The problem is that internet is both a library and a public place. You need library for information and for work, and internet delivers here better than anything else - almost any information is available instantly. But unlike library with silence and no distractions you're at the same time in the middle of the giant public square, where all the people from your social circle also available instantly.
It's like studying in the middle of the giant party. Of course you can plug in noise cancellation headphones and find dark corner, but you brain knows that all people you care about are right here.
If you want to share some thoughts or check on someone in the library you have no choice – you can't talk to them, or have to go outside. But internet removes this constraint.
I really believe this social aspect of reachability of people (friends, haters or some people on internet you follow) is crucial. It's not about apps or a screen time, it's about social connection (even ephemeral) that gives this gratification and makes our brains summoning the apps.
> I really believe this social aspect of reachability of people (friends, haters or some people on internet you follow) is crucial. It's not about apps or a screen time, it's about social connection (even ephemeral) that gives this gratification and makes our brains summoning the apps.
This. I've concluded the same, observing my own interaction patterns. I use very little social media (would've ditched Facebook if not for Messenger, and Instagram if not for my wife liking to post "stories"). I do, however, have a huge HN problem. But it's not a consumption problem. I feel a compulsion to comment (like here, now). If I don't do it - e.g. because I can't find anything I feel like responding to - I quickly get tired and it's easy to close all those HN tabs.
I've tried breaks from HN. Each time, I somehow ended up on Reddit. Again, not consuming, but engaging in discussions on various subreddits that tend to be more about conversation than links. The few times I tried to stop myself from that, I quickly ended up on Mastodon, posting "tweet storms" and creating more interesting conversations.
So at least in my case, it's definitely about connection. Pure consumption has its draw, but I can kick that somewhat easily. But those kinds of conversation - which, for reasons I'm not sure of, have no equivalent in meat space - have me in an iron grip.
So I've noticed — you and pjc50 are on enough threads, with interesting enough comments, that you fit into the same bit of my brain otherwise used for celebrities like Tom Scott and Scott Manly.
(Weirdly, most other high-karma accounts don't get filed like that in my head)
In my case, it's likely because I post a lot of sophisticated sounding nonsense - I'm the biological ancestor of ChatGPT :). That, plus I tend to binge on HN, which makes my comments come in bursts - I either post nothing, or comment in 15 different subthreads across 5 different submissions simultaneously. So when you spot me in one place, you'll probably see me everywhere that day.
Other high-karma accounts likely post in less bursty mode, and only write high-value comments on select topics, so you spot them less.
I recognize your account too, and while I’m way less prolific I can relate to the same conversational draw and compulsion.
I noticed I had it less when working in the office in the Bay Area where it was more possible to engage in these kinds of discussions more frequently in person.
I suspect it’s just hard to get that kind of group together in the world outside of weird circumstances so it’s easier to find it online.
Interesting. I almost never comment on HN, and if I do, it tends to be without a lot of substance, like this one.
The thought of feeling a compulsion to participate in a lot of HN comment threads is very hard for me to imagine. My general reflexive feeling towards commenting is “waste of my time”. Particularly if there’s the risk to end up in some heated argument. Those are the worst.
> Particularly if there’s the risk to end up in some heated argument. Those are the worst.
Yeah; that's why I blocked twitter on my desktop and deleted the app and saved passwords on my phone.
Fortunately, HN doesn't seem to face those with anything like the same frequency, and flagged sub-threads seem to get snipped out of comment history at least by default, so I find here to be a good place for discussion.
You might ask to get limited. My account is limited to a about three comments per hour. If I exceed I’m told to slow down. dang didn’t like one of my posts—not sure why this solution was chosen but it was.
I’ve also set my maxvisit and minaway on my profile. So I can get more things done.
I also recall him specifically asking dang to disable his account, which ended up being accomplished through either the "noprocrast" or "limit" features, though I can't find the comment (it was likely either on HN or the Fediverse).
Somewhat amusingly, I happened to catch his re-appearance on HN within 45 minutes of his resuming commenting, for whatever that has to say about the both of us.
Yup, I asked 'dang to ban me for 2-3 months, to force myself to have a break. 'dang suggested me to instead just put some large number in the 'minaway field and turn on noprocrast, achieving the same thing, and then to e-mail him if I need the setting to be reset.
I did just that, set noprocrast to a large number (IIRC, I copy-pasted MOST-POSITIVE-FIXNUM from a Lisp REPL), which amounted to banning myself for (IIRC) ~3000 years.
I planned the break to last for those 2-3 months. It actually lasted a year. In the process, I've learned a few things about myself:
- Somewhat quickly, I found myself commenting a lot on Reddit; when I tried to limit that, I ended up posting a lot on Mastodon; there were also brief moments spent on some niche discussion boards;
- My procrastination problem did not get better;
- Both Mastodon and some of the subreddits were... OK. They satiated (what I finally realized was) my need for interesting conversations on-line. At the same time, something always felt off. I eventually realized that those communities were a bit short on civility, intellectual curiosity, and related qualities. Switching to them from HN felt like switching from home-cooked meals to living on McDonald's and party food diet.
Which is why, after a year, I mailed 'dang to reset my noprocrast, and came back here - if this type of conversations are to be my drug either way, I could at least stick to a high-quality supply.
