Ask HN: How do you avoid dopamine addiction on social media?

#1

Post by hubraumhugo » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 5:26 PM UTC

After posting on social media, I found myself refreshing my notifications quite often. Do you know that feeling? If so, how do you overcome it? What works quite well for me:

- An app that blocks distracting sites (I'm using Freedom)

- Change that pattern by changing my habits (e.g. excluding my phone from the morning routine)

Edit: A complete deletion is not really an option since I enjoy Twitter, Reddit, HN to stay up-to-date with the tech world :)

Re: Ask HN: How do you avoid dopamine addiction on social media?

#2

Post by Overtonwindow » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 5:40 PM UTC

Delete the apps. I think out of sight, out of mind, is a good tactic. Isolate social media to one computer/tablet and then just keep limiting your time until you're using it less, and less. Getting the apps out of reach was a big first step for me.

Re: Ask HN: How do you avoid dopamine addiction on social media?

#3

Post by black_13 » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 5:42 PM UTC

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: How do you avoid dopamine addiction on social media?

#4

Post by achenet » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 5:44 PM UTC

Avoid social media.

Get lots of sleep, meditate, and eat well, as this helps.

See also the Huberman lab podcast on dopamine for more ideas.

Re: Ask HN: How do you avoid dopamine addiction on social media?

#5

Post by trentprynn » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 5:44 PM UTC

Overtonwindow wrote: post #2

Delete the apps. I think out of sight, out of mind, is a good tactic. Isolate social media to one computer/tablet and then just keep limiting your time until you're using it less, and less. Getting the apps out of reach was a big first step for me.

I’d go one step further and recommend actually deleting the account — non-binding actions such as temporary app removal (in my experience) have not worked. If I want to stop doing something it’s always been helpful to me to have some sort of “committing” action attached

edit: this is if the goal is full stoppage — limitation based goals have always been very difficult for me

Re: Ask HN: How do you avoid dopamine addiction on social media?

#6

Post by HalcyonicStorm » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 5:45 PM UTC

Overtonwindow wrote: post #2

Delete the apps. I think out of sight, out of mind, is a good tactic. Isolate social media to one computer/tablet and then just keep limiting your time until you're using it less, and less. Getting the apps out of reach was a big first step for me.

This also worked for me. I deleted the Instagram app from my phone. If I want to see it, I can look at it from the phone browser. The experience is just barely not smooth enough to break the addiction.

I also keep the Nintendo Switch nearby. I've come to allow myself to take breaks, and I play Dead Cells for a level. Its the perfect amount of time to rest while also not completely losing context.

The other thing is that regular exercise for an hour everyday seems to improve my social media addiction. I feel better overall so I don't need the hit from social media.

Re: Ask HN: How do you avoid dopamine addiction on social media?

#7

Post by Apreche » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 5:46 PM UTC

If you delete an app, you'll forget all about it. You won't miss it at all.

If you don't delete the app, really really cut back on your subscriptions/follows to just the essentials. The less content, the less time you spend doomscrolling.

Also, on platforms like Twitter, I turn of retweets. I only see tweets directly tweeted by people I follow.

Re: Ask HN: How do you avoid dopamine addiction on social media?

#8

Post by polio » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 5:46 PM UTC

I try to be opinionated about which patterns of usage are both fun and productive, e.g. noticing how /r/all is full of unsatisfying material produces a conscious countervailing force to any subconscious desire to go there. I still use reddit a lot, but I do so by going to specific subreddits, e.g. by typing in programming.reddit.com instead of going to the generic entrypoint and allowing reddit's ranking and recommendation infrastructure do its thing. Sure, I'm still susceptible to it w.r.t ranking within subreddits and ranking within comments, but many of my subreddits of choice are smaller and so I end up seeing most of the recent content anyway.

Twitter and Facebook are too recommendation-intensive for me to use them on a daily basis. I follow a pretty small set of people on Twitter and my feed is still full of "people my followers interact with" and "things I might like". Facebook groups are usually too big for even the group-internal ranking to be very honest, although increasingly I find that going to Facebook for specific groups (similarly to going to reddit for specific subreddits) can be effective (at surfacing memes about new urbanism or Brian Eno).

Re: Ask HN: How do you avoid dopamine addiction on social media?

#9

Post by raspyberr » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 5:47 PM UTC

There are no cool tricks to improving yourself. If you want to stop eating sugar then stop eating it. If you want to stop drinking alcohol stop drinking it. If you want to get fit start exercising. If you want to stop being addicted to social media then delete it. You can make all the excuses about how you need it to stay in contact with friends, or deals on the local market, or find events in groups but in the end if you delete it you'll continue living and everything will be fine. If you think it's affecting you negatively, get rid of it, and do the myriad of other things that exist in this world.

Re: Ask HN: How do you avoid dopamine addiction on social media?

#10

Post by KerryJones » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 5:47 PM UTC

I use ideas taken from behavioral psychology book, Nudge, but in reverse.

For instance, I use an extension that adds a 2 second delay to every Facebook page load. The added friction is small but it very quickly gets me frustrated and I just stop.