm fond of perusing
https://twitter.com/kenshirriff and related feeds, from time to time.)
Regarding the hesitation with transistors -- heh, I can identify with that feeling I think. Let's see, what was the last thing... Maybe just motivating in general? Say, testing a new selection of components in a prototype -- like, there's a few ways I can go about doing this, change these, change those, do I test each time, do I test a whole set (multiple changes at once), do I want to do a setup to make it easier to change parts, or to take the measurements, or... And it just spirals through analysis paralysis and getting-ready-to-wait syndrome. Undiagnosed ADHD something, probably -- but these are actually very common symptoms that people have, to varying severity, and often clustering with other things too: anxiety, ASD, etc. Maybe you've felt these sorts of forces (or blocks) a long time, maybe wondered if that's just how things are, whether anyone else does it; well -- don't be afraid about it, definitely people do. Maybe get to know a few people like that, be gracious, understanding, patient, curious, share like experiences; I think it's also a common experience that, a lot of people, men especially, are raised to keep things bottled up, private, British stiff upper lip in your case, I suppose? -- but as it happens, there's no harm in being sensitive about these things. Like, maybe you indeed have undiagnosed ADHD or something, maybe something to look into -- therapy? medication? -- or maybe it's completely different, I'm just spitballing examples here. But the point is, everyone's a bit nuts, and we don't have to hide that; we do have to work through a shared social language (written, spoken, and body language, and etiquette too!), and be gracious and give benefit of a doubt and ask for clarification when needed.
No idea if any of these ramblings in turn are helpful, maybe I've touched upon a few ideas that hit home, I know you've been frustrated by various things before -- the thing with frustration is, it's a very real thing, maybe anyone else in your exact circumstances would lash out too, but maybe it really is something you've overlooked about yourself, or something you've misinterpreted about the situation; always be willing to stop, take a step back, think about it, think about yourself, do some introspection -- at the very least, you may gain an appreciation for why people might be responding to you some way, or what you're doing to influence or trigger that; often, there's a list of possibilities that you just don't know about (because of ignorance of their priorities, or ignorance of psychology in general -- brains are weird, alright?).
Oh, related, I suspect this very process (introspection) is the, for some reason rarely spoken/described, real purpose of meditation. Or anything that works like that, be it physically related too (e.g. Yoga) or religiously themed (loops of prayers?). (I mean, Yoga is religious too, but additionally I mean.) Seems to me, like, I at least can put my mind to very literal purposes, like, you want me to say a prayer ten times in a row so what, it's just words through my head, what have I actually accomplished? I suspect for most people, it's that their heads are constantly filled with thoughts, whether intrusive, undisciplined, or just completely random; forcing concentration onto something repetitive clears the mind, maybe opens one up to thoughts about oneself, maybe not necessarily pleasant thoughts at that, but those too are things we need to introspect about. Anyway, maybe that's helpful to some people, praying or meditating or whatever; but whenever I tried it, I find -- perhaps I'm too literal, and I can in fact fill my mind with just the thing being repeated, or nothing at all if in silent contemplation. It's no value to me, it does absolutely nothing. I'd rather just go right in and think about things directly!
But anyway, yeah, there's a lot of people here I suspect, who maybe never realized things about themselves, whether it's just how they really feel about things, or how others think of them or their behavior, or whether it's mental condition, or indeed disorder (diagnosed or not), and as a result, a lot of people have limited views on multitudes of subjects or experiences, and so often end up frustrated when things don't seem to go right (indeed maybe they don't ever go right..!).
Idunno. Usual disclaimers, IANAPsychiatrist, cash value three trillionths of a bitcoin, etc...
Cheers all,
Tim
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