The real bonus for me is bouncing ideas off of people who can comment meaningfully on them.
That is becoming harder with time, and there are few sites which satisfy my need. I've taken largely to reading and commenting on my own. A closed discussion (or several) might also be useful.
I've found myself becoming increasingly annoyed at the general noise level on HN (and elsewhere). I'm not sure it's gotten worse here, though it doesn't seem to be improving. (There are exceptions, of course.) There's also far too often a lack of follow-through --- an exchange such as we're having here is quite rare.
I've also been doing some analytics of the HN front page over the past few days (some of that's in some recent HN comments, most is in my Mastodon stream, #HackerNewsAnalytics). I'd scraped every front page from 20 Feb 2007 to present (updated to 28 May 2023, and I can grab additional pages and update data fairly quickly).
Looking at the HN Leaders page, it's interesting to see how wildly different individual members' activity is. Quite a few of the leaders have very few front-page submissions (at least one has none at all), others have many hundreds. I notice you've had few FP submissions (though you do submit a fair number of items). I don't know quite how commenting on others' stories vs. submitting your own changes site dynamics and usage, but it's another element to consider.[1]
Mastodon occasionally clicks for me, though it's mostly with people I've known for a long time, and often across multiple platforms, typically HN & Google+ (you'd be in that group).
Mostly, though, I'm less enchanted by the state of online discussion of late.
________________________________
Notes:
1. For the curious: highest number of front-page (FP) stories from a Leaders profile is 1,183 (795 distinct sites). For 7 profiles there are no FP stories. Mean is 164.09, median is 104.5, standard deviation, 199.988. 10%ile: 3, 25%ile: 11, 75%ile: 217, 90%ile: 493.5. Distinct sites range from 0 (obviously) to 795, mean 102.77, median 53. It's quite a range.
When I quit a site, I change the recovery email to a burner, change the password to line noise, and log out. It doesn't stop the pangs, but it does stop me from logging in. I halfheartedly planned to quit HN at 10k karma, but that came and went. One of these days...
The most effective method I've found has been to start using a Google service and wait for it to be sunset.
Other than that: yeah, I've generated and set some very long (40-80+ chars) passwords which I've promptly deleted from my own records on occasion. I don't think I've swapped out email addresses though that's an option. I could see that resulting in an account being hijacked though, depending on how email addresses are handled in the account-recovery flow.
Every place I've used that, email addresses are not publicly visible. To compromise that, they'd need to guess the very long random email address and its very long random password.
I've seen instances where the password recovery workflow indicates the email address to which a reset request has been sent, or other mechanisms by which addresses may be revealed.
That's far less frequent now, and definitely not best practice.
However there may also be bugs and data breaches which reveal such information.
One way to moderate this is to remove them from your phone and just access them from a PC end of day. There is no value from 24/7 instant access to Reddit or HN (or the majority of network connected apps if you think about it), as opposed to browsing for an hour or two at the end of the day if you have some downtime.
I wholeheartedly agree. I wish it would work for me, though.
In fact, I dislike browsing Reddit and HN on my mobile, as even though Reddit Is Fun (for Reddit) and Firefox (for HN) are excellent for consuming, I'm in it for participation, so I'm limited by touch keyboards, which universally suck.
At this point I've pretty much given up. During my HN-satiated moments, I can't devise a plan that my HN-deprived self won't overcome. Case in point: the last thing I ever posted on my blog, three years and five days ago, was about setting up a HN block at a router level. I was so happy with my trick that I had to share it with the world. Guess how long that trick worked? Less than a week after publishing the blog post.
Just a quick tip - but I understand it's possibly not ideal.
You have a lot of karma, and I've noticed that the karma counter going up feels somewhat addictive. The existence of a "persona" (it's possible you think of your identity here as slightly different from your daily identity) that is only supported by your commenting also might encourage commenting.
I'd propose to nuke your account by changing the password to gibberish (or asking a significant other to put a weird password and keep it written somewhere if you reaaaally want to keep access to your account) and to use HN anonymously. Just give it a try - if it's really an issue for you this has helped me with other things.
Excellent tip. A lighter form, that I use personally for Reddit, is to not sign in persistently. I always use a "private" browser window when I log in, so the cookie isn't saved, and the next time I want to log in I have to go dig the (unmemorizable) password out of my password manager again and go through the whole flow. For me it creates just enough friction.
Can you imagine a form of online social interaction that would lead to more fruitful results?
I recently replaced my reddit/hackernews morning habit with reading poetry and a website I really like.
I identified the driving emotion, novelty-seeking. It drives almost all of my social media use. So I thought of visiting websites where content is posted daily (and pretty much only daily) but highly curated. To my surprise it worked instantly with no friction. So much so that it took me days to realize I hadn't checked hn in a while.
Like you, responding and engaging with comments was what engaged me most with reddit, and at the same time it caused the most negative and wasteful emotions. But it wasn't really about the social aspect, it was all about that orange envelope. In that case, simply logging out helped a ton.
