I put parental controls on my phone to block all but only the most vital apps. Only my wife knows the password to unlock. Maybe something similar will help you out.
Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?
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Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?
#12Get a new bank. If the bank is a part of a significant problem for your life you should just swap it out for a bank that will let you access your accounts through a browser as needed. Toss your smart phone and only use the dumb phone.
Can you advise a bank account? I have three, currently, and they all require a smartphone to use them.
My GitHub account now also requires a smartphone to log in for 2fa, which I was required to setup on my account (they do have SMS functionality, but not in my country).
More and more, a smartphone is simply inescapable as a form of identity. It sucks - but the backup form of identity is a phone number, which sucks even more.
Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?
#13These points should help -
1) Do you have someone near whom you can trust with social passwords? If yes, great. Ask them to change all your passwords and then you get 1 cheat day where the person will enter the password again and delete app(s) at the end of the day.
2) Change color to monochrome in iPhone settings.
3) These things should pretty much sort out. If you are still using browser etc and can’t get rid of the iphone, go buy a basic phone which can run your bare minimum banking apps.
4)For 2FA, use Authy. It does have a desktop app.
Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?
#14[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?
#15I put parental controls on my phone to block all but only the most vital apps. Only my wife knows the password to unlock. Maybe something similar will help you out.
My wife already knows all the passwords to my banking apps and I'm pretty much locked out all the time anyways. All I have to do is just go to work. It's great.
Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?
#16Get a new bank. If the bank is a part of a significant problem for your life you should just swap it out for a bank that will let you access your accounts through a browser as needed. Toss your smart phone and only use the dumb phone.
Can you advise a bank account? I have three, currently, and they all require a smartphone to use them. My GitHub account now also requires a smartphone to log in for 2fa, which I was required to setup on my account (they do have SMS functionality, but not in my country). More and more, a smartphone is simply inescapable as a form of identity. It sucks - but the backup form of identity is a phone number, which sucks e…
What country are you in? In the US I am beyond happy with Charles Schwab. I’ve been using them for ~10 years and I can’t think of a reason why I would switch.
Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?
#17Get a new bank. If the bank is a part of a significant problem for your life you should just swap it out for a bank that will let you access your accounts through a browser as needed. Toss your smart phone and only use the dumb phone.
Can you advise a bank account? I have three, currently, and they all require a smartphone to use them. My GitHub account now also requires a smartphone to log in for 2fa, which I was required to setup on my account (they do have SMS functionality, but not in my country). More and more, a smartphone is simply inescapable as a form of identity. It sucks - but the backup form of identity is a phone number, which sucks e…
I have only ever used one bank (Wells Fargo) my entire life, so I am not a good candidate to suggest banks. I am satisfied with Wells Fargo though, for what it's worth. I can log in through the browser.
Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?
#18One thing that helps for me is to reduce the supply of information. I disabled as many feeds and suggestions as possible, if necessary with ad blockers. My Facebook and LinkedIn feeds are literally empty. I've been aggressively cutting notifications and incoming emails from all sources. I also interact far less on social media, so I rarely get pulled back in. I have fewer and fewer ways to kill time online.
On the phone itself, all notifications are off except for instant messages. I don't have any social media apps, only utilities. There's nothing to do on my phone anymore.
I found that MacOS' screen time notification is a great incentive to step away from the computer. My average screen time is a few hours less than it was a few weeks ago.
You should also pay attention to what triggers a look at your phone and work on that. Learning to fight the muscle reflex os important too.
Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?
#19Buy a shitty phone. Also, this technique from dealing with cigarette addiction would help: change your brand. If you use iPhone, buy a budget $100 android with the smallest screen possible. If you use Android, buy an old iPhone 5. It'll work for banking apps but should be annoying enough that you won't use it so much.
Next, what is the website/app you most want to quit? Make quitting that your keystone. Fully commit to quitting that one website. For me it was reddit, and I haven't used it once in 4 or 5 months.
Then, uninstall all apps and switch to firefox. Install the leechblock addon, put a delay on all websites you want to stop using.
Bonus: switch to nextdns and block sites at the DNS level.
If any of that sounds like too much work, you need to ask whether you're really serious about tackling your addiction. Are you really serious about this? Yes? Then it's time for serious action. Small actions won't cut it. You need to send your subconscious a clear message that this is important to you.
Also, consider what kind of information you spend time absorbing. You are what you read/watch. Get some books on habit formation, willpower, psychology, read those in your downtime. The Power of Habit and Atomic Habits are great.
Re: Ask HN: Mobile phone addiction help?
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you advise a bank account? I have three, currently, and they all require a smartphone to use them. My GitHub account now also requires a smartphone to log in for 2fa, which I was required to setup on my account (they do have SMS functionality, but not in my country). More and more, a smartphone is simply inescapable as a form of identity. It sucks - but the backup form of identity is a phone number, which sucks e…
I have only ever used one bank (Wells Fargo) my entire life, so I am not a good candidate to suggest banks. I am satisfied with Wells Fargo though, for what it's worth. I can log in through the browser.
I'm from Europe. There's all kinds is new regulations around 2fa for banking apps that came out last year, logging in seems to absolutely require a phone now, and all my accounts use an app to do it.