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Ask HN: How do you manage Facebook/Whats App/Twitter/Email/Etc addiction?

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31–40 of 82 posts

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage Facebook/Whats App/Twitter/Email/Etc addiction?

#31

Of the items listed, I only use email. Call me a Luddite but all of those other things are just unnecessary distractions. I find that my life is much more focused when I control the funnel of noise. I have an RSS reader for news and email or a phone for communication. All these other potential streams of data are like road signs or commercials: I know they're there but I've made such an effort to ignore them that the…

you can just: $ grep face /etc/hosts

I don't see the point either way. Maybe they mean `echo '127.0.0.1 facebook.com www.facebook.com' >> /etc/hosts`?

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage Facebook/Whats App/Twitter/Email/Etc addiction?

#33
I like to keep my computer 'clean' so that when a colleague comes over and asks me to look at some problem the browser auto-complete/suggest does not suggest any non-work things, whether they be news sites, social network sites or anything else that I read in my own time. The most embarrassing things my auto-complete suggests are things like the man page for 'strpos' (I should know whether the needle comes before the haystack by now).

If I really feel the urge to read non-work stuff then I have my phone, which costs money, has a useless keyboard and a diminutive screen. If I am making a cup of tea then there is plenty of time there to see if anyone has sent me email etc.

Regarding work email, I do not read a lot of it and I expect my colleagues to know that I don't read emails. I do read important ones but social events and other work emails that are non-critical I just move to the 'almost read' folder. Generally my email is just used for test purposes, lots of systems cc me in on things so real emails are hard to find amongst the reports etc.

I do have problems with 'slack' at the moment, some people are a little evangelical about it and I just find it to be lots of noise. I wish 'slack' would go and that I could return to the lame 'Skype' as that did work well for my needs.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage Facebook/Whats App/Twitter/Email/Etc addiction?

#34
post #5

I had the same issue on my phone. Unable to switch to a dumb phone because of job requirements. Along with using some sort of ritual, I use an app on my phone called "forest" (iphone). Does a pretty good job of locking me out of distracting apps for chunks of time. I like this question. I'll see what other better answers come out out of it.

Which features would a dumb phone need for you to consider to switch?

Semi-computer functionality. I'm often working remote without access to a good wifi connection. Website goes down, I have to be able to respond no matter the time. Smartphone allows basic troubleshooting and provides notifications easier than standard SMS (notifications through slack and other apps).

Any recommendations?

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage Facebook/Whats App/Twitter/Email/Etc addiction?

#35

I predicted there'd be a lot of sanctimonious "I just don't have an account, they're a waste of time" responses, and it seems like I was right. That's great for you, but that's really not helpful to someone who already has an account and is struggling to quit. And it can be a real struggle. The dopamine hits on likes and favs and the fear of missing out on a conversation can be really hard to break. Like the OP, I'm…

Try "forest". It's the best solution I've found for "blocking" attention stealing apps. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/forest-stay-focused-be-prese...

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage Facebook/Whats App/Twitter/Email/Etc addiction?

#36

I predicted there'd be a lot of sanctimonious "I just don't have an account, they're a waste of time" responses, and it seems like I was right. That's great for you, but that's really not helpful to someone who already has an account and is struggling to quit. And it can be a real struggle. The dopamine hits on likes and favs and the fear of missing out on a conversation can be really hard to break. Like the OP, I'm…

I used StayFocusd for a while, and while it helped, I also had the same problem with my phone, resulting in periodic uninstalls of the social apps. I found this to be attacking the symptoms and not the root cause though.

I then started using the pomodoro technique, with strict no IM/FB/etc during pomodoros. A nice side benefit of disciplining myself to work in this way was to reduce the impulsive desire to check FB, and over time I noticed that my desire to go onto FB, even when it was "permitted", had been reduced. I don't have StayFocusd or any such plugins installed any longer.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage Facebook/Whats App/Twitter/Email/Etc addiction?

#37
I found when I was very addicted to facebook that if you turn off all mobile notifications and don't have it pull for updates, since I wasn't getting any notifications I wasn't checking as often. This eventually led me to be okay with not opening the app to check something and then lingering on for a while looking at the same thing over and over again. That's how I was able to become facebook-free. It's very similar to other addictions, if you see less things that remind you of it, it'll help you in the long run

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage Facebook/Whats App/Twitter/Email/Etc addiction?

#39
If I start labelling a site as an addiction - like I habitually type in the URL of one of these sites when I open a new tab - I block the sige by adding it to my hosts file. After a month or two The hunger pangs on wanting to go to those sites go away.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage Facebook/Whats App/Twitter/Email/Etc addiction?

#40

I predicted there'd be a lot of sanctimonious "I just don't have an account, they're a waste of time" responses, and it seems like I was right. That's great for you, but that's really not helpful to someone who already has an account and is struggling to quit. And it can be a real struggle. The dopamine hits on likes and favs and the fear of missing out on a conversation can be really hard to break. Like the OP, I'm…

Thank you. HN can be irritatingly sanctimonious. It's usually just slightly irritating but when someone comes and specifically asks for help about something it really makes this community look glaringly unhelpful.
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