I think plans of rigorous prohibition don't work because they're one single point of failure. Instead, addiction like behaviors are best tackled on multiple fronts: some introspection, some amount of self control/will power, some blocks/hurdles, a more positive replacement. And overseeing all those, a mindfulness practice where you can identify when your emotions arise, both that pull you to your habit (nip those in the bud) and those that drive you away from it ("I should get up", do it right away).
This is my solution for Reddit and HN - which are my "problem" sites as well.
Like just now reading this thread anonymously on my phone and then at a later time, after some more contemplation, going to my computer and writing this comment. That break does three things. First, I get to think about why I am commenting. Second, if I decide that I do still want to comment, I've had some "offline" time to think about it. Third, by the time I am back on my computer I may have just forgot about it, or find that someone had already made the same comment as I had intended.
Only about 1/5 of the time will I comment on something that - after reading on my phone - I had felt compelled to comment on.
Reddit I never look at on my phone. I came late to Reddit - maybe a year ago. But I'm now a Reddit junky and probably spend an hour a day on it. Reddit does make it easier to avoid using on one's phone. For one, they aggressively push their app and I don't install apps. Second, they don't let you look at any content they deem "sensitive" without logging in. The result is that I will only use Reddit on my computer and that for me greatly limits my time spend there as I don't view my computer as an entertainment device.
I've largely taken to the "multiple devices, only one with a sign-on" approach.
I'll read HN / linked articles from my e-ink tablet, which has Internet but for which I've severely restricted any authenticated services.
If I want to comment, I've got to 1) remember and 2) go to a Real Computer.
(Having a full keyboard available is another game-changer. Soft keyboards / touch input on a mobile device not only hugely increases my typo rate but my ability to think and compose, it's brain damage.)
My daily phone time is down by about 70% and the solution for me ended up being simply to start putting the phone out of sight and out of reach when I don't need it, with notifications turned off. In a drawer or in a bag or something.
Seems too simple to conquer this monstrous addiction, but it did. The desire to surf Reddit or HN or whatever else just dissipated over time because the thing was no longer around to distract me. If it rings I'll still generally hear it, dig it out and pick it up. I use it to browse if I'm eating alone or using the toilet 'cause I don't know what else to do with that time. (Maybe I should do nothing, or read a book, like we all did before the phonedemic.) That's about it.
The vast majority of stuff you do on the phone is better done on a PC anyway, like I write better quality messages to people now because I'm doing it on a real keyboard.
I still paw at my pocket sometimes out of habit like a trained rat. Gross. What a horrible era of history the phonedemic was, I'm glad it's coming to an end for me.
I made the move from Facebook > Reddit > HackerNews for similar reasons.
I've been looking for the next step.
Is it
> magazines?
> books?
> phone calls?
> irl networking?
It’s all of these, yes, but I still open HN every time I get some down time. While it feels very useful to me, I feel that I would be better served with a more condensed version of what I’m after here.
It's ironic that whilst the Great Benefit of the Internet was supposed to be the elimination of gatekeepers ... I'm finding that the gatekeeping provided by traditional publishing is actually quite useful.
Much of what I read is books or magazine articles. Much of that published well before the Internet age.
I've been attempting to track most-salient items as well through what I call "BOTI", or best of the interval, a sort of round-robin file (think 43-folders, described in David Allen's Getting Things Done), where I keep track of the n best items I've encountered in the previous interval (day, week, month, year, etc.). The key is that the list is limited by both time period covered and slots on the list, and it rolls over when completed or filled.
My success in implementing that has been less than stellar, though I'm finding that making the system more flexible means I use it more consistently, even if it's far from the ideal description.
Another useful feature I've discovered is the Einkbro browser's "Save to EPub" feature. This can save not only an individual article to a file, but multiple articles to a file. I'm finding that my "BOTI-Jan-2023" is actually more of a "BOTI-2023" (or at least "BOTI-2023H1"), but it's becoming an impressive document.
It's also making clear just how much online content I'm attempting to read, as it's running (depending on formatting) about 400--500 pages of text. Which makes my lack of actually keeping up with my appetite somewhat less dispiriting.
(Though I'm still Far Too Easily Distracted by Teh Hawt New Shinay....)
As I mentioned in another comment, I took that next step. The replacement for me was articles from a website whose content I really appreciate, and reading a daily poem.
The problem with, for example books is that they might not fulfill that craving for something novel. The book is already there, and I already have a daily reading habit, it doesn't interfere with my brain going "I wonder what's new in X site".
At the end of the day it comes to quality before quantity. More curated content can lead to you engaging more fully with it, which means you pull away satisfied after a shorter amount of time.
The next step could be language learning via Duolingo (which is also highly addictive) or browsing memes on 9gag.
Maybe getting a small phone like the iPhone Mini is a solution, because while it does phone things (music playing, photos) great, the small screen discourages social media and web surfing. Add a book case to the phone so you only see the screen when you decide to see it. This may remove the need to constantly look at the phone.
Reading the comments here (and the short article) /exactly/ reminded me of usenet and bitnet[feeds]. I am glad I kicked that habit in the late '80s/early '90s, it made it simple to avoid later social media.
It's not just a public place, but a very specific type of public place: a shopping mall. Were it just a public square with people from your social circle, then it wouldn't be as dangerous.
As a shopping mall, it's full of advertisements, slot machines, games, fast food, sales clerks trying to lead you into the place they want you to be, etc. But it is also the place where almost all your friends are, and almost all the books and newspapers are.
It's hard to leave it because it has valuable things inside (even your office might be inside the mall), but it's also hard to stay in without having your agency taken away by everyone competing for your attention. You could get a book from the bookstore, read it and talk to your friends about it, but it's hard to do that in a mall where everything is designed to take you to their stores, entertainment centers, etc.
Not to mention that slot machines are notoriously addictive and most apps that aren't games have been incentivized both by advertisers or in lieu of additional advertiser revenue to include variations of slot machines in their feature lists because that attracts attention and keeps attention.
I disagree that it’s a problem and with your analogy. The internet is more like a giant sprawling suburb where one house is studying advanced maths and the other is throwing a keg party. Sure it might disturb you to have neighbors like that but you have your own space.
Perhaps my analogy with studing at the party was not perfect. The point was that your friends are here and now, not that someone is making noises and having fun.
You're right from the structural/organizational perspective. If you visit astronomy forums and not 4chan, houses analogy holds true.
But my analogy comes from how my brain perceives reachability of other humans (especially one I care about). When I'm "in house", it takes a lot of effort to meet someone and have the human connection (i.e. you should agree on time and date, arrange the meeting, exit the house, reach the meeting point). But internet makes this almost instant – just open messenger/social media and here they're are, virtually always online.
IRL we typically have multiple degrees of separation from other people/things. You can be separated by distance/time. You can be separated by people, for example to have a party with Jon, you need to coordinate with Bob. Things like noise tend to obey the R squared law.
With the internet nearly everything is a single instantaneous hop away. The good things, the bad things. The same amount of effort is needed to access it all.
> I really believe this social aspect of reachability of people (friends, haters or some people on internet you follow) is crucial. It's not about apps or a screen time, it's about social connection (even ephemeral) that gives this gratification and makes our brains summoning the apps.
I think this is a bug, not a feature. The mobile phone is to sociality as cocaine is to dopamine. It's super-charged, it's way out of our ancestral environment, and we don't see it as harmful only because we don't have the research yet. But we will.
I might visit Reddit and Hacker News, not because the app summoned me via notifications, but because my brain summoned the app, after just a 15 minute hiatus.
The issue is that browser and certain apps are available to me on the phone instantly.
And there are no good controls to help me me MINDFUL.
What I want from the phone (I use an iPhone):
- Upon every unlock, or upon every app open, I should receive a popup asking me why I want to use the app/phone.
- I can enter whatever I want in that popup, but that writing exercise of a few words will help me realize if I am making a mistake of using the crack-gadget too often.
- I should be able to white-list apps.
- I should be able to see my logs all in one place for later review and reflection.
Hey, I'm the author of this small post. I was surprised to see it on HN.
> The issue is that browser and certain apps are available to me on the phone instantly.
I think you are right, and it has to do with decreasing UX friction: quick unlocks, overall performance, and muscle memory. I try to add some layers of friction, such as disabling tap to wake, or forcing password unlocks, or even browsers that offer a good but less smooth experience (eInkBro on Android could be one to try.
Overall, I think it helps me to go through apps occasionally and ask myself, “Is it an infinity app? Could I use this forever without content exhausting itself, or a purpose never being fulfilled?”
It's a demanding exercise in deliberate usage, and it can't always succeed (at least for me, I'm not that strong.)
I wish there were a good AOSP eInk phone to still use all the necessary everyday apps, but slower. The new Assistive Access simplified display mode seems very interesting on iOS from a UX perspective:
Adding friction with time-based bandwidth choking/restrictions I included as a feature when creating SocialsDetox, albeit this was primarily intended for video-based sites/apps - to increase frustration with them (poor user experience) rather than outright blocking. If you think it would help, and are happy to be a tester for expanding the functionality to other infinity apps/sites (e.g. Reddit), drop me an email (link in profile) and I'll look to get something setup to see if it works for you/your intended use case.
"Always allowed apps appear normally", others are grayed out. When tapped they present a fullscreen "time out!" screen. You can ignore the limit from that screen but it presents you options and requires two or three taps so it kind of "gets in the way". I presume your input box could fit in there, although personally I think I would end up filling it with nonsense, or it would always be the same.
There's a bunch of analytics, like first pick up app. I don't think there is about overrides.
It can sync across Apple devices so you can't cheat by using another one.
Combine that with home screens + Focus modes and you can get in control.
(also "apps" above can be websites too in Screen Time")
Two habits I have implemented in the last few months:
1. I appended "iknowwhatiamdoing" to the existing alphanumeric password to unlock my phone, and disabled fingerprint unlock. I have to type that every time I want to use the device.
2. I've started asking myself "Does my phone need to remain powered on?" The answer is usually no; then I shut it off completely. This adds a couple minutes of delay / friction next time I feel the compulsion to use it.
Now, I routinely go an entire day with my phone shut off. Sometimes entire weekends, depending what's going on. I think it's been good for me!
Edit: I also realized that it's hazardous to use my phone as a wake-up alarm, because then you start every day half-awake with the info-drug delivery device already in your hand. It's too easy to stay in bed and open up Youtube. So, I've switched (back, after 20 years!) to using a dedicated alarm clock.
One of the worst decisions I have made, in my life, was purchasing Apollo for reddit, that's how good the app is. I have scrolled about 40km with my current reddit account over 40 days. Honestly, I don't want to know how many total.
I have tried setting up screentime, but I need a hard lock mode...
Apple allows you to setup focus modes with whitelists that use location and time, that might do the trick.
For the extension to handle prompting you before you go to a site, it has to know you went to a site and then show the prompt on it.
It would be nice if browser permissions were expanded on in greater detail with newer apis to handle different cases (and if Firefox and Safari could join in supporting unified standards here for privacy reasons), but for now such permission is required.
Chrome offers the ability to limit that per designated sites.
You can use Apple own shortcuts app, so you decide if you want to give permissions for the browser or not. I even think you could make your own automation for the browser if you so wanted.
Shuffle your app icons to different locations on the the home screen. Added bonus to folders.
Because all apps are in the same locations your muscles memory kicks in. If you shift your apps regularly, you actually have to hunt for the app disrupting the psychological behaviour conditioning.
It also gives you a mini panic attack but allows you to break free of the whole close app, reopen same app syndrome.
Focus Modes let you have different Home screens at different times of day. That can give the brain different context moments that kick muscle memory in different directions.
I found that I spent more time on Reddit and Twitter than I wanted to. Scrolling on those apps was becoming a coping mechanism for avoiding unpleasant tasks. So I decided that I could only use those apps on a certain day of the week. On that day, I am free to go crazy and scroll all I want but outside of those days, I don't allow myself to open them at all. The first 2 weeks were pretty hard but once I got over the hump, I've gotten used to the new normal. There are still some days where I struggle not to fall off the wagon.
This experience has taught me that you can reset your brain to whatever normal you want. It's hard but doable. I'm not someone that has a ton of willpower but have managed to keep to this for the last couple of months.
I've found Work and Personal focus modes on iPhone very helpful for cutting down on two of my mindless habits: checking [social media app] during work hours, and [work IM client] at evenings and weekends. The modes are scheduled to automatically kick in at the right time, and so far, so good.
It's a pretty simple setup: one set of home screens for each mode, silencing non-work notifications during Work focus, and snoozing work email during Personal focus. Although writing this, I realise I ought to look at blocking Reddit and HN websites...
It helped me a lot with my addiction to Instagram and the one second breathing helps put things into perspective. I end up (90%) of the time not opening up the app after my one sec.
simplest thing to do is to just put your phone away in a drawer in another room. Keep any distracting gadgets out of where you work, sleep or spend time with other people.
There's really no need for yet another app or trick, just putting distracting devices out of reach is enough of a hassle to only use it when you actually need to.
I'm prefacing this by saying I'm not affiliated in any way, but I found it very humorous that you basically described the app One Sec (iPhone only I think) to a tee. It uses uses shortcuts to put a barrier of your choice before opening specific apps, writing down the intention being one of them.
The concept is pretty great (I actually tried building something similar using shortcuts before it existed) but in the end I found that it doesn't really work for me unfortunately. When my brain decides it wants to look at something, delay isn't enough to make it reconsider.
So ymmv but I think it's worth to try it out.
Its not the phone. Its the screen. It could have been in any form factor - it was in another, less usable, form factor. The portability just clinched it for billions and made the issue of the screen more pressing than ever.
The screen is the window to the matrix, our collective digital space.
That matrix is something incredibly powerful. We have not tamed it. We don't even have a theory of taming it. A psychological, political, economic framework that does not drift into toxic, rapacious abominations.
We need to learn to live this dual existence as individuals.
We need to learn to build sane digital communities.
Admitting we have a really serious problem is the first step.
Theories around mindfulness are a good start, don't you think? What is missing?
I have some thoughts here. Traditional meditation practice is accepting of the tendency of the mind to wander. Such is the nature of our minds. Over time, we strive to improve our ability to focus / concentrate / redirect our attention.
But when it comes to socio-technical design we need more than infinite patience around distractions. We probably want and need to evaluate how we do. Tor example:
- how often are we distracted?
- for how long?
- why? (is it simply due to our 'wandering' brains? And/or it is more causally connected to environmental factors, such as attention-stealing devices?)
- what interventions work for certain kinds of distractions?
Sometimes people are drawn to the notions of metrics. There is value in metrics; there are clear mathematical ways to calculate them. Collecting, them on the other hand, can be quite challenging.
But let's not limit ourselves to 'metrics' in the quantitative sense. The reason is obvious: some of our most important goals are not easily put into quantitative terms. Luckily, with vast improvements in text processing, we need not limit ourselves to traditional metrics based on scoring. We must think bigger and broader.
With a good set of evaluation mechanisms (again, not just metrics), we don't have to fall back on some indefinite mindset about 'doing better'; we can actually demand that products and services be designed and adhere to basic principles. These principles will probably be somewhat subjective and culturally contingent, but that doesn't discount that they can also be grounded in neuroscience, broadly accepted notions of morality, and tunable according to cultural and situational factors.
I tend think the transition to living online is basically a repeat of the transition to living in cities. That is, from villages to cities is the same as cities to online. There's more of everything - people, stuff, contact, density, access, coincidences. I wonder if we can learn anything from the previous transition.
Yes, i really dig this analogy. It also shows that the transition is potentially a game changer of extraordinary significance given the immensity of that global digital city. Even lingustic barriers will soon be a thing of the past.
Its interesting to note that cities were despised from their very beginnings and even today many people cant tolerate them.
But many many social inventions may provide interesting and useful analogies: zoning rules, police, firefighters, quiet areas and parks, thoroughfares. Also, the privacy one enjoys in the countryside is reduced but not eliminated - despite the density people still have private spaces.
ghetto and fenced community are not that great. If you deal with unrest be sure to build large boulevard to replace the narrow streets. Those are more efficient to bring troops quickly and harder to barricade.
I am able to focus on work but even when I am super busy with work I will spend a lot of time on mobile. So it doesn't interfere with work but does interfere with health and overall well-being.
I have removed all social media apps from my device including Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I don't use media streaming apps on mobile like YouTube.
I do spend a lot of time reading on mobile that is helpful but it does train my focus to constantly context switch and reduces my ability to focus for non-appealing tasks for a long period like reading books.
Only thing that has helps is putting the device away but banking apps, TOTP, etc. makes it difficult.
But I have unsuccessfully tried DND, gray screen, etc.
There is research that reducing mobile usage by an hour a day improves wellbeing. But I don't know how to tackle this situation in a sustainable manner.
SelfControl for Mac is ridiculously effective. I just leave my mobile phone in another room. TOTP can work with a password manager. I can walk to another room to log into my bank account as needed.
Are there any apps or setting which reduce the saturation of colours? I notice that in many publicly available screens, such as in gyms, the saturation is extremely high drawing my attention to it. I find that this is also the case on my iPhone and Mac.
Certainly I can go monotone. But not desaturate partially.
There is an add-on called unhook that allows you to disable almost everything on youtube.
I turned off shorts, recommendations, the home page even the comments. Now all I see is my subsriptions page. It really stopped me from wasting hours hopping videos.
It also workes on firefox mobile, I stopped using the default youtube app.
Unfortunately, it doesn't disable shorts from the subscriptions tab. Which is really annoying now that all my preferred creators are making shorts, and it tries to suck me into doomscrolling.
I started using Chrome plugin RYS that does something similar - where youtube functions but recommendations are removed. It's helped consumption dramatically. I'm kinda wondering if I need to do the same for reddit and hacker news where links/articles would work but the mainpage / subreddit pages wouldn't.
Is miss this insight from the iOS screentime feature: The thing often reports: More time spend than last week, average 2.5 hours a day.
Yeah that's fine, but if half is Apple Maps because I had to drive somewhere far away, this result is meaningless.
I indeed also just want to know how much time I spend in soul sucking apps. Or rather, in soul sucking websites because I feel that using websites for ie reddit are what always keeps me there for a short time before annoyance allows me to quit (thank you reddit).
When I'm home my cellphone becomes a "home phone" and is put on the charger in the bedroom where I don't touch it. My average screen on time is single digit minutes for the day.
I screw around here and on other sites more but I can tackle that next.
] Stanton Peele argued that some AA groups apply the disease model to all problem drinkers, whether or not they are "full-blown" alcoholics.[132] Along with Nancy Shute, Peele has advocated that besides AA, other options should be readily available to those problem drinkers who can manage their drinking with the right treatment.
While what you quoted is not incorrect, and worth pointing out, the analogy stands. In AA, you only get the chip if you abstain from drinking. The chip (a little coin) is an all-or-nothing deal.
In AA, we do get people attending who just want to control their drinking. They're usually sent by the courts (in the US, at least) due to some misdemeanor they commited while drunk, as though those of us battling ourselves are supposed to teach some 20-something how to be responsible adult because their parents failed them. Sometimes one of those court-sent people finds out they have a real problem, and end up sticking around. However, for the most part, the rest are there for a few weeks because they have to be, we sign their slips, and never see them again. We don't give out chips for that.
Food addiction is a better example I think. You have to learn to moderate, you can't just go cold turkey.
I am sure AA doesn't bother with moderation because abstaining is simply that much more effective.
Even if you went on a month long screen detox in the woods you are going to "relapse" at some point when you get back. The AA model is just not going to work in this situation.
My disagreement is about the appropriateness of the AA analogy to the author's point.
The author asserts "If that’s the case, the only healthy screen time is no screen time. Zero."
That is almost impossible these days. We increasingly require smart phones such that NOT having/using one is difficult, even for those who don't want one. Important information and services are moving to the internet, making a non-internet life more difficult. Yet the author wants use to consider that as a viable solution!
AA promotes abstinence, and supports people who want to maintain abstinence. As I often go for months without drinking alcohol, I know that there is still a lot one can do without drinking.
What would you do if your company required you to drink alcohol to work, your kid's school required you to drink alcohol to check on your kid's status, a restaurant required you to do a shot to get a menu, and you couldn't rent a bike without first drinking even more alcohol?
And that's why I don't like the author's use of an essentially impossible solution as the comparison.
While Weight Watcher's and other diet plans don't say "abstain from all food", which of course is impossible.
WW specifically uses a points-based system so that some foods, like "leafy greens, carrots, tomatoes, green beans, asparagus, onions, broccoli and radishes" have zero points, and can be consumed without limit. (Compare that to a calorie-based diet.)
By the WW analogy, some screen time, like logging into your bank to check on the accounts, would have zero points while others, like writing comments on HN :), would have points, setting a limit to one's daily use.
Which seems to map well to what the author is proposing ("parameters to evaluate quality, not quantity, of the time spent staring at your screens").
I also don't like "Go on, spend 4 hours on an app. Just make sure you decided to—and that you feel those 4 hours are life well spent." because if the author really believes the alcoholism analogy is true, then it's saying the author either doesn't believe any of the readers actually have a screen time problem, or believes it's okay for an alcoholic to spend 4 hours drinking at the bar with friends, so long if it feels like a life well spent. And something similar for the crack cocaine user.
P.S. In researching the Weight Watcher's/food analogy I found out that the existence of "food addition" is under debate, where the 'language of addiction' is used to explain one's feelings and provide a means of communicating distress and helplessness, rather than being an addition in the same way that drugs are addictive. See https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-018-0203-9 . With my daily allotment of Internet Watchers points nearly gone, I'll not research the scholarly views of "internet addition".
A few weeks ago I made an effort to connect more with local reality and less with the internet and its mountain of suck. To that end I removed all social media apps from my phone (I only had one), and disabled the news feed, search, and browser. I still have all the features I find actually useful, like weather, maps, alarms, calendar, etc.
The first few times you mindlessly look at your phone after doing something like that are a real eye opener. You pull it out, unlock it, and stare at a screen full of nothing and ask yourself why you took it out in the first place.
My mood has improved significantly, and I find I suddenly have time for all those things I've wanted to get done but "haven't had the time for". Without a mindless dopamine trickle to default to I am forced to engage in actually meaningful and satisfying activity most of the time to alleviate boredom.
Do not kid yourself that the behaviors these things induce aren't intended. Marketers don't care about your quality of life, or the health of society itself, they just want your money and they will manipulate you into doom scrolling a bunch of barely interesting bullshit in order to shove ads down your throat without a second thought.
> A few weeks ago I made an effort to connect more with local reality and less with the internet and its mountain of suck. To that end I removed all social media apps from my phone..
Don't you find that a lot of groups, such as your local running club organise over Facebook? Its those groups and even just organising a BBQ with friends that keep me on Facebook.
They probably do, but I haven't used Facebook at all aside from a brief period in the 2010s. If they organize on Facebook, and I don't have any other way of finding out about them or otherwise contacting them, I just don't bother.
I am willing to accept some inconvenience in order to be aligned with my goals, which I am learning puts me very much at odds with the average person.
Also, if you don't have Facebook and want to go to this running club you would be forced to actually befriend someone to such a degree in the club that can keep you updated that has Facebook. It can't just be the "convenient" disposable Facebook relationship.
For me, without social media I pretty much miss out knowing about all the local art shows that I wasn't going to go to even if I did know about them. I don't get the invite to the friend of a friend's dinner party that I would have made up an excuse for why I can't go. I also miss out on seeing pictures of all these events that I didn't find worth my time to see with my own eyes.
We have really distorted the meaning of inconvenience to have something to do with the lack of high volume, unsatisfying, shallow experiences.
As if having sex is an "inconvenient" type of porn.
The best part though is I have actual experiences that aren't mediated by the judgement if the experience is worth someone else knowing about the experience the very moment after I have the experience.
Yes, but phones are not those things that are okay, unless they're very well-manicured.
It's not mindless, it's far more insidious than that. There are people vying for your attention. They are not doing it mindlessly, and they are not doing it for your benefit.
Almost every mindless activity mankind has ever known hasn't required a phone-sized computer with a touch screen, but somehow that's nearly the only one people are doing anymore. I think that speaks to the effectiveness of the algorithms.
But to your point: Amen. Spend some time getting bored. It fixed a lot for me in the motivation department.
Apropos of this topic, I'm in the middle of reading Dopamine Nation, recommended reading for everyone. Just about anything that gives us pleasure has the potential to be addictive, and unfortunately our entire system is based on getting us to indulge in what makes us feel "good", ergo addictive behaviors are highly encouraged. The tech industry is no exception as UX is generally predicated on making us feel "delighted" i.e. addicted.
I knew a guy at Google (name withheld, for obvious reasons), who would put his phone on the floor face up while in the gym doing pushups. This way, if an email came in, he would know instantly.
While in this case the particular 3 questions do not help, it's nice that these links regularly pop up on HN, at which point I notice that I have been abusing it again...
Great article. I myself am completely unable to limit my consumption of novel information input by “willpower” or whatever. I’m 18 yo, and the internet, programming, HN, reddit and all are too damn interesting, unnaturally, too much. My brain is completely wired to seek novel information input and surge dopamine. I was an addict of some other thing before too, and I know this is %100 dopamine addiction. The only solution that I found to work, that lets my brain “breathe” and brain fog to clear is restricting access.
I set the password of my iPhone to a 20-digit number which I surely won’t be able to memorize while setting it up. I put all my contacts to my Emergency Contacts so that I can call them without unlocking my phone. I’m logged in to WhatsApp Web on my iPad, I use it from there. My iPad has Screen Time on, its settings are controlled from my iPhone. All domains except some necessary government etc. domains are blocked, and new app installing is disabled on the iPad. After setting up Screen Time, I asked my brother to enter a random password for the Screen Time password and forget it.
I created an iOS Shortcut on my iPhone which dictates my password[2] only if I’m X meters away from banned locations (home & school), because every once in a while I need to unlock my phone to do something. I go on a walk/run and unlock my phone in that case. The shortcut is a widget, it works while my phone is locked.
I also time-locked[1] this password to 24 hours (you can only open it after a decryption process which takes 24 hours) and saved it to my DO server in its locked form, because Shortcuts very rarely doesn’t work. I use my server to decrypt if needed.
My computer’s (NixOS) password is time-locked too, as I’m currently still in school and shouldn’t be using it (Little time left to university exam). After the exam, I plan to lock it down to 6 hours a day and writing a browser extension which uses an LLM to close the current tab if I’m not working on my project X and instead say, doomscrolling HN.
2: It doesn’t dictate the password digits for security reasons. It plays a different notification tone for each digit while I’m entering the password. I memorized which sound is which.
> It’s about whether your phone is a needy, attention-sucking vampire.
What else outcomes might be awaited if "the phone" is running non-free software? I am exactly that kind of person whose healthy screen time of snoop phones is zero because of some attention obstructions - but I have no fatigue issues after heavy sessions behind a screen which is powered by Debian without opening any websites requiring JS.
No social media on the phone, computer only; in fact, turn off all notifications not from live human beings trying to contact me personally.
It seems as if the big social media sites are beginning to appreciate this as well? Seems like the formerly "phone only" sites are getting web interfaces...
I don’t stare at my ‘phone’ while my soul expires, I read the ‘newspaper’, group message my family multiple times a day, research something deeper interesting on Wikipedia or a forum, interesting poasts on HN.
I believe heavily in moderation. It’s a virtue after all and although many pleasures in life are extremely difficult to balance by nature, I think it is possible if you start to understand yourself more to see why you escape to a device.
Also I wrote a book on this topic and love sending copies to HN readers who struggle with this problem. Send me an email and I’ll send you a copy.
Back in the dial-up days, my family's internet account was shaped by time. We had thirty hours of internet usage per month.
We had an notebook where you had to log what hours you intended to use it.
I always thought it an effective way that I have now adapted. I keep a notebook full of things I want to read or learn about. Especially if you have a partner to keep you accountable.
It also helps my children learn to use technology instead of it using them.
I like the parallels with AA. Also, re: not how much time you spend on a phone, rather how you use it:
Good uses: listening to good literature on audio books, reading ebooks, reading long form articles on Substack, listening to a good lecture on YouTube.
Bad uses: having any notifications turned on except for specific family members, consuming addictive content of Tic Toc, FB, etc.
EDIT: and use freedom.to tools to limit fun and sometimes useful things like HN and Twitter.
Here's an idea: an app that forces you to solve a fairly complex mathematical puzzle every time you try to open any social media app. This is lifted from Larry Niven's Ringworld sci-fi novels (specifically, a wirehead addict uses this approach to limit their consumption).
Mobile devices don't seem to make this very easy to do, though, you need a app wrapper of some kind which seems fairly case-specific.
The same analogy applies for any screen usage - is the time I’m spending on my TV, computer or tablet disrespecting my time? Dark patterns for attention exist on all screens, they are just more prevalent on phones that are accessible to you all the time.
Those things can be solved in their own way though. A dumb phone can let you check in on your partner, you can use your old smartphone as a dedicated GPS and if you're taking photos with a dedicated camera (which you'll have to if you don't have a smartphone) editing them on mobile is simply not an option. You're better off editing on a laptop or tablet.
Isn't the strength of addiction inversely correlated with how healthy it is?
Or put another way, how the fuck does one begin to like intense outdoor activity at all, much less to the point of it replacing a social media problem (including HN)?
There's only one somewhat reliable "trick" I know that makes people do these kinds of switches: falling in love, or at least getting a crush on, someone who's already doing the healthier thing. Obviously, this method is only available for a small segment of the population and mostly for a few years.
Hiking is just fun. Like, actually fun. If you set up the mental barrier that exercise is bad and sucks and feels bad, then sure, now it's bad.
If you're super unfit it might suck, much like sitting down and bashing out some cool scripts in Python would suck if you had no programming knowledge, but that's fixable for most.
See everyone tells me gaming is unhealthy but I loved doing it so much that I simply became a computer professional so that people can't stop me from gaming. It's a time honored tradition to game during downtime in many IT departments.
Seems a highly addictive and on paper "unhealthy addiction" was in this case quite gainful for me.
It's like studying in the middle of the giant party. Of course you can plug in noise cancellation headphones and find dark corner, but you brain knows that all people you care about are right here.
If you want to share some thoughts or check on someone in the library you have no choice – you can't talk to them, or have to go outside. But internet removes this constraint.
I really believe this social aspect of reachability of people (friends, haters or some people on internet you follow) is crucial. It's not about apps or a screen time, it's about social connection (even ephemeral) that gives this gratification and makes our brains summoning the apps.